On Emancipation Day

August 02, 2011 by Nicolette Bethel in My Bahamas, Thinking Critically

Wanted to post something all day yesterday but was working to finish one of the two reviews and so I didn't. (I did finish the review though!)This is the beginning of what I wrote:Today is Emancipation Day. It's the last public holiday for the summer, but that's not really the point of the day. On August 1, 1834, slavery in the British Empire came to an end. (The conditions that attached to slavery didn't end then, but that's another story). I'm not entirely sure that we truly understand the significance of the day, but that's also another discussion. This year, in 2011, neighbourhoods, communities and families are planting trees.It's a first step. But for emancipation really to have been achieved, we need to emancipate our minds from a number of things. The first of these is the idea that many of us have—that far too many of our "leaders" appear to promote—that we Bahamians cannot do anything without outside help. That we cannot trust the man sitting next to us, or the woman in the next room, but that we can trust the stranger coming in from overseas. That we ourselves do not need to prove ourselves trustworthy because, well, Bahamians don't know any better anyway.For true emancipation, we need to believe in something bigger than ourselves, and something less scam-distorted than the "god" we hear so much about. (Believing in God is all well and good, but if it's just to make sure we get material reward in this lifetime, then it's not God we're really believing in at all). Something like truth, or honour, or service, or community. Something that makes the enslavement of our ancestors and their subsequent freedom worth all the suffering they endured. Something that would make them proud to have survived what they did on our behalf.So plant trees—and water them. What was begun yesterday must continue for the rest of the year, even the rest of our lives. But we need to understand that this is only a beginning, and a symbolic one at that.

Jackets: made in Jamaica - Lead Stories - Jamaica Gleaner - Wednesday | May 25, 2011

May 25, 2011 by Nicolette Bethel in Anthropology, Caribbean, Thinking Critically

Thing is, this says as much about the ethnocentrism and patriarchal nature of the US Embassy as it does about Jamaican (read Caribbean) family structure.

The embarrassing information on the number of jackets was contained in a diplomatic cable captioned 'fraud summary' and covered the period March 2009 to August 2009.According to the leaked diplomatic cable, the US Embassy in Kingston "often requests applicants to undergo DNA testing because their fathers' name is either not on the birth certificate at all, or was added many years after their birth".In the summary on the "use of DNA testing", the Americans also noted, "In many cases, these fathers have never lived with their children or played a role in their lives until they go to immigrate."The diplomatic cable also stated that the embassy's fraud-prevention unit was working with the Immigrant Visa Unit to update its DNA procedures as a result of the processing change.The pervasiveness of misattributed fatherhood in Jamaica is not new.Data from a study conducted in early 2002 by Dr Sonia King in the Pathology Department at the University of the West Indies revealed a rate of one in three.
via Jackets: made in Jamaica - Lead Stories - Jamaica Gleaner - Wednesday | May 25, 2011.

Taking another look: unexpected gifts

November 22, 2010 by Nicolette Bethel in My Bahamas, Social Conscience, Thinking Critically, World

Some things I get all excited about little things. I'm checking my blogs irregularly these days, for reasons one day I'll write about, and came across a comment in the spam filter that I thought I ought to keep. I followed the link that went with it, and I came to the blog dailyplanet.org.uk, and a very cool post which gives a very different, and very deeply considered, tourist view of The Bahamas.It's worth reading the whole thing, but here's some of what Matt Wootton has to say:

