Censorship par excellence

I don't know how much of this article, if any, can be read by people without a subscription. But if anybody is wondering how bad censorship by a religious oligarchy can be, check out what's happening in Indonesia.Here's an excerpt:

The black bra under the thin yellow kebaya, a close-fitting blouse, leaves little to the imagination. Even more suggestive are the flittering eyes and gyrating hips of the dancer, who chases young men to pull them up on stage. One accepts the offer and makes a grab for her large posterior as she beckons with welcoming eyes. Another makes a gesture at her breasts and then stuffs cash into her hands.This is not a lap dance in Las Vegas, but a revered Balinese custom known as the joged bumbung, or bamboo dance. Yet it is one of hundreds of traditions across the Indonesian archipelago that could be banned under legislation being deliberated by the national parliament. The bill, which is supported by several Muslim parties, would render illegal any behavior or images that might be considered sexually provocative. Women who bare their shoulders or legs, or artists who use nudity in their work, could be prosecuted for indecency and fined up to 2 billion rupiah (about $220,000) or even jailed for up to 12 years. Kissing in public would be outlawed, as would any other acts considered pornoaksi, an ill-defined term coined by conservative lawmakers to mean "pornographic acts." The bill also says that "all elements of society are obliged to report" such acts, sparking concern that the law could be abused. "The bill would kill 80% of the art in Bali," says Cok Sawitri, a Balinese poet and activist who is against the proposed law. "People will be afraid to do what has long been a normal part of their lives."

National Poetry Month

Well, it isn't National Poetry Month here in The Bahamas as far as I know -- though I may have missed something; it's National Poetry Month in the elephant-land that squats to the north.  But there's no sense in drawing unnecessary lines between us, at least not in this case.  So let's just say it's National Poetry Month.What's more, there's a challenge going on all over the web.  It's the NaPoWriMo challenge -- the challenge to write a poem a day for every day in April.  I've decided to try; I could write a book in the month (though editing would be a different story altogether).

Article 23

I've been thinking about yesterday's post. I've been puzzling over the 23rd Article of the Constitution, the Article on Freedom of Expression. I'm not entirely sure that it renders the actions of the Censorship Board necessarily unconstitutional. Rather, it creates a grey area, a kind of no-man's (or everyman's) land of potential possibility. After all, we're British in structure and philosophy, and the British don't believe in going around handing out freedom to everyone and anyone. Having lived in Canada and in Britain, I know very well that it's possible to legislate against hate literature, and that it's constitutional to do so in a way that it isn't in the USA; and we are far more likely to fit a British mould than an American one in this respect.So I went back and looked again. Here's what I worked out.The Constitution protects the freedom of expression of the Bahamian citizen. But it's not an absolute protection. There are some limitations, and they obtain in the following cases:to protect defenceto protect public safetyto protect public orderto protect public moralityto protect public health;andto protect the rights, reputations and freedom of others;to preserve confidential information;to maintain judicial authority and independence;to regulate communications, public exhibitions and public entertainment;to uphold restrictions placed on public officers or on members of the armed forces.Now from this interpretation, which I believe is quite clear, the curtailing of absolute freedom of expression is permissible under the Bahamian constitution. The curtailing of that freedom to "protect public morality" is one case in which the exception can be made, and so the banning of Brokeback Mountain would in all likelihood be quite constitutional.Except here's where it gets iffy. There's a caveat to all of this protection of the public, and it's this. If one can demonstrate that the practice of restricting expression is not reasonably justifiable in a democratic society, then the constitution will protect freedom of expression.It gets iffy because what is reasonably justifiable in a democratic society changes with time. The goalposts move. This idea makes reference to a global consensus on what is "democratic", and that changes. Forty years ago it was not undemocratic for the state to put its citizens to death for certain offences; today, however, the situation is considerably different, and it is considered undemocratic, even barbaric, to impose the death penalty indiscriminately. Twenty years ago it might have been fine (and was; remember Mapplethorpe) to challenge artwork that was considered indecent, homosexual, or otherwise offensive to public morality; but that is no longer the case. We are living in a world whose boundaries are not fixed, and unless we're prepared to change we're going to be surprised by the international response to our public actions.On an entirely different note, though:Constitution or no constitution, we have to think about the consequences -- and the absurdity -- of our actions in a world which is saturated with information. To me it makes very little sense to ban a movie whose only offence is featuring homosexual love while at the same time ignoring movies full of violence, heterosexual sex acts, oppression, and degradation of women. (And I'm not going to call for a more rigid ban of all of these things, either; that is the easy, and the lazy, response). It's hypocritical, especially as it demonizes a loving and consensual homosexual relationship while remaining silent on coercive behaviour closer to home.I saw a series of images today -- readily available on the internet -- of Bahamian teenagers posing pornographically. I saw a film today -- again available on the net -- of a Bahamian child, no more than ten (if that old), fondling and sucking a dildo while the hand of a full-grown male spread her genitals for the titillation of the video camera. Bahamians are not only consuming this material, they're making it, and they're doing so with complete impunity. While we ban award-winning movies featuring actors who are proud of their work and well-paid to do it, movies that might, god forbid, lead us to think beyond the boxes we have imposed upon ourselves, we condone by silence a native pornography industry that exploits the people it features, either by twisting their minds to believe that what they are doing is normal or desirable, or by forcing them to participate against their will.We never talk about sex. What we do with it, though, is legion.

Censorship and our constitution

  Perhaps I should call this our constitution, full stop.I had a conversation today in which one of the participants (I don't think I'm really at liberty to call names) raised the point that he found the media's preoccupation with the banning of Brokeback Mountain disproportionate. His concern was that there was a report earlier this year of lesbian gangs in Freeport who were allegedly pressuring young women to join their ranks, and no one raised their voices. He wasn't going to take sides on the Brokeback issue but he did think that we Bahamians were misguided in our focus.Now I happen to agree with him about the misplacing of priorities. I'm not sure what I think about the lesbian gangs, which I took to be just another piece of the sensationalism and disproportion that our press is fond of. If I did think about them, I'd probably think that what they did was their business. Of course, if there was coercion going on, that would be a different matter; but I'm not exercised by the lesbianness of the coercion particularly. I think we need to discuss the prevalence of forcible sexual relations everywhere in society. But that's another matter.What I wanted to talk about in this post is that the Bahamian Constitution, which, despite its being readily available online, and despite its being much maligned and misquoted, is really quite a democratic document, and rather at odds with the way in which we tend to behave. The preamble talks about an abiding respect for Christian values and the rule of law, but not even the preamble states we are a "nation founded on Christian principles". The principles to which it refers are "spiritual" ones, and we do recognize God. We just don't say which one we prefer, which is, I suppose pretty wise in this day and age.The thing is, all this banning and censorship is entirely unconstitutional, as my husband discovered and posted elsewhere. The relevant article is the 23rd, which reads (obliquely, as is the wont of legalese) as follows:

Protection of freedom of expression.23.-(1) Except with his consent, no person shall be hindered in the enjoyment of his freedom of expression, and for the purposes of this Article the said freedom includes freedom to hold opinions, to receive and impart ideas and information without interference, and freedom from interference with his correspondence.(2) Nothing contained in or done under the authority of any law shall be held to be inconsistent with or in contravention of this Article to the extent that the law in question makes provision-(a) which is reasonably required-(i) in the interests of defence, public safety, public order, public morality or public health; or(ii) for the purposes of protecting the rights, reputations and freedoms of other persons, preventing the disclosure of information received in confidence, maintaining the authority and independence of the courts, or regulating telephony, telegraphy, posts, wireless broadcasting, television, public exhibitions or public entertainment; or(b) which imposes restrictions upon persons holding office under the Crown or upon members of a disciplined force,and except so far as that provision or, as the case may be, the thing done under the authority thereof is shown not to be reasonably justifiable in a democratic society.

