Womanish Words: Amnesty International Report 08

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Womanish Words: Amnesty International Report 08Lynn Sweeting reviews Amnesty's 2008 report.What's most interesting, and relevant, is this part of her post:

But here is the biggest shocker of all:"The Bahamas has the highest rate of reported rapes in the world, according to a joint report issued in March by the UN Office on Drugs and Crime and the Latin America and the Caribbean region of the World Bank."This horrific fact means to me that our Bahamian goverment is the most failed of all the world's governments when it comes to stopping the violence.

This fact makes me stop and think -- as it should make all of us.  Lynn, after all, has already commented on my post about trees. She said:

You’re experiencing the continuing rape of the feminine divine, as are we all, by the patriarchy and it’s misogynist god, in my humble, eco-Wiccan, womanish opinion. it is no coincidence that a country number one in the world for reported rapes is also the place where all the woodland is vanishing.

But there is one small ray of hope here. Note that the Amnesty Report refers to the highest rape of reported rapes. While rapes are clearly high here in The Bahamas, can we really assume that we are that different from the rest of the world?  Surely the reporting of the rapes shows us something else, something equally powerful -- that our women are resisting the violence, and are reporting and talking about the rapes?  Is that not something to highlight as well?  Agency is as important as victimization, to my mind.Which isn't to say we need to address the issue.  But it's to add another perspective to an already complex situation.

The Gaulin Wife

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The Gaulin Wife - Helen Klonaris' blogLynn Sweeting sent me this link today, and it's with much pride that I announce it here.  I'm not always so excited about new blogs, but I know Helen, I know her work, and I encourage everybody who's interested in thinking differently about ourselves as Bahamians take the time to visit -- specially if you're interested in culture, writing, or identity.Here's an excerpt from what she's thinking:

When individuals step out of line, or cross the line between status quo and the unknown, into the dangerous and wild places of the imagination, we tell them first they are abominations; we tell them they are of the devil. We threaten them with spiritual warfare, eternal damnation and the like. When that doesn't work, when those individuals do not cower in fear for their souls, we send in backup: the physical forces of domination, in this case, the Royal Bahamian Police Force.

From "Poetry Under Investigation" - Helen Klonaris

The Bahamian War on Trees

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What is it about us and trees?My husband and I got a phone call the other night from the branch leader of our neighbourhood watch.  I thought it was going to be a message about security, about safety, you know, the things that neighbourhood watches are all about.But no.It appears that our neighbours, the people who live next door to us, sort of, have a problem with the fact that one of our trees overhangs their garden, and they want us to cut off the branches that do so.This happened after they butchered one of the trees in their back garden.  Someone has been up in it for the past two days with a cutlass, chopping branch after branch after branch.What I find most peculiar about this is that until they did that, their back garden was one of the most beautiful in the neighbourhood.  It was full of fruit trees -- citrus and mango and pear -- and my husband and I have always thought that if they don't want the land, we might want to buy it.It would appear, though, that beauty -- and oxygen and serenity and shade -- are not a premium in our city any more.  I haven't quite worked out what is.  After all, this is the neighbourhood where the desire of a single man, a businessman with a plan for a corner (and, it would appear, for the entire neighbourhood) involved the razing of his land and the erection of a warehouse.And we wonder why our young people are angry?  I'm not young, and I'm angry.  Push me enough and I might explode.It's time we stopped, took a look at ourselves, recognized greed and selfishness while we still can, and thought about living differently.  Not one of us is innocent.  We all have blood on our hands.Sap, anyway.