There are plenty of examples of the Bahamas not being an empowered nation in control of itself. The brain drain is one sad example. There is one tertiary education institution in the whole of the Bahamas, the College of the Bahamas. Only this year are they starting to offer a Masters program. Many politicians do not even believe that the college is needed at all. They are happy to see the most promising and cultured, intelligent young people go away to the USA, Canada or Europe for their education. Many will not return to their home, where intellectual enquiry is not encouraged or rewarded. Yet then politicians and the media complain of the “Brain Drain”, and criticise individuals for “abandoning” their country. Clearly, their country abandoned them first by failing to have a thorough educational infrastructure. There is still a clear pattern of ex-pats being given work that no Bahamian can be found to do, because no Bahamian has been given the training and opportunity to do it. I met a European who is a new senior civil servant; he has been imported directly into a top job because there is insufficient home-grown talent (a law preferences Bahamian applicants over foreign ones where possible). He told me how he is overseeing major works, carried out by a foreign contractor. Nearby, the Chinese are building a new sports stadium. One of the most important public works at the moment is to dredge the harbour so even bigger cruise ships can be accommodated.via dailyplanet.org.uk » The Bahamas – sun, sea, sand & slavery.

Developing democracy in The Bahamas

October 21, 2010 by Nicolette Bethel in Democracy, Human Rights, Social Conscience, Thinking Critically

A year and a half ago, I had the privilege of attending a weeklong faculty seminar in Maryland. The topic: globalization and democracy. The Wye Faculty Seminar was established to bring faculty from all over the USA together to think deeply about democracy, particularly, though not exclusively, the democracy practised by the United States of America.It was the first time I'd studied for any real length of time in the US. OK, so it was only a week, but it was long enough for me to realize several things. One, that watching US TV and living on the edges of the country is not the same as being there. You learn a lot when you're the fringes -- more on that later, maybe -- but it's not the same as being immersed -- being surrounded by, eating with, talking to, US citizens. And in this case, reading excerpts from the founding documents of the USA and discussing those ideas with the others who had been chosen to attend the retreat.The result: a series of sparks of ideas in my head. In The Bahamas, on what is our concept of democracy founded? Do we have a concept of democracy? Our constitution, such as it is, is an adaptation from a boilerplate supplied to us by an anti-imperial Britain at the tail end of the colonial era. Is democracy important to us at all?Today, I had at the almost equal privilege of finding an answer. Two thirds of the way through a class, I realized I was part of a classroom debate whose focus was hope and agency in the globalizing Bahamas. That wasn't what we thought we were talking about at first. The discussion had grown out of our long-term study on the economics of Junkanoo, in which the members of this particular class participated; but before we knew it, we were discussing Bahamians' constitutional rights and the conviction that too many young men on the streets of Nassau have that they have no rights at all -- that the only people they have to depend upon are themselves. And one of my students was outlining the only concept that makes sense today: that we need to imagine a different way of living, that we need to create a philosophy of citizenship, that we need to build what he calls an illusion of our own.The "illusion" that drives American democracy, that sets the standard, for better or worse, whether we like it or not, of democracy in the world, are the principles on which the American nation is founded. What we need today, perhaps forty years too late but not a moment too soon, are our own democratic principles. We need a movement that gives us our own "illusion" -- Bahamian ideals by which our actions, collective and individual, may be measured.Ever since last year's sojourn in Maryland, I've been thinking about the ideals in which we believe. We need them more than ever today. We need them to give us the impetus, for instance, when politics lead to absurdity, to call our politicians out. We need them to judge our own actions, and those of our society at large, and adjust our behaviour accordingly. I suspect they're similar to, but not entirely the same as, American ideals; they're strengthened by our history of freedom and republicanism and tempered by our close encounter with racial apartheid. They need to be written down in a place where we can all find them when we need them.It's time to build our own declaration of democracy. I'm ready to start working.

Youri Kemp suggests a way to address New Providence traffic

September 01, 2010 by Nicolette Bethel in Bahamas Government, Thinking Critically, Travel

And I think he's on to something.

The long term benefits would be the upgrade of an essential public good, more persons using the public transportation system instead of their 1 and 1/2 cars daily, a new company to be listed on the national stock exchange, a cleaner environment, savings to the average consumer on fuel, an efficient and reliable bus service along with a new industry complete with everything from administrative staffing, to mechanics, to bus drivers along with the creation of a private sector entity, financed with government bonds or backing -- an entity that can actually pay off its debt to the government or other parties or being co-owned by the government via shares, while providing a useful and essential public good in addition to it being sensitive to individual livelihood.via Caribbean News Now!: Commentary: Getting around in New Providence.