And something to think about

when asserting the Christianity of our oh-so-fallen nation:the kind of Christianity we tout so fanatically -- legalistic, judgemental, and beam-pointing -- has far more in common with the Pharisees and even the Mark of the Beast than with Christ.It's amazing what you can find on the internet these days.

Not changing the subject too completely

And we think Brokeback Mountain is something to worry about.More -- for the non-squeamish among us.

On Hate

A band of youths barricade the small house in which a Haitian man lives, and set fire to it so that he burns to death inside. Two young men grab a third from a bar, take him out to the country, beat him with a pistol because he is a homosexual, and tie him to a fence post to die. A gang of Hutu citizens drag their Tutsi neighbours out of their houses, carry them to a nearby field, and chop them to death with machetes. A group of Arabs hijack planes and fly them into a pair of tall buildings full of Westerners just arriving for work.These are all examples of the destructive nature of hate. I could go on, but I won’t, at least not for now. Instead, I want to talk about hate itself. I want to talk about it because in all our conversations — on the radio, in the newspapers, in the street, and, apparently, in the church — that is one thing that we don’t seem to talk about much. We say many things are taboo — homosexuality, godlessness, sin, and too much mixing with foreign elements for starters. The one thing we don’t seem to think is taboo is hate.Before I go much further, let me say that the hate I am talking about is the kind of hate that has no real reason for its existence. It’s the kind of hate that visits evil on other human beings not because of what they have done, but because of who they are or what they stand for. Where love wishes the best for another human being, and does all it can to build that person up, hate works in the opposite direction, doing what is both easier and more common — actively tearing down. And for all the talk of the Bahamas' being a Christian nation, there seems a whole lot of this kind of hate going around.Could the reason for this be that the word “hate” doesn’t come up all that frequently in the Bible? No; a quick look through my own concordance reveals many entries for the word and its derivatives. Among them are some strong directives in Leviticus 19 — "You shall not hate your brother in your heart, but you shall reason with your neighbour, lest you bear sin because of him", and Matthew 5 — "You have heard that it was said, 'You shall love your neighbour and hate your enemy.' But I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you." Perhaps the word “hate” isn’t as prominent in Scripture as other words, words like “homosexuality” or “foreigners"? No; I turned to my concordance and counted. The New International Version offers one entry for “homosexual” or “homosexuality” (the King James Version has none). The same goes for “foreigners” — four entries for them in the King James, eight in the New International Version. “Hate” and its variants took up a column or two.So why is hatred becoming a Bahamian habit?I ask because in almost every instance of hate-mongering that I come across, there is also the refrain "The Bahamas is a Christian nation". Now I find this most puzzling. I was taught that we would know our fellow Christians by their fruits (Matthew 7), and I read in Galatians that the fruits of the spirit are love, joyfulness (joy), peace, patience (long-suffering), kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness (meekness), and self-control (temperance). Not hate.Hatred manifests itself in a variety of ways. It takes shape in the very small and mundane — in the way we treat children, for instance, ours and other people's. I'm not talking about legitimate discipline here, corporal or otherwise. I'm talking about the active tearing down of our children's psyches by words or actions or worse. One student at the College of the Bahamas wrote about how her mother constantly belittled her, so much so that she became an underachiever, a person who was unable to trust that anything she did had any value at all; her sister, tired of being told that she could never be anything but a slut, ended by striking her own mother. It is not our actions, very often, but the attitudes that we hold that do the most damage; the abuse that many parents heap upon their children may or may not physical, but it is far too often psychic, and it lasts far longer than the sting of the switch.We have become experts at condemning the homosexuals among us, for instance, or at shunning people we learn are living with AIDS, and we appear to be safe in our open hatred of these people. No matter how much we proclaim that we are "loving the sinner but hating the sin", our behaviour, from the calling down of judgement from heaven upon them to our refusal to handle objects that they have touched, edifies nothing, but rather works to destroy individuals' selves. There is no love in that.Often we behave in ways we ought to be able to recognize from our own history as slaves and servants. When we ascribe certain characteristics to whole nations of people — when we suggest that Haitians are inherently dirty, too unclean to use our cups and plates if we deign to serve them food, or when we imply that the tragedies of Pigeon Pea and The Mud were the result of the inhabitants' own nastiness — we are replaying the hatred generated by our own slave past. The way in which we choose to treat criminals has a similar genesis. Many of us seem to think that the housing of captured lawbreakers in a prison that has been listed internationally as inhumane is insufficient punishment, and that we ought to add regular beatings or hangings to the mix. This is not discipline. It is hatred, and we learned it from our ancestors or our masters.I believe our propensity towards hatred in the Bahamas stems from the fact that we have not yet learned to love ourselves, black and white alike. If we are black, we grapple with what we consider to be the shame of being descended from slaves; if we are white, we must live with the reality that our forefathers participated in a dehumanizing and evil institution. (Some of us who are black should learn to accept that reality as well; a fair number Free Black and Coloured Bahamians were slaveowners themselves.) Black and white, we still bear the scars of our slave past. According to Frantz Fanon, a psychologist from Martinique who studied the personality of the colonized individual, there are two major side effects of oppression. One is the tendency of the oppressed to want to ape the habits and mannerisms of the oppressor, finding in them both superiority and power. The other is a turning of the frustration born of that oppression against oneself. In the expressions of hatred that I hear so often on the radio and read far too regularly in the press I hear both. Our history has perpetuated hatred. Racism has made us racists against Haitians and other immigrants; the brutality of slavery lives on in our prisons and even in our homes. Perhaps we so loudly proclaim ourselves "Christian" in a desperate attempt to find something to love in ourselves.But in this, I believe, we miss the point. The Christ I serve did not come to earth in order to legitimize the hatred we humans have visited one upon the other since the dawn of time. His gospel is a message of love. This is why, until I see acts of love, not hate, proceeding from the faithful among us, or hear words that build up rather than tear down, I will not be buying the oh-so-Bahamian lie that our nation is a Christian nation.