A Post about America

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Now.Let me say that, unlike many of my countrymen, I'm not addicted to the American election. Put very simply, I am not American. The Obama/Hilary competition is more important to my mind for its symbolic value than for anything that it means to me as a Bahamian.For one thing, I don't think for one moment that a Barak Obama presidency is going to mean to us what it will mean to Americans. Not in practical terms. In fact, Obama's worldview is quite likely to do us in The Bahamas less good than we might think -- he's accepted the realities of the 21st century global economy, and we still have no idea what those are. We're not even engaging in the discussion -- we're still talking in ways that are fundamentally obsolete. Our leaders (political, religious, what-have-you) have not demonstrated the consciousness that will enable them to meet Obama on his terms. Strangely enough, if Obama becomes President, our best route to the Americans will be through the much-despised Caribbean.But that's by the way.The race for the Democratic nomination is symbolic because from the beginning it ensured that the next Democratic contender for the American presidency will not be a white man.Tonight is symbolic because the black man won.In America.Let us all take off our hats and stand in awe.But it's also symbolic because the election was a truly democratic one. Forget the spin and the punditry and the experts; nobody has a real clue which way this election is going to go, because nobody has figured out how to translate the discussions that are going on in cyberspace -- and that have driven Obama to his victory -- into votes. The people, for the first time in what seems forever, are driving the candidates and the spinners and not the other way round.What saddens me, though, is that we Bahamians have yet to invest our hearts and minds and interests in our own political campaigns and drive those people who imagine they have the right to lead us. While I admire Obama and know I am watching history unfold, I am still angry that the quality of the discussion,  analysis,  thought, of simple plain sense that we Bahamians are demonstrating in our support of Barak Obama was nowhere in evidence last year this time, when we were voting for the people who would actually make the difference in our lives. And it's still nowhere in evidence as we move forward, negotiating waters of free trade and trading blocs (can we truly remain isolated in a "free-trade" world? I wonder). Every viewpoint I hear expressed is dated.Come on, fellow Bahamians. Let's the minds we've honed this past year watching Obama become the Democratic presidential nominee and turn them on ourselves.Please.

On Blogs, Blogging, and Various Related Tribulations

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So the first thing I want to say is I own/manage three main blogs (there are others, but I'm too ashamed to draw attention to them because they're sadly neglected):BlogworldScavella's BlogsphereRingplay.com (currently down for maintenance)It's hard.It's hard because (a) I don't really have the time to do any of them justice, especially as I've been on an extended vacation from Essays on Life and have therefore become an irregular contributor to Blogworld; (b) with poetry these days, I have to make a choice between writing the poem or writing the blog post, and one or the other has to give; and (c) I'm not technically supposed to be maintaining the Ringplay blog because, by virtue of my position as Director of Culture, I'm trying to minimize any conflict of interest that might occur.It's also hard because I'm in my forties and I have navigated several shifts in written communication and the writing process, and learning new techniques and languages takes more and more time as time passes. I moved from longhand to manual typewriters to electric typewriters to computer terminals of various kinds. I've worked in DOS, in Unix, in html, and in BBS, and shifting to php and css is taking time. And time is what I don't really have a whole lot of. And so -- stopgaps and temporary measures that stretch into semi-permanence.Take this blog, for instance.When I established it I knew next to nothing about WordPress, the platform I'm running it on. I set it up on Blogger with some vague idea of archiving Essays on Life, because people were asking for copies of old essays and I thought a blog might do the trick. Later, I moved it over from Blogger back in the days when WordPress was just a code to place on your own server, mainly because Philip had got us our own servers, and I thought I should probably make use of them. I'd had some success with the Ringplay blog, which was my first WordPress installation, and found the flexibility of the platform -- and especially the categories and pages features -- attractive. You can tell how old the installation was; it was back in the days when the programme called itself WordPress, capital P in the middle.With the advent of Wordpress.com, I got hooked. I moved my other blog, the anonymous poetry blog, from Blogger to Wordpress.com to take advantage of the pages features as well, and because I was happy with the software. And for some time -- some two years at least, going for three -- I was satisfied with the whole caboodle.The trouble started when I wanted to change the address of Blogworld. The original installation was called "testblog" because that was what it was -- a place to test my baby skills in wordpressing. Forget php and css; I was just learning how to install and play with themes. When I felt comfortable, then I wanted to start blogging, and once I'd imported the Blogger posts over to this site, things just took off. But I didn't like the "testblog" in the url, and so I worked to change it.Here's how I did it. (coders, don't laugh!!)I created a duplicate of my testblog installation on my server, and then I changed the folder to "blogworld".I followed the directions in the WordPress codex for creating new url addresses, or thought I did.Ta-da! Things seemed to work OK for a while. At least, a reader of the blog couldn't see any issues. I had a small problem, though, a problem that grew bigger and bigger as wordpress upgraded and began offering more and more features, and as I sought to upgrade my themes. I found that the blog would break if I didn't do exactly the same thing with both directories, because the "blogworld" installation continued to redirect my administrative activities to the "testblog" folder. And all sorts of things wouldn't work. Take the plugin Event Calendar, which I've been using to good effect on the Ringplay blog for a year or more. Wouldn't run on Blogworld. Take the complex matter of upgrading themes. The theme would reference the installation in "blogworld" but be directed there by "testblog" -- a headache and a half, especially as plugins referenced "testblog" at the same time. I could go on, but I was never able to have the luxury of making a complete diagnosis of the problem.When it came time to upgrade to Wordpress 2.5, and the features that were growing better and better were not working for Blogworld, the problems grew so cumbersome that I decided to fix the problem.It was a pretty simple fix, especially as I didn't care whether "testblog" worked or not. I simply redirected the software to the "blogworld" folder, and as long as I never went to "testblog" again, all was hunky. The software references the same database, so I haven't lost any posts. And the fun thing was when I tried to go to "testblog" admin screen, I got caught in an endless loop that provided me with some amusement after I discovered that "blogworld" was working well.Problem no. 1 solved.Problem no. 2: Ringplay got hacked. I neglected to upgrade the software for a while, because I was very partial to the theme and wasn't sure that the theme and the software upgrades would play nicely together. It was a mere matter of a morning's work, but I never seemed to have a morning to devote to it. In the meantime, persons unknown exploited the holes in the old installations and placed some nasty code on the server. I've had to refer to the techies at vDeck, my host, to get them cleaned, which is why Ringplay is offline as we speak; I've taken it offline to stop any potential of infection. I trust the problem will be isolated and addressed soon.Problem no. 3: I want to blog more, not less! But I just don't have the time. The minutiae of bureaucracy are fiddly, time-consuming, tedious, philosophically unnecessary, but crucial to getting anything done. Some people are good at it, relish the game, love mastering the silly little details of our antiquated system, glory in the power that that mastery gives them. And I get it, and have learned, in theory, what has now to be done. But I don't see why it should. Why should I have to "walk" my documents "through" (from under secretary to permanent secretary to accountant to the ministry of finance, and back) to get routine activities approved? Why isn't the system set up to serve the needs of the citizens, rather than the power-greed of public servants? I just don't have the patience anymore.And there you have it. The trials of blogging. And the power, too.Cheers.