By the way, the link to the COB study he refers to is here:http://nicobethel.net/uploads/transportation_report.pdf

Woo-hoo! I'm in the Caribbean Review of Books!

August 09, 2010 by Nicolette Bethel in Caribbean, Historically Speaking, Thinking Critically, Writing

What's the big deal?Well, if you have to ask, you haven't been seen the CRB. And you really don't have any excuse; I've blogged about it, twice (or more). It's not just that I finally finished the review that Nicholas invited me to do lo these many months ago. It's also that I'm really stoked about who's in the CRB today with me: Mark Dow, who's got publication credits up the wazoo, the kind of credits that you have to don sunglasses to read.And it's a review of Sidney Mintz's work, which makes me proud. Mintz made my anthropology -- and my thought, and my national and regional pride too -- what they are today.So go on over and check it out. And while you're at it, spend some time on the site. It's worth it.

Reading: Mintz, Three Ancient Colonies

May 12, 2010 by Nicolette Bethel in Anthropology, Caribbean, Global Economics, Historically Speaking, My Bahamas, Thinking Critically

First of all, thanks to Nicholas Laughlin and the Caribbean Review of Books for asking me to review this book.I've long been a fan of Sidney Mintz. His study of the impact of sugar on the creation of modernity, which I read first in the 1979 article “Time, sugar and sweetness,” (Marxist Perspectives 2 (4): 56-73) and then more fully in his book Sweetness and Power, shifted the way in which I thought about the Caribbean, the world, and my place in it. I've fallen out of touch with his work. Our research interests diverge somewhat. But this new book of his, which grew out of three W. E. B. Du Bois lectures (2003), has brought me back.Won't say much here. After all, I'm supposed to do that for CRB, and I will. Let me jsut say that thanks to Mintz, I'm remembering the excitement of rediscovering our region (even though he repeats the not-so-wise wisdom of excluding the Bahamas from the historical Caribbean), and, most importantly, of the place of history in our realities.For those of you who think that colonialism is dead, that there is no point in "resurrecting" the past (I put the word in quotes because that past has not yet died within us), understand this: without colonialism there would be no us. The Americas in general as we know them, populated and shaped largely by an extension of a Europe that conquered, subordinated and coerced other groups of people in the process are the specific creation of colonialism. As long as we exist, it can never be dead; we are our past, as the past created us. Until we get that through our heads, until we understand that process, until we know who we are and give up the myths and wishes that fool us into thinking we are "free", we will never inhabit complete societies. For, as Mintz observes:

The history of the Caribbean region ... embodies the real beginnings of European overseas imperial rule ... the modern world's first colonies are to be found mainly in the Caribbean region. ... Not only did most of the islands become colonial early, most of them also stayed colonial late. ... People in erstwhile colonial areas besides North America may be slow to grasp how anciently colonial the Caribbean region is. The Indian subcontinent is usually thought to have become a colonial possession, mostly of Great Britain, when Clive defeated the nawab of Bengal at the battle of Plassey in 1757. Yet by 1757 the Antilles had been colonial for more than 250 years ... Once it can be acknowledged that Caribbean colonialism is truly ancient, its history can help to give additional nuance to the term "postcolonial".

In other words, globally, we cannot understand colonialism or independence or postcolonialism without first understanding the Caribbean -- without understanding ourselves. Mintz and others (Eric Williams, for one, C. L. R. James for another) have argued that we cannot truly understand modern western civilization without understanding the Caribbean either, and each time I reread the argument I'm reconvinced. But more on this later. For now, I'm reminded. The significance of our region is far more than we comprehend ourselves. We must know our history, and the history of the world, to understand this. "The world in a basin" is not simply a romantic term; it's more real than we can understand ourselves.