Censorship and the Breaking of Backs

I don't plan to write a whole lot today about this, as it'll probably inspire an article at some point. But the decision -- if it could be called a decision -- not to allow Galleria Cinemas to play Brokeback Mountain was censorship if there ever was such a thing.For a fuller discussion, go here.

The Universal Black Constant

So I'm browsing Nalo Hopkinson's blog, and I find this link to Kwasi's Ramblings of an African Geek, and I come across this post. It's definitely worth a read.

Human Rights and the Intellectual

While we artists and intellectuals are fighting our own battles for recognition and respect at home, it's important to remember and recognize the central and crucial role that artists and intellectuals play and have played in the global battle for human rights. Even here in The Bahamas, several of our intellectuals and artists have been outspoken in this regard; of particular mention are poets Marion Bethel, Helen Klonaris, and Lynn Sweeting, playwright Ian Strachan, and writer-intellectual Patricia Glinton-Meicholas. Often the artist's stand has political significance -- and by that I don't mean party politics, but more fundamental politics, such as the ability or the need to provide social criticism where it's needed, regardless of personal party affiliation.I believe If we're called to be artists, we're not only called to make a living for ourselves, but we're also called to speak out to help to make the world a better place to live in for all.So I'm posting, for our information (and perhaps also to stir up some controversy and some thinking beyond the pocket) a petition being circulated by artists and intellectuals regarding the abuse of human rights in Guantanamo. It's not coincidental that it came from the Cuban Embassy; there are many reasons why Cuba wishes to have it circulated. But if nothing else, reading the list of signatories should make each of us think about our roles and responsibilities as artists and intellectuals to the country and the world in which we live.

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Dear Sir/MadamPlease, see below and enclosed, a text of an international call by intellectuals from all over the world, including Nobel Laureates José Saramago, Portugal; Nadine Gordimer, Sudáfrica; Adolfo Pérez Esquivel, Argentina; Rigoberta Menchú, Guatemala; Wole Soyinka, Nigeria.Also, it includes Danielle Mitterrand, France; Actors Harry Belafonte and Danny Glover, United States.Should you like to join them, please, feel free to let us know or write to the following e-mail addresses: :www.derechos-humanos.comwww.derechos-humanos.infowww.droits-humains.infowww.hhrr.info derechoshumanos@derechos-humanos.comBest regardsEmbassy of Cuba. The Bahamas

