Twitter Weekly Updates for 2012-04-29

in

Powered by Twitter Tools

Blog - The Nassau Liberal

in , , ,

Blog - The Nassau Liberal.Just for those who think that we "aren't ready" for a university, READ THIS BLOG and tell me if you still think so.With one exception, the contributors to this group blog are students at the still-College of   The Bahamas. They are Bahamians born and raised and yet their thought is revolutionary, especially for this ultra-conservative, Papa-lead-me, Saviour-please, Help-and-hope land in which we live. They are young, articulate, erudite, and critical. Amen.My own socioeconomicpolitical leanings aside (I have managed to temper but not cast aside my socialist preferences), I will be following this blog, these thinkers, these Bahamians. I trust that their voices will be heard more widely. They discuss issues and principles, not who said what and who did what. They put most of the people who stand for office, who have the temerity to ask for our votes, to shame.Go spend some time there. Read, and tell me if these students (products of our much-maligned "college"), don't deserve to be graduates of our national university.And no, I'm not crusading at all.

Twitter Weekly Updates for 2012-04-22

in
  • Hear hear @ricklowebahamas & Edward Hutcheson Those one sided political discussions http://t.co/U0XAe74N #
  • Blessed blessed rain last night. Today is fresh & sweet #
  • RT @jbbahamas “@Bahamaspress: 5 more hours to SHOWTIME!!!! http://t.co/9zFEL5XA” > nice to know the plp rallies are just a show>> arent all? #
  • Great start--Details?>>RT @mydnaparty @nicobet Our vision for ALL Bahamians is to be esteemed higher than any material or natural resources. #
  • #Bahamas2012 Democratic milestones of the past: Majority Rule: 45 yrs ago. independence: 39 yrs ago. Freedom of speech: 20 yrs ago. But now? #
  • #Bahamas2012 @YourFNM @MYPLP_Believe @mydnaparty We need a vision. We need deliverance from paternalism. We need, after all, a nation. #
  • #Bahamas2012 @MYPLP_Believe Democracy without issues isn't: where are yours? @YourFNM Paternalism isn't democracy: where's my voice? #
  • #Bahamas2012 Democracy is turning down the emotion & turning up the mind. Educate, investigate, interrogate. #DemandDebates #
  • #Bahamas2012 Democracy isn't parroting issues parties define for us or voting for people parties pick for us #DemandDebates #
  • #Bahamas2012 Ask questions. Have vision. Dream better. #DemandDebates #
  • Think critically.Seek truth.(you en ga find it on any party website or party document).Have standards to measure promises by. #Bahamas2012 #
  • Or: Don't mind the noise in the market. Just watch the price of the fish. #Bahamas2012 #
  • Or: mouth could say anything.Or: paper will sit still & let anyone write on it. #Bahamas2012 #
  • A little something to keep in mind this election season: talk cheap, money buy land #
  • “@TheEconomist: Marriage is a surprisingly good predictor of management style http://t.co/k83jvk7T” >> sthg to consider when voting? #
  • “@sbaranha: @MYPLP_Believe - How is @YourFNM manifesto "too little, too late," when your own ain't even out yet? #DemandDebates ?? Damn yeah #
  • “@JoeyGaskinsJr: Still in the library at 7am...” O the luxury of a true-true 24 hour library. Dream better Bahamas! #
  • “@sbaranha: Q: Which party transformed rusty steel into our national stadium? A: Communist Party of China. #DemandDebates ??>>w/Chinese labour #
  • “@Truth242: FNM to increase scholarships for Family Island students” Scholarships to where? The USA & the brain drain? Invest in UOB! #
  • “@sbaranha: Somebody is going to offer a laurel wreath to Caesar any minute now. #Bahamas2012 #DemandDebates” Lol look what I missed! #
  • Stayed away from twitter today to get some work done. I blame #Bahamas2012 for keeping me up all night last night. #
  • Dream better!>@jbbahamas:Sustainable boutique hotels. Different islands, different experiences @YourFNM > I can get behind this #Bahamas2012 #