What White Privilege is All About: "Imagine if the Tea Party Was Black" - Tim Wise

April 26, 2010 by Nicolette Bethel in Race & Stuff, Thinking Critically

Just a little wake-up post, to say that yes, I am indeed Back from Belfast, and that yes, I'll be writing about that after I am finished with the marking that I still have, despite working solidly at it over the past week or so. (It does help when students observe deadlines.) Got to this post via Fiona Talbot-Strong -- thanks, Fi. For your reading pleasure. Have fun.

Imagine that hundreds of black protesters were to descend upon Washington DC and Northern Virginia, just a few miles from the Capitol and White House, armed with AK-47s, assorted handguns, and ammunition. And imagine that some of these protesters —the black protesters — spoke of the need for political revolution, and possibly even armed conflict in the event that laws they didn’t like were enforced by the government? Would these protester — these black protesters with guns — be seen as brave defenders of the Second Amendment, or would they be viewed by most whites as a danger to the republic? What if they were Arab-Americans? Because, after all, that’s what happened recently when white gun enthusiasts descended upon the nation’s capital, arms in hand, and verbally announced their readiness to make war on the country’s political leaders if the need arose....In other words, imagine that even one-third of the anger and vitriol currently being hurled at President Obama, by folks who are almost exclusively white, were being aimed, instead, at a white president, by people of color. How many whites viewing the anger, the hatred, the contempt for that white president would then wax eloquent about free speech, and the glories of democracy? And how many would be calling for further crackdowns on thuggish behavior, and investigations into the radical agendas of those same people of color?To ask any of these questions is to answer them. Protest is only seen as fundamentally American when those who have long had the luxury of seeing themselves as prototypically American engage in it. When the dangerous and dark “other” does so, however, it isn’t viewed as normal or natural, let alone patriotic. Which is why Rush Limbaugh could say, this past week, that the Tea Parties are the first time since the Civil War that ordinary, common Americans stood up for their rights: a statement that erases the normalcy and “American-ness” of blacks in the civil rights struggle, not to mention women in the fight for suffrage and equality, working people in the fight for better working conditions, and LGBT folks as they struggle to be treated as full and equal human beings.And this, my friends, is what white privilege is all about. The ability to threaten others, to engage in violent and incendiary rhetoric without consequence, to be viewed as patriotic and normal no matter what you do, and never to be feared and despised as people of color would be, if they tried to get away with half the shit we do, on a daily basis.via Ephphatha Poetry: "Imagine if the Tea Party Was Black" - Tim Wise.

The Gaulin Wife: Making Connections

January 29, 2010 by Nicolette Bethel in Race & Stuff, Social Conscience, Thinking Critically

This is not the crux of Helen's post, but I chose it to inspire people to want to read the whole thing. It's crucial reading.

I have to remind myself to continue making connections, and to look for the triumphant in the stories of disaster, to look for the survivance in them, for the ways people continue to refuse to be victims. I have to remind myself, because on the screen the stories being told are told with such potent images, of the dead and the dying, of the grieving, of those who have lost, and they are almost always brown skin people. And the people with microphones in front of their faces, telling the stories, and the people behind the camera lenses, making the pictures, are almost always beige, pale skin people. Beige, pale skin people who appear magically in these places of such pain, while they themselves appear untouched, able to leave when they want to, to smile even, in the midst of it all.I have to remind myself because I am also beige, pale. And though my socialization is a complex thing – I was raised in a Caribbean country; my way of being in the world, my physical sense of relationship to others is both Africanized and Anglicized and both are rooted in my ancestral Greekness, Greeks from islands, Greeks who were peasants from villages and not aristocrats from the cities – I am still a beige person in a racially polarized society and my imagination is at stake. And what I know is our potential for human transformation depends on our ability to imagine.via The Gaulin Wife: Making Connections.

Womanish Words: Teach the Children Well

January 29, 2010 by Nicolette Bethel in Christianity & Not, My Bahamas, Race & Stuff, Thinking Critically, Women

Hear, hear, Lynn.