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Cease hypocrisy on the issue of Human RightsThe 62nd Session of the UN Commission on Human Rights will begin next March 20th in Geneva, coinciding with the broadcasting of new footage of US military torturing Iraqi prisoners.The United States and its EU allies have successively prevented this Commission from condemning the massive and systematic violations of human rights promoted in the name of the so called war against terrorism.The EU governments have refused to admit the testimonies and evidences submitted by citizens of their countries, who have been victims of several forms of torture at Guantánamo navy base. They have also allowed the flight of CIA aircrafts carrying prisoners to illegal detention centers in Europe and elsewhere.We the undersigned call upon intellectuals, artists, social activists, and men and women of goodwill everywhere to join our claims: the Commission on Human Rights or the Council that will substitute it, must demand the immediate closing of the arbitrary detention centers created by the United States as well as the ceasing of all these deliberate violations of human dignity.SIGNED BY:José Saramago, Portugal; Harold Pinter, Reino Unido; Nadine Gordimer, Sudáfrica; Adolfo Pérez Esquivel, Argentina; Rigoberta Menchú, Guatemala; Wole Soyinka, Nigeria; Dario Fo, Italia; Mairead Corrigan Maguire, Irlanda del Norte; Danielle Mitterrand, Francia; Harry Belafonte, EEUU; Oscar Niemeyer, Brasil; Danny Glover, EEUU; Gerard Depardieu, Francia; Gianni Vattimo, Italia; Ignacio Ramonet, España-Francia; Alice Walker, EEUU; Manu Chao, Francia-España; Tariq Ali, Pakistán; Eduardo Galeano, Uruguay; Pierre Richard, Francia; Ettore Scola, Italia; Mario Benedetti, Uruguay; Naomi Klein, Canadá; Frei Betto, Brasil; Pablo González Casanova, México; Roberto Fernández Retamar, Cuba; Alfonso Sastre, España; Samir Amin, Egipto; Walter Salles, Brasil; Howard Zinn, EEUU; Armand Mattelart, Bélgica-Francia; Joaquín Sabina, España; Leonardo Boff, Brasil; Francois Houtart, Bélgica; José Luis Sampedro, España; Jorge Sanjinés, Bolivia; Fernando Pino Solanas, Argentina; Silvio Rodríguez, Cuba; Adolfo Sánchez Vázquez, España-México; Gianni Miná, Italia; Fernando Morais, Brasil; Ernesto Cardenal, Nicaragua; William Blum, EEUU; Blanca Chancosa Sánchez, Ecuador; Ramsey Clark, EEUU; Istvan Meszaros, Hungría; Pablo Milanés, Cuba; Rosa Regás, España; Giulio Girardi, Italia; Pedro Guerra, España; Alicia Alonso, Cuba; Almudena Grandes, España; James Petras, EEUU; Luis Eduardo Aute, España; Luis Sepúlveda, Chile; Isaac Rosa, España; Volodia Teitelboim, Chile; María Rojo, México; Daniel Viglietti, Uruguay; Atilio Borón, Argentina; Boaventura de Sousa, Portugal; Ramon Chao, España; Alan Woods, Reino Unido; Nora Cortiñas, Argentina; Saul Landau, EEUU; Martin Almada, Paraguay; Belén Gopegui, España; Laura Restrepo, Colombia; Miguel Bonasso, Argentina; James Cockcroft, EEUU; Maribel Permuy, España; Javier Couso, España; Lucius Walker, EEUU; Eva Forest, España; Keith Ellis, Jamaica-Canadá; Joao Pedro Stedile, Brasil; Roy Brown, Puerto Rico; Emir Sader, Brasil; Stella Calloni, Argentina; Rafael Cancel Miranda, Puerto Rico; Miguel Urbano, Portugal; Arturo Andrés Roig, Argentina; Michele Mattelart, Francia; Francisco de Oliveira, Brasil; Jorge Enrique Adoum, Ecuador; Víctor Flores Olea, México; Susan George, EEUU-Francia; Piero Gleijeses, Italia-EEUU; Michael Avery, EEUU; Salim Lamrani, Francia; Juan Bañuelos, México; Luis García Montero, España; Georges Labica, Francia; Hanan Awwad, Palestina; Fernando Savater, España; Michel Collon, Bélgica; Tato Pavlovsky, Argentina; Setsuko Ono, EEUU; Andrés Sorel, España; Cintio Vitier, Cuba; Edmundo Aray, Venezuela; Eric Nepomuceno, Brasil; Frank Fernández, Cuba; Carlos Piera, España; Leo Brower, Cuba; Aldo M. Etchegoyen, Argentina; Theotonio dos Santos, Brasil; Carmen Bohorquez, Venezuela; Julie Belafonte, EEUU; Noé Jitrik, Argentina; Tununa Mercado, Argentina; Jean Marie Binoche; Francia; Luisa Valenzuela, Argentina; Paul Estrade, Francia; Sergent García, Francia-España; Abelardo Castillo, Argentina; Sylvia Iparraguirre, Argentina; Jacky Henin, Francia; Luciana Castellina, Italia, Beth Carvallo, Brasil, Liliana Hecker, Argentina; Nicole Borvo; Francia; Daniel Ortega Saavedra, Nicaragua; Tomás Borge Martínez, Nicaragua; Rodrigo Borja, Ecuador; Pascual Serrano, España; Carlos Martí, Cuba; Claude Couffon, Francia; Raúl Suárez, Cuba; Mark C. Rosenzweig, EEUU; Marilia Guimaraes, Brasil; Beverly Keene, EEUU-Argentina; Gilberto López y Rivas, México; Juan Mari Brás, Puerto Rico; Francisco Fernández Buey, España; Marjorie Cohn, EEUU; Luis Antonio de Villena, España; Jordan Flaherty, EEUU; Medea Benjamín, EEUU; Ann Sparanese, EEUU; Hildebrando Pérez, Perú; Hernando Calvo Ospina, Colombia-Francia; James Early, EEUU; Manuel Cabieses, Chile; Richard Gott, Reino Unido; Héctor Díaz Polanco, Rep. Dominicana-México; Consuelo Sánchez, México; Luis Alegre Zahonero, España; Carlos Fernández Liria, España; Osvaldo Martínez, Cuba; Ana Esther Ceceña, México; Miguel d’Escoto Brockmann, Nicaragua; Carlo Frabetti, Italia-España; Manuel Talens, España; Santiago Alba Rico, España; Amaury Pérez Vidal, Cuba; Danny Rivera, Puerto Rico; Fernando Butazzoni, Uruguay; Julio Gambina, Argentina; Julia Uceda, España; Sara González, Cuba; Tunai, Brasil; Ismael Clark Arxer, Cuba; Fernando Marías, España; Ana Pellicer, España; Nancy Morejón, Cuba; David Raby, Reino Unido; Gennaro Carotenuto, Italia; Raúl Pérez Torres, Ecuador; Jorge Beinstein, Argentina; Jane Franklin, EEUU; Wim Dierckxsens, Costa Rica; Alejandro Moreano, Ecuador; Federico Álvarez, México; Boris Kagarlitsky, Rusia; José Luiz Del Roio, Brasil; Remy Herrera, Francia; Francisco Jarauta, España; Luciano Vasapollo, Italia; Irene Amador, España; Eduardo Torres Cuevas, Cuba; Jorge Riechmann, España; Alessandra Riccio, Italia; Javier Corcuera, Perú; Antonio Maira, España; Fabio Marcelli, Italia; Julio García Espinosa, Cuba; José Steinsleger, Argentina-México; Hans-Otto Dill, Alemania; Douglas Valentine, EEUU; Luciano Alzaga, Argentina; Constantino Bértolo, España; John Pateman, EEUU; Domenico Jervolino, Italia; Francisco Villa, Chile; Santiago Feliú, Cuba; Peter Bohmer, EEUU; Graziella Pogolotti, Cuba; Faride Zeran, Chile; Sergio Trabucco, Chile; Lisandro Otero, Cuba; Juan Madrid, España; Sara Rosemberg, Argentina; Carilda Oliver Labra, Cuba; Alfons Cervera, España; Arnel Medina Cuenca, Cuba; Manuel Rodríguez Rivero, España; Fina García Marruz, Cuba; Joseph E. Mulligan, EEUU; Miguel Barnet, Cuba; Jordi Gracia, España; Ricardo Antunes, Brasil; Rosario Murillo, Nicaragua; Pablo Armando Fernández, Cuba; Carlos Fazio, Argentina; Angel Augier, Cuba; Arturo Corcuera, Perú; Pilar del Río, España; César López, Cuba; Vicente Romano, España; Antón Arrufat, Cuba; Néstor Kohan, Argentina; Gloria Berrocal, España; Javier Maqua, España; Abelardo Estorino, Cuba; Aldo Díaz Lacayo, Nicaragua; Ambrosio Fornet, Cuba; Carlos Varea, España; Jaime Sarusky, Cuba; Alfredo Vera, Ecuador; Beinusz Szmukler, Argentina; Reynaldo González, Cuba; Juan Carlos Mestre, España; Senel Paz, Cuba; Miguel Alvarez Gándara, México; Roberto Fabelo, Cuba; Quintín Cabrera, Uruguay; Vicente Feliú, Cuba; Jordi Doce, España; Ana María Navales, España; Rebeca Chávez, Cuba; Andrés Neuman, España; Eduardo Roca, Cuba; Enrique Falcón, España; Vanessa Ramos, Puerto Rico; Isabel Pérez Montalbán, España; Roberto Verrier, Cuba; José Viñals, España; Martha Viñals, España; Manuel Rico, España; Harold Gratmages, Cuba; Emilio Torné, España; Leticia Spiller, Brasil; Dionisio Cañas, España; Paula Casals, María del Carmen Barcia, Cuba; Reino Unido; Andrés Gómez, Cuba; Marcela Cornejo Zamorano, Chile; Anthony Arnove, EEUU; Diana Balboa, Cuba; Edgar Queipo, Venezuela; Albert Kasanda, República del Congo; Yamandú Acosta, Uruguay; Raly Barrionuevo, Argentina; Pablo Guayasamín, Ecuador; Isabel Monal, Cuba; Verenice Guayasamín, Ecuador; Jaime Losada Badia, España; Alicia Hermida, España; Alfonso Bauer, Guatemala; Handel Guayasamín, Ecuador; Cecilia Conde, Brasil; Salvador Bueno, Cuba; Mano Melo, Brasil; Jorge Ibarra, Cuba; Al Campbell, EEUU, Juan Carlos Rodríguez, España; José Villa Soberón, Cuba; Angeles Mora, España; Eloy Arroz, México; Mario Andrés Solano, Costa Rica; Jose Luis Toledo Santander, Cuba; Jitendra Sharma, India; Cléa Carpi da Rocha, Brasil; João Luiz Duboc Pinaud, Brasil; Daniel Cirera, Francia, Gilson Cantarino, Brasil, Francisco Pérez Guzmán, Cuba; Chiara Varese, Perú; Gloria la Riva, EEUU; José Loyola Fernández, Cuba; Richard Becker, EEUU; Brian Becker, EEUU; Carlos Alberto Cremata, Cuba; Claudia Korol, Argentina; Gilberto Maringoni, Brasil; Elizabeth A. Bowman, EEUU; Bob Stone, EEUU; Vicente Battista, Argentina; Carles Furriols i Solà, España; Isabel-Clara Simó, España; Yaki Yaskvloski, Argentina; José Ramón Artigas, Cuba; José Paulo Gascão, Portugal; Fernando Key Domínguez, Venezuela; Simone Contiero, Italia; Carlos Martínez, España; Antonia García Bueno, España; Zoila Lapique, Cuba; Tom Twiss, EEUU; Paloma Valverde, España; María Ángeles Maeso, España; Estrella Rey, Cuba; Luis Felipe Comendador, España; Julio Fernández Bulté, Cuba; Luciano Feria Hurtado, España; Paco Puche, España; Matías Bosch, República Dominicana; Pablo Escribano Ibáñez, España; Miguel Veyrat, España; Olga Miranda Bravo, Cuba; Virgilio Tortosa, España; Jesús Aguado, España; Rodolfo Dávalos Fernández, Cuba; Manuel Moya, España; Emilio Pedro Gómez, España; Lara Gallut, España; José Corredor Matheos, España; José Giménez, España; Abraham Toro, Venezuela; Luzmila Marcano, Venezuela, Carlos Padrón, Cuba; Judith Valencia, Venezuela; Mario Sáenz, EEUU; Ligia Machado, Colombia; Raúl Fornet-Betancourt, Alemania; Gustavo Fernández Colón, Venezuela; Hector Arenas, Colombia; Antonio Scocozza, Italia; Elsa Liliana Tovar, Venezuela; Vladimir Lazo García, Venezuela; Pierre Mouterde, Canadá; Estela Fernández Nadal, Argentina; Fernando Asián, Venezuela; Justo Soto Castellanos, Colombia; Francisco Berdichevsky Linares, Argentina; Mauricio Langon, Uruguay; César de Vicente Hernando, España; Roberto Loya, España; Rafael José Díaz, España; Rosa Lentini, España; Ricardo Cano Gaviria, España; Salustiano Martín, España; Francisco Gálvez, España; Oscar Carpintero, España; Alberto R. Torices, España; Giovanni Parapini, Italia; José Luis Sagüés, España; Concepción Martínez, España; Olga Lucas, España; Antonio Orihuela, España; Clara Sanchos, España; Iván Zaldua, España; Jordi Dauder, España; David Méndez, España; Enrique Gracia, España; Ramón Souto, España; Blanca Viñas, España; José María Parreño, España; Armando Fernández Steinko, España; José Luis Pacheco, Venezuela; Belén Artuñedo, España; Nacho Fernández, España; Rosa Grau, España; Consuelo Triviño, España; David Ortiz-Alburquerque, República Dominicana; Nilo Batista, Brasil; Carmen Vargas, Brasil; Carlos Henrique Botkay, Brasil; Clarissa Matheus, Brasil; Ulisses Guimarães, Brasil; Vivaldo Franco, Brasil; Clarissa Mantuano, Brasil; Heloisa Branca, Brasil; Eduardo Ebendinger, Brasil; Marcello Guimaraes, Brasil; Célia Ravero, Brasil; Lavinia Borges, Brasil; Teodoro Buarque de Holanda, Brasil; Felinto Procopio Minerin, Brasil; José Ibraim, Brasil; Ecatherina Brasileiro, Brasil; Silvio Tendler, Brasil; Ana Rosa Tendler, Brasil; Teo Lima, Brasil; José Braga, Brasil; Fábio Basilone, Brasil; Denise Fraga, Brasil; Carlos Eduardo Ibraim, Brasil; Michelle Victer, Brasil; Violeta Cabello, España; Alejandro Moreno, España; Claufe Rodrigues, Brasil; Ledo Ivo, Brasil; Monica Montone, Brasil; Terezinha Lameira, Brasil; Jesus Chediak, Brasil; Pedro Amaral, Brasil; Maria Laura Laskshim, Brasil; Waldir Leite, Brasil; Walter Guiadazo, Brasil; Marcellus Franco, Brasil; João Grilo, Brasil; Sérgio Saboya, Brasil; Geraldo Moreira, Brasil; Ivair Itagiba, Brasil; Emilio Mira y Lopez, Brasil; José Luis Rodríguez García, España; Daniel Salgado, España; Olga Matara Peñarrocha, España