Our Heterogeneous World

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... and if you don't know what that long word up there means, go look it up.I was reading Shashwati's Blog this morning.  It's been a long time since I've checked her stuff out, which doesn't mean that I don't value what she says, but rather that I really have not had the kind of time to do the kind of blogging I would like to do.  But this post resonated with me, because I think we suffer from the same malaise.  She talks about an experience she had (as an East Indian woman, in Caribbean parlance) with a Taiwanese masseur who, having heard her voice, questioned her about her colour.  As Shashwati says:

[He (the masseur)] realized my English was better than my Chinese and asked me where I was coming from. I replied, “United States of America.” He turned to a seeing woman next to him and asked her what I looked like. Specifically what the color of my skin was (I could comprehend that much despite my poor language skills), then he turned to me and said, “Are you White?” what reply was he expecting me to give? Yes that I was White, so should be treated better. But he already knew the answer, so was he testing the “truthiness” of a non-White person? I told him no, I was browner than the brownest Taiwanese, and that the US had many people of different races and colors, and America should not be equated with being White, it was a big diverse country. I was suddenly in possession of language skills that normally elude me.

By that I mean that, just like the Taiwanese she writes about, we Bahamians appear to imagine that the world is monocultural.  More specifically, we tend to associate specific nations with specific "races".  We don't question this tendency, and we imagine that it is somehow natural.  But the world is a multicultural world, and, colonial mythology aside, it is not divided into clumps of people who fit specific moulds.We should question it.  Our history has determined how we see -- the world, our nation, ourselves.  We should not accept that way of seeing without interrogation.  We need to carve out our own existence, make our own reality.  We cannot allow past oppression to stretch into, and shape, our futures. 