It upsets me when I hear the little children I know and love speaking in the the racist/religious/hateful language of the local Bahamian press/the moneyed elite/the generally ignorant. There are probably more than a million orphan children struggling to get through the day today in Haiti. It is natural for children to want to help. That natural inclination in our children is at risk. It is hard to hear a child you love speaking about Haiti with no compassion, no natural wanting to help. We Bahamians who enjoy wealth and privilege (and that means anyone not in Port au Prince right now with time and ways enough to read this blog) must wake up and face the fact that we were mis-educated when it comes to Haiti, stop defending the ignorance and selfishness and get on with doing some reading, some learning, some changing and transforming, and some GIVING. Because our innocent children are watching. Teach the children well.via Womanish Words: Teach the Children Well.

Google May Hand Over Caribbean Journalists' IP Addresses

September 01, 2009 by Nicolette Bethel in My Bahamas, Social Conscience, The Press, Thinking Critically

I have often wondered seriously about the American commitment to freedom, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. I have often wondered also about the American belief in the principles on which it is founded; it's one of those things that make me deeply sceptical about any action taken by that giant of a country that seems to find it so very easy to draw a line between the rights that it accords its own citizens and the denial of those rights that appears to be routine in its treatment of non-Americans.Below is a case in point.

Google May Hand Over Caribbean Journalists' IP Addresses (Updated)Google said the following in a letter to the TCI Journal last week, as posted on Wikileaks and sent to us by the Journal:
To comply with the law, unless you provide us with a copy of a motion to quash the subpoena (or other formal objection filed in court) via email at legal-support@google.com by 5pm Pacific Time on September 16, 2009, Google will assume you do not have an objection to production of the requested information and may provide responsive documents on this date.

Google has not yet responded to our inquiry asking what the company might do once the TCI Journal does send a motion to quash the subpoena, which we presume it will do. Hiring lawyers in California will likely be an onerous task for a volunteer-run website from a tiny Caribbean island. Journal editors tell us that they hope Google will decide to help them fight the case on 1st amendment grounds.Update: A Google spokesperson sent us the following response to our inquiry.

"When Google receives legal process, such as court orders and subpoenas, where possible we promptly provide notice to users to allow them to object to those requests for information. Users may raise any and all objections they feel are relevant, including First Amendment arguments. In addition, we are still evaluating all our legal options regarding this particular request."

Here's my problem. In small nations like ours, fighting for freedom of speech and opinion, fighting against corruption and special interests and the continuation of the rape of our region by those who can gain disproportionate access to leaders is risky at best, virtually impossible at most times. Victimization is the word we use to describe what has happened in The Bahamas; in the USA it was called blacklisting and it was carried out against suspected communists in the 1950s, and it is pretty widely rejected as being anti-democratic (though the communist ideals and the communist party has never recovered in the USA since McCarthy). No matter what the British response was to the exposure of the corruption of the Misick government in TCI (and the suspension of the TCI constitution is questionable at best, but that's another topic), it is nevertheless crucial that such corruption could have been exposed and dealt with in a reasonable amount of time.Because the fact is that in small nations like ours, corruption can be achieved pretty easily, often simply by presenting leaders with tastes of fancy lifestyles. Large corporate interests from outside the country find it embarrassingly easy to get what they want from our governments, as we have poor records of social protest, weak organizations on the ground, and a habit of factional interests that often lead us to suspend our critical judgements in favour of partisan support (simply put, that means that our attachments to one political party or another, which for many of us are complicated by familial, social, historical and sometimes racial ties leads us to support actions we might otherwise criticize if "our" party was in power, or to criticize actions we might otherwise consider a good idea).This makes it very easy for corruption to take hold. (And if you ask me, I'll say, yes, there is probably an element of corruption of some kind or another -- not necessarily economic -- in virtually every foreign investment deal passed in The Bahamas and, by extension, in the Turks and Caicos; it's certainly evident that our governments here in The Bahamas favour activities that benefit our foreign investors (Miss Universe) while rejecting those that favour Bahamians (CARIFESTA)).The twenty-first century answer -- and it's this that I believe to be crucial to the spread of democracy in the world, and not American bootstamping and shock-and-awe tactics, or free markets -- has been that investigative journalists in small countries can expose and criticize corruption thanks to the virtual anonymity of the internet. This is what the TCI Journal achieved. Whether we agree or not with the British reaction to the exposure of corruption in TCI, the fact that the colonial power took such drastic action is testament to the power of the internet press.Google's action threatens the ability -- indeed the possibility -- for true democracy ever to exist in these, our little nations (and by extension those nations that really really need the anonymity of the internet to fight the physical oppression that they face). I have no doubt that it is being pressured by the kinds of external interests that held the Misick government in the palms of their hands, and that the kinds of resources possessed by investors enamoured of their near-absolute possession of a land and its people, virtually limitless in comparison to those of the TCI Journal. But its inability to see its action as being in contravention of its own constitution -- the constitution of the country that it sets itself up as a beacon for democracy -- calls into question, for me, the ultimate value of America's democratic principles.