On Being Rich

There was a time, a couple of decades ago, when young Bahamians used to talk about Development and Progress and all kinds of things that were easy to say and hard to lift off the ground if you really thought about them. The world was different then. There were choices you thought you could make – choices such as whether to build a democratic nation that relied on capital and free enterprise to drive its economic engine, or whether to work for the good of the common man and create a communist state. Dictators were all around us. Most of the Latin American continent was ruled by people who had not been elected in any fashion that democratic countries recognized. Cuba of course had Castro; and Haiti was ruled by the Duvalier dynasty.There was a joke that was told at that time. It really wasn’t a very funny joke. It was the kind of joke that had so much truth it made you laugh because if you didn’t you might cry or shoot someone. It went something like this.An aspiring politician sat down with three veteran leaders and asked them for the secrets of their success.The first one said, “Ah, my son. The secret of my success is this. I keep my followers poor and stupid, and then they must rely upon me for their every need. In this way I keep them loyal to me.”The second one said, “Ah, my son. The secret of my success is this. I educate my followers properly, and teach them to understand my way is the only way. Then it doesn’t matter if they are poor. In this way I keep them loyal to me.”The third one said, “Ah, my son. My two colleagues are brilliant men, but they miss the point entirely. Poverty makes human beings dream of better lives, and education teaches people to think. No. Better to make your followers wealthy, and teach them never to think at all. My people are loyal because they don’t know any other way to be.”The joke would always be followed by peals of laughter. It was funny because we recognized the styles of leadership all too well. The first one we associated with countries like Haiti and other dictatorships that relied on fear and oppression to stay alive. The second one we associated with places like Cuba, where ideology met every need and people were taught that sacrifice in the name of revolution was all that mattered. The third one?The third one we associated with home.The joke is no longer current these days. It’s lost most of its meaning – largely because, I think, it’s no longer a joke. Back in the 1970s, being rich was still a dream that many of us could hold onto. We were newly independent, most of us were attending high schools and colleges for the first time in our families, and those of us who chose to return home to Nassau had the pick of the professions – there was no glut of lawyers, no lack of a need for doctors or accountants. And so the people who were coming up at that time forgot the joke and concentrated in taking their positions in society, on building the economy, on earning the salaries that would make us wealthy.But we didn’t invest that wealth back into our country to make the joke remain a joke. And so it’s become reality.We Bahamians have succeeded remarkably in so far as material wealth is concerned. But we really haven’t done so well in the intellectual department. We’ve made money, true, so much of it that our GDP places us proudly in the top three national economies of the western hemisphere. But we haven’t made much impression in the department of deep thought.Now this has nothing to do with our capacity to think deeply as a people. No; drop by the Fish Fry or any bar or dominoes table at any place in the city and listen to the conversation you hear there. Today, as ever, ordinary Bahamians in ordinary places are as philosophical as any professor in any university. The problem is that that philosophy isn’t being propagated in such a way that the whole country can benefit from the discussions, and it hardly ever reaches the level of public discussion.And the public as a whole seems not to miss it. Those people who think deeply and argue logically and discuss big issues with good sense seem to be found in pockets whose discussions don’t reach the wider society, because we haven’t invested in channels to allow for that level of discussion. And the problem isn’t just the fault of the politicians. One of the side effects of achieving the get-rich-quick dream is the belief that money is all we need, that money, and material goods – cars and phones and flatscreen TVs and the latest footwear and Tommy fashions and so on – can replace the ability to think deeply as a nation.The result?Well, the politician in the joke isn’t so far wrong. The best secret to success as a leader – if by “success” you mean being a Man of the People, a Hero for the Masses, the Godfather From Whom All Good Things Come, and all-round demigod – is exactly as he said. The leader who keeps his people wealthy and ignorant has no need of being a dictator, no need for a secret police, no need for anything sinister at all. The population that is wealthy and ignorant is the easiest one to lead; it can buy what it thinks it wants, and it has no concept of what it actually needs.