Freedom from Tyranny, Freedom from Fear

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My father has been dead for twenty-one years. Is there a day when I don't think about him? Probably not, as I sit in his chair and attempt to restore the work that he did in the heady early years of our life as an independent nation. Certainly not, when I survey the land that he worked hard to plant seeds in, to create Bahamian citizens who were proud and free and self-aware.During the heady years leading up to Independence, when people were waxing patriotic, my father wrote music. The most famous of his songs, of course, is "When the Road Seems Rough". But my favourite, I think, is the anthem "Praise". Here it is, being sung by the CARIFESTA Chorale in 2006 at the closing ceremonies of CARIFESTA X.So the reason I'm thinking about my father today lies in the words to that hymn:

Praise to God the Almighty Creator,We render thanks to you in humble prayer.Guide us as we make these fair isles our homeland,Keep us forever safe in thy care.We will establish, guard and cherishFreedom from tyranny, freedom from fearGreat God, Deliverer, we praise Thee, we thank Thee,Bless us, Thy servants, forevermore.

And the reason that they come to mind today is that more and more often we're hearing stories -- apocryphal perhaps, but perhaps true -- that, thirty-five years after my father wrote those words, Bahamians are not living free from tyranny or fear.I don't think it matters who the tyrants are. At the moment, they're faceless. Sometimes they're the agents of the state, as was the case with the Millar's Creek incident -- which we haven't heard anything officially about. Sometimes they're outlaws, as was the case with the men who shot the tourist on Cable Beach, or the people who spent time spraying the former Prime Minister's house with bullets.Sometimes they're the thought police, who want to stand between us and our words. There's a controversy going on in writing circles these days. It's specifically to do with the Wednesday night spoken word celebration Express Yaself; one of the regulars has been banned from attending, and has allegedly had her poetry turned over to the authorities by her parents. I don't know enough about that incident to follow it up. It was published in the Tribune last week, but as that paper doesn't publish online, I can't link the story for you. What I can do is link to the commentary that it provoked, or post that on this blog.At any rate. I don't know what more to say on this topic, given that I don't know enough. But let me say that this morning I woke up feeling as though there was a thick gummy layer of gelatine over my head -- something too thick and yielding to ever push through -- and I began to think about my father's song, "Praise".Let us all work towards creating a homeland in which we are free from tyranny and fear. If we don't, we will have no home at all.

Reading Michael Ondaatje

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It's May, which means that in a few weeks my nephew Jaxon will be a year old, and it'll be a year since I went to Montreal, and a year after it was decided that we would not be hosting CARIFESTA X, and a year more or less since I started reading Ondaatje again.Now it may not seem that all those things are connected, but trust me, they are. Last year things changed. I'm not sure that elections are supposed to make life in a country so different, especially not in a country where the difference between political parties is really no more than a few degrees right or left, a leader, and a set of initials -- but nevertheless the difference between this year and last year appears vast. And at the same time it's the same. It still matters what colours you wore this time last year, when really it shouldn't. We are a nation trying to stay afloat in this roughwater world, after all, and that's not changed; but we still care who won, we still care what letters we prefer. I thought the silliness would ebb away after elections. Apparently I was wrong.What this has to do with Ondaatje is not immediately apparent. Let me put it this way. Last year I discovered -- or rediscovered, not sure -- my affinity for his work. It was something I discovered back when I read The English Patient and then went out and bought his other books, some of them anyway: In the Skin of a Lion and, later, Anil's Ghost. Ondaatje doesn't write novels fast, and so there was time to savour each of these: five years between Lion and English Patient, and then eight years between English Patient and Anil's Ghost. And then, last year, Divisadero.I read The English Patient all the way through, though I now remember the film better than the book -- such is the magic of Ralph Fiennes' work in the former. I started to read Lion and didn't finish. I started to read Anil's Ghost on the drive back from Victoria to Nassau in 2000 and stopped when I got home, distracted by house-making and teaching at COB. And then, last year I discovered iPod books. I bought Anil's Ghost and Divisadero from the iTunes store and listened to them -- Anil's Ghost all the way to Montreal, during my four hours in Philadelphia Airport. My only time in that airport and I will always remember it, and listening to Anil's Ghost and looking at the airport art and waiting for the US Air plane to take me to Canada. Listening to the book as I walked the quartiers around Rue de la Visitation, where Eddie and Tasha lived. And then coming to the end in their apartment one morning, and waiting for days to start Divisadero -- and listening to that while waiting for the plane back home.Ondaatje writes about war, always about war. In this he's like Findley, my other favourite Canadian writer. What is it about Canada, that country committed to peace, that makes its writers so obsessed war?