By the way, another case in point: "Massachusetts Cuts Back Immigrants' Health Care" via the NYT - the denial of health care coverage to LEGAL Green Card holders in Massachusetts

Ward Follows Up

August 29, 2009 by Nicolette Bethel in art and culture make g..., Cultural Industries, Culture and the Arts, My Bahamas, Thinking Critically

Following up on the last article, Ward Minnis in his series of meditations on the viability of making a living off of art in The Bahamas writes to illustrate his position. First, he clarifies the sticky point of "viability":

...when I ask is it ‘viable’? I am not asking ‘is it possible?’ Because, of course it’s possible. What I am really asking is this: if this is what you love, can you live off of it?

And then, clever man, he makes reference to the Day of Absence observations in Nassau:

Bahamians who want to exercise their talents in the cultural industries are faced with the choice of pursuing their callings as hobbies at home, or of leaving home to make a living by their gifts elsewhere. And we are all the poorer for it.

If you haven't done so yet, subscribe to Ward's feed, because what he's doing is provocative but important. What he's developing in this series is a blueprint to change the state of affairs for artists in this country. The lament of those of us who established the Day of Absence -- the whole purpose of establishing that day of observance (which will be coming again in February 2010, have no fear) is that although it is indeed possible to create viable economic activity in the arts in our Bahamaland, everything in the society is ranged against it.

This is being written against the backdrop of TaDa's ArtOvation (internet-streamed, thanks to Star 105.9), and she's talking with guests about possibilities, viabilities, and so on.

In order for this viability really to exist, though, the society as a whole has to buy into the idea of supporting Bahamian culture with more than their lips, but also with their pockets. We are avid consumers of culture -- but we prefer other people's. Last semester students at COB conducted an on-campus survey that indicated that young Bahamian college students (who spend, on average, around $50 a week), are more willing to pay money for parties or live concerts (nationality of the musicians not specified) than they are to pay money to see Junkanoo, our premier festival, and the one which, if supported, could actually generate real employment. Perhaps that's pushing the issue a little too far, or in a direction which has its own built-in controversy, but perhaps not. What I'm hoping to show is that we have the disposable income as Bahamians to support far more artistic activity than we do; but it all depends on the choices we make as consumers.

So once again, I want to stretch the debate. The reason I disagreed so strenuously with the idea that we can't have a viable film industry here is that film is a potted medium. Like the visual arts, it can be separated from its creation and have a life well beyond its making. It doesn't all have to be assembled in one place and one time.

For instance. One can be an animator and do all one's work at home, alone, and not have to pay anybody else but oneself, and make a living; one can be a cinematographer or a set builder or a location manager and make a living (both off local films and off those foreign producers who shoot in The Bahamas on location). One can make art films and get grants from international agencies and inject them into the film festival circuit and make a living; or one can be a documentary filmmaker and make a very good living indeed, with only oneself and one's camera, one can make filmmaking viable.