On Impossible Dreams

This week, I want to write about dreams. It seems to me that we’re a country that has given up on dreaming. Oh, we talk a good game. Our favourite pastime is talking – whether it be talking to God, talking to our pastors, talking to our congregations or constituencies or followers. But when we finish talking we sit back and wait for our pastors or our God or whomever isn’t us to turn that talk into action.But our country wasn’t always like this. In the lifetimes of many of us, we have moved from being a backwater colony of Britain, governed by a minority of businessmen, to a wealthy and independent nation, governed by people who represent us all. Many of us still remember days when being black was synonymous with being poor – too poor to afford new clothes more than once a year, or to own more than one pair of shoes, two if you’re lucky – things that many young Bahamians can’t imagine.And we got here because some people dared to dream impossible dreams.My title is taken from a song that comes from the musical Man of La Mancha, which in turn is taken from Cervantes’ novel about Don Quixote, the Spanish nobleman who went off on impossible quests, always tilting at windmills. The thing about Don Quixote is that he seems mad when you look at him, always trying to do the impossible. The thing is, he always hopes he’ll succeed. But even if he doesn’t, at least he tried. As the last verse of the song says:And the world will be better for thisThat one man, scorned and covered with scars,Still strove with his last ounce of courageTo reach the unreachable star.We’ve got a few Don Quixotes of our own. I want to write about one of them today – Kayla Lockhart Edwards, who has lived her life dreaming so-called impossible dreams about Bahamian culture. For all her adult life, Kayla has been an inspiration for Bahamians involved in the performing and folk arts. This is because she believes – rather, she knows – that Bahamian culture is rich and full and so valuable that every citizen should be steeped in it. And so she’s dreamed impossible dreams to prove it.Not all of her dreams came true. When she dreamed of the school of the arts, her Institute of the Arts, established in the late 1970s after she left the Cultural Affairs Division of the then Ministry of Education and Culture, her plans for the country and its artists were great. They may have been premature – the Institute didn’t grow as planned, and eventually closed its doors – but the dream continues, so much so that a school for the performing arts made its way into the PLP’s Our Plan in 2002, and may even now be on the verge of becoming a reality.On the other hand, at the end of the 1980s, when she realized that we were raising children who didn’t know traditional Bahamian stories, songs, proverbs and ringplay, she brainstormed with Derek Burrows and came up with Dis We Tings – a theatrical revue that took audiences on a journey down memory lane, introducing the younger members to traditional Bahamian culture, and reminding older ones what it was like. The show was such a success it played to packed houses during its two-week run, and had to be revived six months later. She followed it up with two sequels – Dis We Tings II, and Dis We Tings III: Contract Voices, which dealt specifically with that period on Bahamian national history known as the Contract years.Kayla’s dreams came in all shapes and sizes. Some of them were big dreams, like the Institute and the Dis We Tings series. Some of them had big consequences. Dis We Tings brought Bahamian traditional culture back into people’s consciousness, and it’s possible to trace the nostalgic writings of Bahamian musicians back to that series of productions. The early 1990s were also a time when Bahamian artists and performers blossomed; some of that may have had to do with the energy that resulted from the change of government in 1992, but some of it was definitely the result of Kayla’s shows. In this category can also be placed her work with Bahamas Faith Ministries, her integration of culture and cultural activity into Christian ministry, which has changed the face of Bahamian worship irrevocably.But some of her dreams were small dreams, with results that won’t be measured for some time to come. These included all of her CDs, which are collections of traditional and original music, and poetry; her books and her television shows and plans for television shows. Many of her dreams have apparently gone nowhere.But the world has been better for them. We didn’t even know how much better until recently, when Kayla’s illness prompted a gathering of all her friends and colleagues in an outpouring of love and gratitude for all that she’s done through a lifetime of dreaming. This weekend’s concert, featuring the Kayla Edwards Chamber Singers and friends, is a testament to the miracles wrought by Kayla’s dreaming.All too often these days we react to dreamers of Kayla’s calibre the way that the Spanish countryside reacted to Don Quixote’s quests: by laughing, or ridiculing, or saying that the dreams they dream are impossible. But let us take a lesson from this great woman, who never let the impossibility of anything stop her not only from dreaming, but acting to make her dreams happen.And so we salute Kayla – our impossible dreamer. We know that her greatest dreams will come true; those of us she has inspired will all see to that. And the world will be better for them. It’s a promise. We will all strive to reach the unreachable stars.

The buttons

about which I'm talking are the buttons I can see as I edit this blog. You can't see them, of course. I'm playing around with the upgrade, as I have already said, and feeling out stuff.Don't mind me.

Well, I'm testing the new upgrade

... and it seems to be working pretty well. Of course, I've lost my theme, which isn't so much of a big deal, since I wasn't overly happy with that theme anyway, but there it is.

I'm intrigued by all those buttons on the left of me, though. Cooooool.