Changing Pace

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Underwater Sculpture Park in Grenada, West Indies by Jason de Caires Taylor [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X33698McQ7g&w=425&h=373]I came across this gem while surfing poets' websites. It took my breath away.Go have a look.  Let's tip our hats to the dream that became amazingly, hauntingly, real.VicissitudesGrace Reef 

Can You See Us?

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Thanks to Erica James at the National Art Gallery of The Bahamas, I was led to seek out this series on the statelessness of children of Haitian parentage growing up in The Bahamas.  You'll find it on YouTube.  I don't know who made the movies, but every Bahamian should watch them -- especially those Bahamians who view their society through the lenses of "Us" and "Them".

Can You See Us? Part I

Can You See Us? Part II

Can You See Us? Part III

I'll embed the videos later.

Edit: The video was made by the Bahamas Human Rights Network. Kudos.

Terror at Millar's Creek Fundraiser

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I received the email below while I was away in Guyana, attending a regional cultural meeting and hearing about Guyana's difficulties with crime and civil liberties. As I read it, I found myself thinking Why am I worrying about Guyana? We have problems with civil liberties right here.And we don't talk about them.The email is in fact a press release put out by the environmental community group Millar's Creek Preservation Group, which had the fundraiser they were holding at the Millar's Creek community park raided by police, who proceeded to terrorize the patrons at the fundraiser and the organizers for several hours during the night.I'm not at all sure what the impetus for the raid was. There was an element of xenophobia in it, certainly. Worse, it was a xenophobia which was desperately misdirected. Perhaps not worse. As Lynn Sweeting writes,

Even if that event was packed to the rafters with illegals, a lawful, decent, humane immigration and police operation CANNOT BEGIN WITH MASKED GUNMAN FIRING SHOTS.

And:

We are all in trouble when we cannot any longer tell the difference between the criminals and the police. The party-goers at the Millar’s Creek fundraiser know the horror of this first hand. All of them, Mr. McKenzie told me, are deeply traumatized, especially those legal and documented persons who were still locked up at the time of this conversation. Mr. McKenzie is asking: Who is responsible for the terror and trauma caused to these innocent people?

Here are a couple of excerpts from the press release.  The entire release is below the fold.

Thinking a robbery was taking place I, along with everyone else darted for cover. Some people headed across the creek where we were confronted by several men in masks who pointed guns at us and told us to get down. At this stage I was petrified and feared for my life. When one of the masked men proceeded to place hand-cuffs on me- I realized that these individuals might be law enforcement officers. The men started to drag me and others through the mangroves towards the dirt road on the other side of the creek. I started to ask for some identification and questioned the officers as to why the park was being invaded. I was told by one of the masked men to shut the F---- up or risk getting shot in my head. I immediately complied as these men did not display badge numbers or any other identifying signs.

And

After all the officers had left the scene I began to take an assessment of the past night’s operation. I found out that some of my workers who had work permits had been taken to the detention centre. The persons who were responsible for collecting money at the gate stated that the envelope containing the money was taken by officers. The person who was operating the bar explained that when he was told to lie down, a junior officer attempted to take about two-thousand dollars from his pocket. A senior officer instructed the officer to put the money back without any warnings or disciplinary action levied against this officer. Several cell phones had been tossed into the creek. Someone had his passport torn. Some patrons had been walked on and gun butted by unidentified officers. The most amazing thing I found out that some of the officers had consumed most of the food and drinks that were on sale at this event.