What's a whole lot harder is to provide enough work for other people to give up their day jobs and enter the film industry. Neither film nor theatre has generated enough revenue yet in The Bahamas to enable actors, for instance, or front-of-house personnel, or box office personnel, or playwrights, to make a living off the performing arts. Unlike musicians, filmmakers and others, actors, playwrights and others must work in other jobs for a living. Unless you are willing and/or able to diversify, to become a Michael Pintard (who is a public speaker, an actor, a playwright, a poet, a producer, a landlord and a consultant), viability is difficult. Part of the issue, of course, is the question of payment. It's just possible for a filmmaker to make enough money to keep herself alive; but the development of these industries depends on helping to keep other people alive as well, and that's where the difficulty comes in.

So though I'm going to wait till Ward's finished and moved on to theatre (which he believes is a viable industry) before I continue this argument. But I'm going to encourage you guys to be like me -- keep your eyes peeled and check out Ward's blog for updates!

Noelle Nicolls - Way cool blog

August 09, 2009 by Nicolette Bethel in Bahamians, Thinking Critically, Women

I recently discovered noellenicolls.com, yet another blog by a conscious young Bahamian woman. I was drawn to it by this, a travelogue of one women trailing the length of a Bahamian island. It didn't hurt that the island was one I know better than most -- Long Island -- but what kept me was the blog itself. Here's now it's described:

Discover the world inside my head on the pages of this prayer book, in the love letters to my Man of Steele. Prayer Book is my 'politics' blog that examines the thoughts and questions I have of myself, of God, and the world. Steele Chronicles are stories about the late great R. Kirk Steele. Travelogues are tales of my adventures around the world. Reading Room is a taste of the mind candy I ingest from the world's wordsmiths.

And here's where the inspiration came from:

The inspiration from for the original Creative Extremes, which was intended to be a current affairs blog, came from Martin Luther King Jr's "Letter from a Birmingham Jail".

I recommend it. Go have a read, and sink right in.

Learning about Democracy

August 03, 2009 by Nicolette Bethel in Human Rights, Social Conscience, Thinking Critically

Last week (August July 18-24) I had the privilege to attend the Wye Faculty Seminar of the Aspen Institute. This entailed joining 33 other members of faculty from around the USA in a retreat in the woods to discuss democracy, globalization and the American polity. The actual title: "Citizenship in the American and Global Polity".

I have to say that I began with a couple of suspicions. I am naturally sceptical when it comes to the exercise of colonial powers, and the USA is the twenty-first century's main empire (China's a distant runner-up).

I was pleasantly surprised. The focus of the readings and the discussions was idealistic, and the tenor respectful. Very respectful. And I got hooked on the ideals.

Bad idea, right? You attach yourself to ideals, you're bound to get hurt, right? You're bound to get let down, disappointed, burned, yes?

Well, maybe. But that's no good reason to avoid ideals altogether.

So I've decided I'm going to blog about democracy and the global polity as time goes on. It's time we gave some thought to what that means for us -- and by "us" I mean those of us in the Caribbean, where we by and large have slaked ourselves in the democratic residue of our colonial pasts. And where that residue is prone, often enough, to slake off, as fake skins tend to do. It's time for us to carve our own democracies.

So let's start the conversation.

Strong institutions, not strong men

July 11, 2009 by Nicolette Bethel in Bahamas Government, Caribbean, My Bahamas, Thinking Critically

"Africa doesn't need strong men -- it needs strong institutions." -- President Barack Obama, Address to Ghanaian Parliament, July 11, 2009

It's been two years now, and there's been all kind of noise in the public sphere about Bahamian party politics and who bears responsibility for the difficult times we have faced for most of that time, and who will deal most effectively with the difficult times we will face. Most of the time I leave the discussions and the debates about personalities (which is most of what the discussion addresses, even now, mid-term) and political party up to politicized pundits. There's enough noise out there, and it really hasn't done us any good.