On Blacks in Uniform

Just recently I had the privilege to spend considerable time visiting Paradise Island. In part, this was because I had several friends and acquaintances in town, and one of the sightseeing must-dos is to show them around Atlantis, as far as possible. In part, it was because of meetings that took place there over an extended period of time.I have to say that I travelled there without much of a second thought. This occurred to the wonder of some of my friends, who asked me whether I needed my passport to go there. I told them I didn’t need anything except to toss one dollar of my money into the till at the tollgate. (Ministry of Tourism officials, I learned, are provided with passes, which probably means that the government puts its money directly into the tollgate. I don’t know where that money goes. Perhaps it goes back to the government, which would defeat the purpose of my putting the dollar in – but never mind that.)There was the fact that in some places in the hotel my husband and I were asked for our room key or fat wads of our cash. As far as that goes, that’s fair enough; it’s the people hotel after all, and they have the right to charge for certain privileges. What you don’t pay for on the swings you’ll spend on the merry-go-round. No; within the confines of the four hundred walls of Atlantis, that’s fair enough.I didn’t need a passport. Most of the time I wasn’t going to Atlantis, or to Kerzner land at all. But what interested me was what I saw in the open air. Other people, especially those who worked there, needed a passport of sorts.Before I elaborate, let me explain a little about Paradise Island, which was the site of my recreation when I was a child. I grew up in the east of the island, and after the weather got warm my friends and I spent our free time on Cabbage Beach and wandering around Paradise like bands of bush urchins in our various brownnesses. When I was growing up, P.I. was mostly pine forest and mysterious trails leading off towards beaches and revelation (or, if you like, towards the beach facing Athol Island or towards the Holiday Inn). Now it’s a bustling city-unto-itself.Oh, people live there. It’s not all Atlantis. There are apartments and luxury homes all along the roads and side roads to the east. Kerzner has not got hold of every acre yet. But what struck me about most of the faces that I saw there, on Kerzner land and off, was this: either they were white, or they were black – and uniformed.I can hear you now. “That’s not unusual,” you’re protesting. “They work for people over there, and they have to wear uniforms as part of their work.” Or you’re saying, “Most service industries require their staff to wear uniforms or identifying clothing.” And you’re right, of course. Uniforms are both necessary and helpful; they instil pride in one’s position, they instil confidence among the clientele, and they may even be aesthetically pleasing overall.It’s not the fact that people are required to wear uniforms on Paradise Island that piqued my interest enough to write an article about it. I get the concept of uniforms, and I even like it in certain times and places. No; what arrested me was the fact that virtually the only black people I saw loose on Paradise Island – not driving cars, or sitting eating in the Hurricane Hole plaza, or behind the counters in Marina Village – were uniformed. Almost all the other faces were white.I can only presume that there’s something very comforting about black people in uniform. Uniforms make black faces look as though they fit in. They allow for categorization, and for control; each uniform tells you where this person is supposed to be, and who’s responsible for this person. All very comforting indeed.And all very odd, to my mind, in a country which gained majority rule without bloodshed, under the leadership of a party who stood for the achievement of equality for all Bahamians, regardless of the colours of their faces. Because the relegating to the black face to its appearance above a uniform smacks to me of a structure of class and race that Majority Rule was supposed to dismantle. It makes me think of slavery, of course; but to make that comparison is too facile and too expected for my main point. What it really suggests to me is that we have moved from an era where black faces were confined to uniforms because they were considered inferior to an era where black faces are confined to uniforms because it’s better for the bottom line.And it seems supremely odd that we appear to have no collective discomfort about this fact. Rather, we seem to be embracing it, welcoming investors who will replicate the “success” of Kerzner and Paradise Island, and spreading it all around this archipelago of ours. It seems crucially odd to me that we have had no true discussion of the implications of what I noticed on Paradise Island – implications that suggest that it’s all right for us Bahamians, particularly (but not exclusively) Black Bahamians, to be considered so out of place in our own country that we are expected to be uniformed to move freely around it.And it seems entirely odd that our governments – black, educated, wealthy, and stuffed with people of good conscience – have no problem with the concept at all.Perhaps we are all, fundamentally, prostitutes. If what it takes to provide jobs and “development” and a better performance on the tourist charts and money and children in private schools, then so be it.But I’m left very uneasy. History shows very clearly what the love of profit can breed. So I wonder. Is the phenomenon of blacks in uniform all that different from the past we thought that January 10, 1967 was supposed to erase? And by acknowledging the profit inherent in the practice, are we all that very different from the West African coastal businessmen who sold their people to slavers in exchange for guns and rum and cold, hard cash?

On the Upholding of the Law

This week, I want to write about the upholding of the law.Now, given the fact that we recently suffered a breakout and riot at Fox Hill Prison, you will be forgiven for thinking that this article is about that affair. And I hope you'll forgive me when I tell you it isn't. In fact, what I focus on in this article may strike you as a little trivial, given the magnitude of the recent lawlessness we've witnessed.But I don't think it is.What seeded this topic in my mind, you see, wasn't the riot, or the general indifference to petty crime all around us, or even the fact that even before January's over we've had several murders to keep our police from growing too bored.What seeded it was the fact that one day recently my father-in-law came to me and said, "I see they took the right house down."He was talking, of course, about the house that was supposed to have been demolished that day last February that my grandmother's house was bulldozed. I found that very interesting, because to take that house down -- even though it was the so-called "right" house -- was in complete contravention of the law.Of several laws, in fact.The first one is a law relating to antiquities. A number of houses in Nassau have been listed as being of specific historic importance to the national and cultural patrimony of The Bahamas. Most of them are in the downtown area, and most of them were owned by the great and the good of bygone days, but not all of them fall into that category. In fact, several of the houses along East Bay Street and Dowdeswell Street are the houses of simpler people, made out of wood, a good example of how more ordinary people lived. Many of them were built by their owners, not by forced or hired labour, and they provide us with all we have to tell us about the people who were here before us. Houses that are listed are prohibited by law from being demolished.The second is a law relating to demolition in general. In order for a building to be demolished, application has to have been made to the Ministry of Works for a demolition order, and the order must be publicly displayed before the demolition takes place. This allows people to know that at some point this building will be coming down, and limits the chance that any human being who has taken to using the building as a shelter is accidentally injured or killed in the process. It also allows for people's homes not to be removed while they are at work, and it theoretically prohibits horrible mistakes -- like the one that happened to my grandmother's house -- being made.I can hear you now: “So what? People do that all the time.”And people do it all the time. In fact, there’s a culture of taking down buildings secretly. I know as well as you do that Sundays are the preferred days for taking down buildings secretly, because most of the world is in church, and the chances of getting caught are slim.You know what we say. A crime is only a crime if you get caught. If you don’t, it’s smart action.The problem is, in this case, it wouldn’t really matter if you did get caught. This crime is the kind of crime that a wealthy person can afford to commit. There are laws on the books against taking down historic buildings, but there aren’t any real penalties for contravening the laws. If you’re caught (and no one seems to be caught) you can be fined. You can also be fined for doing what most people do, and what some are forced to do by the high cost of building in this town – leaving the building there to rot on its own. But there’s no other penalty but that.Sometimes it’s a better business proposition to take the risk and pay the price.So Cascadilla on East Street, a building that once defined much of what is excellent about indigenous Bahamian architecture, is rotting where it stands. It can’t be torn down (except by decree of the government, which as we all well know is above the law), and it’s expensive to fix up. And so it’s dropping down.And so the house on East Bay Street in which Miss Ivy Stuart-Kamler taught piano lessons to many of the people who later became piano teachers themselves was pulled down on a Sunday while nobody was looking.And so my grandmother’s house, which was one of the last standing examples of middle class black families’ homes, was bulldozed last February.And so on and on, despite the fact that there are laws against it. And nobody says a word.And that brings me to the recent prison break and riot, at the risk of indulging in emotional fallacies. Because there are parallels that exist. I’m told (and this tale could be wrong) that the break-out could have been avoided, because at least one civilian knew about it before it happened. But because our culture has made it our business to turn a blind eye to activities that break the law until they affect us personally, those civilians kept their information to themselves.The thing is, there’s a connection between white-collar crime and crime of collars of many colours. The connection isn’t in the magnitude of the action. There isn’t any real correlation, after all, between the murder of a prison officer and the demolition of a house. The connection lies within us. Every time we turn a blind eye to white-collar crimes which are committed in full knowledge of the law, it makes it much easier for us to ignore all the rest.