More below.Millar’s Creek Preservation GroupP.O. Box CB-12254Nassau, BahamasPh: (242) 362-1366 / (242) 454-8411PRESS RELEASEEmail: info@millarscreek.comThe Millar’s Creek Preservation Group is a registered non-profit NPO that is overseen by residents of Golden Isles and friends of our natural environment. The group’s mission is to clean and restore Millar’s Creek and oversee the daily operations of Millar’s Creek Recreation Park which is located off Bacardi Road.The Banana Tree Café is located on Millar’s Creek and is operated by our members and is sometimes used as an entity to generate funds for our project and as a welcome centre for our guests. This club has the following licenses to operate; Proprietary Club, General Liquor License, Restaurant License and a Music and Dance License.On Saturday 19 April 2008 we contracted the band “All Stars” to perform at a fund raising event which attracted almost 300 patrons. We charged $10 at the gate for gentlemen and $5 for ladies. As a security measure we secured the services of three security personnel, one stationed at the gate to search guests as they entered the park and two others to patrol throughout the performance.The event started at 9:30 p.m and proceeded without incident until shortly before midnight when our function was disrupted by gunshots coming from the gate area. Thinking a robbery was taking place I, along with everyone else darted for cover. Some people headed across the creek where we were confronted by several men in masks who pointed guns at us and told us to get down. At this stage I was petrified and feared for my life. When one of the masked men proceeded to place hand-cuffs on me- I realized that these individuals might be law enforcement officers. The men started to drag me and others through the mangroves towards the dirt road on the other side of the creek. I started to ask for some identification and questioned the officers as to why the park was being invaded. I was told by one of the masked men to shut the F---- up or risk getting shot in my head. I immediately complied as these men did not display badge numbers or any other identifying signs.On the other side of the creek I was taken to an area where there were about 50 uniformed men and women in dark clothing, some of whom were unmasked. None of the individuals wore a visible identification number. A man, who I presumed was the person in charge, started to do a role call with all the other uniformed individuals. A middle aged Haitian national was also taken to this area at the same time. We were both terrorized and asked our names and nationality. I identified myself and advised the gentleman who gave orders that I was one of persons in charge of organizing the event. I again questioned why the park was being targeted. He cautioned me to shut up and answer the questions, and once again I complied. The officer seemed fixed on pressing me to see if I was Haitian or Bahamian. The other gentleman was also being questioned about his nationality. I saw his state of shock as he tried to respond to questions fired at him from several of the uniformed men. After finding out the individual was a Haitian national, one of the masked men proceeded to point a gun at this individual and threatened that if he did not have “papers” he was gonna “Muori” which means die in Creole. The person who seemed to be in charge, then started to ask me what kind of illegal operation I was running. I responded that our organization was legitimate and that this event was our first big fund raiser for the year as we had just fully completed our café and welcome centre. A lady in uniform interrupted that if our business was legal why where we catering to “these kind a people” I assume she meant Haitians. I told her that our group does not discriminate against any individuals and that we were aware that many Bahamians and Haitians would be attracted to a popular band such as the band we had hired. She then asked “ how y’all could let in illegals to y’all club then?.When I asked the masked men who held me if it was necessary for the handcuffs to be so tight, he told me to shut up and started to rough me up some more, pointing a gun at my head. A younger officer who was not masked came to me and asked me if I remembered him. I told him that I did not. He asked me if I used to be a teacher I replied yes. He then started to rough me up and ask me why I had lied about my name. I told him that I had my driver’s license in my pocket that could identify me. The Haitian man and I were told to sit down. I became even more fearful for my safety when I heard the uniformed men started to whisper to each other. The commanding officer started to use scare tactics by asking one of the guys if he had more rounds in his gun. I thought for sure I was going face an ‘accidental’ death so that I could not be a witness to this whole catastrophe.About 20 minutes later the men started to escort me and the others from the area on to Bacardi Road This is when I became aware that this was a major operation, with more officers I had ever seen in one area representing the Royal Bahamas Defence Force, the Royal Bahamas Police Force and the Immigration Department. I asked to see the commanding officer of the entire operation and was again told to shut up. The individual who escorted me squeezed the hand-cuffs so that by now they were cutting into my skin. We were then taken to the café and welcome centre where most of the patrons were lying on the ground.Our group’s public relations person, Vanessa Small, then came up to me and asked if I was all right. I told her I was not and asked her to call our lawyer. She told me that no one was allowed to use the phone at this time. Again I was told to shut up by the individual who escorted me, or faced being 'gun butted'. At this time I started to take an account of what was going on around me. I noticed that the place was in disarray. One patron seemed to have blood all over his shirt while others seemed to be in a state of shock.About 15 minutes later I was again asked to give the particulars of my