And it seems to me that every moment we spend focussing on small tings -- like which colour tie the majority of the members of parliament wear, or which initials we can attach to the administration (and what is the difference, anyway, in real terms?), or whether Perry Christie or Hubert Ingraham is better cut out to lead The Bahamas through the twenty-first century (the answer, of course, is neither -- both men were shaped irretrievably by the third quarter of the twentieth and neither has demonstrated the ability to recognize the current environment we face and find ways that are relevant to today to meet its challenges) -- is time wasted. Our whole political campaign in 2007 was an exercise in time-wasting; because I believe with all my heart that, like Africa, what The Bahamas needs is not strong men, but strong institutions.

Yesterday was independence day here in The Bahamas. Normally I write that title with capital letters, like a proper noun; but today I'm not capitalizing the first letter of the date because I don't think we truly understand the challenges and responsibilities of being independent. Too many of our leaders, no matter what party to which they apparently pledge allegiance (which, for too many of them, changes with a dizzying flourish anyway), do not value our independence, but prefer rather to wait for strong men from elsewhere to solve our difficult problems. Development by dependence is the model they appear to prefer. It's so much easier, after all, isn't it, to allow a monolithic investor to come in and provide short-term happiness. But the hollowness that results in our own society hurts us all. For instance, while Atlantis was employing thousands in the 1990s and early 2000s, our own institutions were growing weaker and weaker and more and more irrelevant, and no strong-man leader had the guts (or the vision) to tackle that fact. The result? We have, if we're lucky, perhaps five more years of functionality within our public entities. We're already beginning to see the crumbling of public services -- from our inability to handle the renewal of passports to the apparent impossibility, despite hundreds of millions being spent in borrowed money on road improvements, to keep our traffic lights working. And the answer does not easily lie in privatization; governments have responsibilities to all their citizens, and one of those responsibilities is to ensure that the smallest and weakest of their citizens is not placed in a position of vulnerability to rapacious private enterprises which have no allegiance to their clients beyond the amount of money they make from them.

Our problem? Like Africa and many other post-colonial regions of the world, our focus has for far too long been on electing strong men instead of demanding strong institutions for ourselves. We have not built our nation in any way that can be guaranteed to last into the future. And our debate continues to ignore that fact.

So my hat's off to Barack Obama today. Let us take heed from those countries around us who have invested in strong men at the cost of building strong institutions. Let us learn from those nations where for years and years good government continued even when the leaders of those countries were people whose names have been easily and quickly forgotten because the institutions that governed those nations were stronger than the individual weaknesses. And let us recognize that there is value in creating and maintaining the institutions that we need.

Swedish parents keep 2-year-old's gender secret - The Local

June 25, 2009 by Nicolette Bethel in Anthropology, Thinking Critically

Just in case you might be thinking that male/female was a god-given thing—

A couple of Swedish parents have stirred up debate in the country by refusing to reveal whether their two-and-a-half-year-old child is a boy or a girl.Pop’s parents, both 24, made a decision when their baby was born to keep Pop’s sex a secret. Aside from a select few – those who have changed the child’s diaper – nobody knows Pop’s gender; if anyone enquires, Pop’s parents simply say they don’t disclose this information.In an interview with newspaper Svenska Dagbladet in March, the parents were quoted saying their decision was rooted in the feminist philosophy that gender is a social construction.“We want Pop to grow up more freely and avoid being forced into a specific gender mould from the outset,” Pop’s mother said. “It's cruel to bring a child into the world with a blue or pink stamp on their forehead.”The child's parents said so long as they keep Pop’s gender a secret, he or she will be able to avoid preconceived notions of how people should be treated if male or female.
-- Swedish parents keep 2-year-old's gender secret - The Local

Students are wonderful

June 17, 2009 by Nicolette Bethel in Personal, Thinking Critically

So are teachers (thanks, Sameer!).

I got to this video through Sameer's blog. Watch it. That's an order.

http://d.yimg.com/static.video.yahoo.com/yep/YV_YEP.swf?ver=2.2.40 @ Yahoo! Video

"I have a dream ... that you will live the rest of your life in possibility." -- Benjamin Zander