Change in Server, Change in Look

This weekend I moved servers for this blog. It was quite a production, let me tell you! Anyway, here we are on nicobethel.net. Update your feeds -- by next month the old address will be obsolete.I'm also trying out a new look. Let me know if it annoys the heck out of you.A note -- the links and archives are in the old style, to remind you of how this blog once looked. Let me know if you prefer it, OK?Cheers.

On Race, Class, and the Tyranny of Worldviews

I had trouble with the title of this one. I wanted to call this article "On Hegemony". To be truthful, I almost did. What stopped me, though, was the vision that assailed me as my fingers hovered over the keyboard -- the vision of my faithful readers picking up the paper, seeing the title, and throwing it down again unread.So I changed the title. But I still think that "On Hegemony" would be better. The word "hegemony" -- which sounds, by the way, like a cross between "hedge" and "anemone" -- refers to a way of seeing the world that's created by a small group of people who are in power. In the past, people might have called it "brainwashing", but it's far more friendly than that. Very specific and subtle ways of viewing the world are created by any number of means, from the spread of world religions to the sharing of philosophies to the coverage of news by the mass media. Hegemonies masquerade as truth, and they govern the way in which we see our world in ways that are often so subtle we aren't aware of them.In The Bahamas, hegemonies undermine our sovereignty in ways we may not even be aware. Because we are so ignorant of our own history and our social context, we are often governed by realities that are not our own. For instance, many of us seem unable to draw distinctions between the Bahamian experience of race and the American one. It has become commonplace to conflate the two. Especially among young Bahamians, who are far more exposed to American constructions of the world than they are conscious of Bahamian realities, there is a persistent belief that "white Bahamians" are controlling the lives of "black Bahamians". This is a belief that, to my mind, is an extension of an American hegemony or worldview that has very little meaning in our country.Unlike the USA, where there was one society of oppression and exclusion, in The Bahamas there were two separate societies. While it is true that for much of the first half of the twentieth century, there was an unofficial code in Nassau that permitted the existence of whites-only clubs and hotels and restaurants and bars, that code was never written into law.Now the difference may seem minor -- after all, when you can't go somewhere, what does it matter if the reason is a legal prohibition or a lack of welcome from the powerful? But it is fundamental. The passage of laws has the effect of enforcing a worldview in such a way that one has to become a criminal to want to change them. In The Bahamas, the racial debate of the 1950s and 1960s was a question of common sense and morality rather than a question of law.What existed in Nassau were two societies, each equally stratified by class. White Bahamian society was never the unified monolith that we like to imagine. While it is true that the richest Bahamians were White, they accounted for only a handful of White families in the middle of the twentieth century. Indeed, some of the rest were so poor that the term "conchy joe" had been invented just for them -- they could afford to eat nothing but the conch they dived from the shore. Black Bahamian society overlapped with White Bahamian society economically. At the top were Black (and "coloured") Bahamians of relative wealth and standing like the Adderleys, the Norths, the Isaacs, the Dupuches, and the Butlers, an upper class of blacks that could share some of the economic and educational privileges of the upper classes of whites, but which could not share their social -- or political -- space. This didn't mean that they were excluded from the House of Assembly, either. The Hon. Paul Adderley, currently Acting Governor-General, is the fourth generation of MPs in the Adderley family. What it meant, though, was that until the 1960s their political power was neutralized by the political and economic bloc that was made up of that small group of White Bahamians known ultimately as the "Bay Street Boys".In this scenario was a third class of people, the "Out Islanders", who were all disadvantaged. If you were a white Out Islander, you would have more of a chance to make it in Nassau than if you were black, but your poverty and lack of connections often made that more difficult than the same kind of advancement would be for the Black Nassauvian upper classes. Race in The Bahamas was not the unifying entrée to power or oppression that it was in the USA.So for us to imagine today, in the twenty-first century, that "race" in The Bahamas was (or is) in any honest way comparable to "race" in the USA (which shares similarities with the Indian caste system), is a function of a hegemony, or worldview, that is as dangerous as it is invisible. It's dangerous because -- as I've said before -- it erases the differences that come from class, and that transcend many considerations of race.There's something else that we tend to ignore in the acceptance of that hegemony, something with which I'll leave you to think about, because I haven't made any fast conclusions about it yet. It's this: the people who disseminate the Bad-Whitey rhetoric that so many of us grow accustomed to swallowing, largely through channels like BET and Tempo, are white Americans. And they control, ultimately, the kinds of information and images that get broadcast.It's no accident, to my mind, that the debate that takes place about race these days is a pretty simplistic debate. It's a debate that focuses on victimology, and it obscures -- deliberately, I believe -- references to the strength and power and intelligence and dignity of people who are not white. By far most of the music and images played on so-called "black" channels are misogynistic and violent; on the other hand, most of the sit-coms that focus on "black" people are stereotypical in terms of the attitudes and achievements of their members. Tempo profiles the great entertainers, but does not feature so prominently great Caribbean thinkers like Eric Williams and C.L.R. James and Rex Nettleford and Arthur Lewis, or great African leaders like Jomo Kenyatta or Kwame Nkrumah or Julius Nyerere. To do so, I believe, would create a worldview in which people of African descent are far more varied and valuable to humankind than the current hegemonies allow.And so we have to be careful whose worldviews we consume. We need to be ready to question them, to analyze their messages, and not to be blinded by the colour of the faces they feature. Because it's just possible that those worldviews, those hegemonies, are the new masters -- and we are the slaves.

New Articles for a New Year

I've officially decided what I'm going to call the next article:On Race, Class, and the Tyranny of WorldviewsPut that in your pipes and smoke it.

An Official Apology

This is an apology for anybody, if there is anybody, who checks this blog on a regular (read weekly) basis. I have not been very productive lately ( and that is an understatement). Life, and work, are getting in the way.I have several articles on burners. I'll leave you with a list of the ideas before I finish this post. However, this post is my way of saying keep watching this space; I will be back.I've been fortunate lately for having had my articles moved from the Thursday Guardianto the Weekender. They've gained a new audience there. The advantage of that is that I'm able to run some of the older articles -- those from 2003, which were first run on Mondays in the Guardian.I've posted most of those on Bahama Pundit. They're already here. All of my articles are here.The disadvantage of this is that I don't have anything new to post on this blog.Apologies. I hope to update more frequently -- weekly -- in the new year.Ideas of articles I'm working on (working titles):On Building a National TheatreOn By Any Means NecessaryOn the Politics of Race OR On Losing Independence OR On the Conspiracy of Theory (same article, no right title yet)On Intellectual PropertyOn By the Way CultureIf you have comments, feel free to respond.Oh, and --Merry Christmas.