identification. After it was established that I was the person who was in charge of the event, I was told by someone who identified himself as an inspector that I had to have my property searched and was told to follow two unidentified officers into the Millar’s Creek Office and cottage. I was then interrupted by a lady who did not identify herself. She started to ask me questions about my identification and my past and present employment. I told her that I had taught at a private school for about 10 years before pursuing the Millar’s Creek Project. She cracked some joke with the others asking me if I had been fired. After both establishments had been thoroughly searched, the officer who carried out the search said that he was satisfied that there was nothing illegal found. They then took my laptop and digital camera. I told them I needed to be present when they went through my documents. They told me I did not have any rights.It was only after the search was done that another officer presented me with a search warrant. He advised me that they were in search of illegal weapons and drugs. I realized then that our organization had been set up. I responded that no illegal activities were allowed in this area as the park is an area for family events and the Welcome Centre was offered free of charge to anyone who wanted to have a non-profit event. I further stated that if illegal drugs or any other illegal activity was allowed I would not have gone through the trouble of having individuals searched at the gate before entering. An hour later I again asked to see the chief commander. One of the inspectors pointed him out to me but cautioned that I had to be profiled first and have a picture taken with which I complied. I spoke to the person in charge of the entire investigation who did not identify himself or show any other form of identification. I told him that this was a big misunderstanding and that what they were doing was against the law. I was cautioned by an inspector who insisted that he knew for sure that we harboured illicit drugs and guns in this area. I then asked him to show the proof of this. He produced a receipt that he claimed was dropped by someone who had paid for drugs on the property. I found it ludicrous that someone would incriminate himself/herself by writing a receipt with his/her name on it for selling drugs. I did not relay my thoughts to the inspector.At this point I believed all the high ranking officers knew that they had made a grave mistake. They did several background checks on me and found that I had a clean record and an impeccable past. Ten minutes later one of the inspectors came to me and said I had a warrant for a minor traffic offence that was committed in 2006. He continued that I must be placed under arrest and that only a judge could 'free me'. I told him that I was responsible for securing the place and that the government would be responsible for any vandalism or stealing that could occur if no one was there. This is when an officer who introduced himself as Evans told me that I would be free to secure my place over the weekend but I needed to see him at the Carmichael Road Police Station on the following Monday. I told him I would do so as soon as I spoke to our lawyer. Before leaving I was cautioned by an inspector about what to say in regards to that night’s operation. He reminded me that they had done me a favour by not locking me up for a traffic warrant. He, along with the unidentified chief operation officer, insisted that they knew for sure that this place had illegal activities and they would continue to target it. I reiterated that this was false and for the record I was not going to accept this statement.It was about after 3:30 am when the unidentified squad team started to wrap up their operation- I was released from my handcuffs. All Bahamians were asked to vacate the premises first, followed by other individuals. I insisted that Vanessa Small, our group’s public relations administrator stay so we could take an account of everything.After all the officers had left the scene I began to take an assessment of the past night’s operation. I found out that some of my workers who had work permits had been taken to the detention centre. The persons who were responsible for collecting money at the gate stated that the envelope containing the money was taken by officers. The person who was operating the bar explained that when he was told to lie down, a junior officer attempted to take about two-thousand dollars from his pocket. A senior officer instructed the officer to put the money back without any warnings or disciplinary action levied against this officer. Several cell phones had been tossed into the creek. Someone had his passport torn. Some patrons had been walked on and gun butted by unidentified officers. The most amazing thing I found out that some of the officers had consumed most of the food and drinks that were on sale at this event.On Sunday 20th April I began to take a full report from all the individuals who had worked or had been present the night before. Many individuals complained that money had been removed from their living quarters by officers.Today, Monday, 21 April I am still in a state of shock as I write this report. I have contacted about 50 individuals who are willing to testify and verify these reports. The Millar’s Creek Preservation Group has decided to forward this report to the Ministry of National Security and Immigration, the Commissioner of the Royal Bahamas Police Force, the Commander of the Royal Bahamas Defence Force and the Director of Immigration, with the hope that an explanation will be forthcoming; and that the irregularities mentioned in this report concerning the actions of some officers will be investigated and dealt with immediately.The Millar's Creek Preservation will be holding a press conference at 2 pm Wednesday, April 22, 2008 at the Millar's Creek Recreation Park located off Bacardi Road. We have invited victims who attended the function to be a part of this conference.E. Emmanuel McKenzieChairmanMillar’s Creek Preservation Group

National Poetry Month

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I mentioned this a couple of weeks ago, and am posting (irregularly) the poems I'm writing daily.

But I wanted to note that Geoffrey Philp has been doing a daily update on Caribbean poets all month long. You can find it here.

Today's is particularly good: Anthony McNeill (Jamaica):Somebody is hanging:a logwood treeladen with blossomsin a deep wood.The body stirs leftin the wind ...

The Long Silence

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I am never sure how to address this question -- the question of my silence. It's not that I am not thinking. It's not that this blog isn't important either. The challenge I have, though, is my position as a senior government official. More and more the things I have/want to say seem to be in conflict with that fact. It isn't that everything that is current is politically charged -- but it seems as though there are many things that invite comment, and that comment is liable to be critical.So the question is, what do I do?I want to post, for instance, the story of an incident that occurred recently (two of them, in fact), because I think that the responsibility of a writer is to raise awareness, to speak out about injustice, and to point at things that are wrong in a society so that we can fix them. Let me just say this. The two stories to which I refer have to do with the abuse of power of our uniformed branches. Now I am a supporter of the police and the defence force. In my position I see the best of them; they work with us in securing major events and help us with logistics on a national level, and they do difficult jobs very well. But what I have heard on both sides are so egregious that they cannot be kept silent about.So the question is -- how do I do that?Well, I'm just going to do it, I guess.Watch this space.

He was the Greatest of Us All

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R.I.P., Aimé Césaire.Cesaire's best known works included the essay "Negro I am, Negro I Will Remain" and the poem "Notes From a Return to the Native Land."His works also resonated in Africa. Former Senegalese President Abdou Diouf said Cesaire led a noble fight against hate."I salute the memory of a man who dedicated his life to multiple wars waged on all battlefields for the political and cultural destiny of his racial brothers," Diouf said.Born June 26, 1913, in Basse-Pointe, Martinique, Cesaire moved to France for high school and university. He returned to Martinique during World War II and served as mayor from 1945 to 2001, except in 1983-84.Cesaire helped Martinique shed its colonial status in 1946 to become an overseas department. As the years passed, he remained firm in his views.

--from the Miami Herald

Edit: Geoffrey Philp has an excellent article, here.

Too much pinkery?

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For those of you who might be thinking that I have waaay too much time on my hands, know this: I've been on vacation for the past two weeks. The public service has the policy of being able to bank your vacation -- you get a certain number of weeks per year, and you can accumulate leave over time. It's a nice perk. Trouble is, it costs taxpayers money, because many civil servants, including some of the best, simply bank their vacation over time and then add it up as pre-retirement leave.  It has not been uncommon for people to be paid for three, six, nine or twelve months as they near retirement.  It's especially useful in times of illness.  My father was a case in point. When he was ill, his vacation leave helped assist us in taking care of his hospital bills.It's good for the worker, but not great for the service.  The person remains on the books, which means that their post is occupied even though they are not working in it.  That means that it's often difficult to replace them -- and believe it or not, the public service is suffering as much from a lack of employees as it is from a bloated payroll (more on that later).  So there's an official policy that keeps reminding us civil service that vacation leave is cumulative only up to a maximum of fifteen weeks.  For people who get three vacation weeks a year, that's five years' worth of vacation, but for people who get more than that it doesn't take long to accrue a lot of leave.  I entered my fifth incremental year last October with some 10 weeks' leave, and didn't know how I'd got it.  So I'm taking it this year -- two before Christmas, two right after, and two weeks right now.All that to say that I've been fooling with the blog.  I've fixed the comment issue in the upgrade, which is good.  On the other hand, I have had to abandon the theme I was using, which was a design I liked.  A lot.  I've got this one, which is by the same designer, but though it does the job, it doesn't feel right.  Not bold enough.  Not me enough.  I'm waiting for him to release the theme for 2.5 so I can play with it again -- but by that time I may have redesigned the entire site.So I say all that to say this:  this may be just too much pinkery for the moment.  But stick with me.  It'll all turn out well in the end.It's a mystery. 

Downtime

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For those of you who came to this blog over the last night or so, you will have noticed that you couldn't get to it -- the comment that came up was "ERROR CONNECTING TO DATABASE". It was a problem that affected all the nicobethel.net blogs.Our service provider is having issues.I am working on putting up a mirror blog. At this point there is another blog which serves as an archive. You can find it here:http://nicobethel.net/test-blogworld/and it is where I play around with themes, etc, before putting them up here.If the entire server goes down again, that will also be unavailable, but it is a backup.Eventually I hope to have something at http://nicobethel.com -- but not just yet.