  • Why must we have our national anthem sung to us? What's wrong with everybody standing up and singing it together? & getting the words right? #
  • It's a start>>RT @TheRyan1908 A classmate of mine said the Government shd have ONE tangible goal by 2020:every child should be able to read. #
  • Talking bout education ... gotta return to MARKING ... ugh #
  • Not willing to let govts off the hook but not willing to accept mediocrity & lame excuses either. Demand more but provide opportunity too #
  • Wanna find a govt that sees Bahamian citizens as humans equal to anyone anywhere on the planet & expects excellence & makes no excuses #
  • Or lack of self-esteem & conviction they are second-class? Agree with #PLP there #
  • RT@TheRyan1908 What do u think happened? >>>Hard to answer in a twitter feed!! #
  • Before 1974:excellence available in public schools.After 1974, 1992, 2002, & 2007:excellence requires fee-paying.Unacceptable.@TheRyan1908 #
  • Citizens, let us demand what we need and let the politicians jump to serve us. Disbelieve whatever sitting politicians say - spin is endemic #
  • Principles have to cut both ways. Under #PLP loan scholarships were being regularized, the way #FNM regularized mortgages. 6 of one & other. #
  • Argument presented re Mortgage Corporation by #DrDuaneSands holds true for Government Loan Scholarship programme which #PLP regularized #
  • And if they did, is it adequate? RT @JoeyGaskinsJr Did the #FNM pass the Person With Disabilities (Equal Opportunity) Bill?? #Bahamas2012 #
  • As #FNM initiatives they are being touted. When will our needs be more important than political pointscoring? #Bahamas2012 #
  • Is citizenry forced to suffer for the sake of political ascendancy?Inner city renewal & community policing were decried as #PLP initiatives #
  • #FNM reinstating the concept of community policing. Why was it stopped? #Bahamas2012 #
  • Moral standards developed by early #PLP Youth between 15 and 25 raised in #FNM times. What fundamental changes are proposed to fix it? #
  • Sands thinks we have a sick society. Let us share the blame for that. We are all complicit. What are solutions, then? #Bahamas2012 #
  • Disbelieve me? Compare Our Plan 2002 with Manifesto 2012. Stop looking back. 2007's mistake was to revert to 2002. Will 2012's be the same? #
  • My concern: #FNM now investing in plans proposed by #PLP 2002-2007: urban renewal, city regeneration, social programmes. But 2012 isn't 2002 #
  • No discussion of any of these things. We look back, throwing stones, not forward, tossing seeds. #Bahamas2012 #
  • Youth unemployment is a pressing issue. Underemployment for qualified Bahamians is a pressing issue. Civil service reform is critical. #
  • Fastest growing areas of global economy: tourism & creative industries. No discussion of either. FDI continues to be seen as a saviour #
  • This back and forth is unproductive and does not bode well for 2012-2017. Vision is lacking overall. #Bahamas2012 #
  • Bahamas economic base under threat and no party is addressing this reality. Economic expansion cannot be done by business as usual. #
  • My problem with this election: the arguments are obsolete and do not take into account the reality of the 21st century. #Bahamas2012 #
  • #FNM #039;s urban renewal plan as articulated by Duane Sands is gentrification not economic renewal of the ppl in the area. #Bahamas2012 #
  • All of a sudden #FNM is a champion of Urban Renewal. Someone explain the philosophy behind it please. #FNM will gentrify the city. #
  • Discussion devolving into more name calling and accusations of untruth. More of the same. #Bahamas2012 #
  • Fundamental difference between #FNM and #PLP #PLP helps ppl, #FNM helps people help themselves #
  • FNM seeks to level the playing field. However the economic method they champion does not have the track record of doing this #
  • Sands indicates that we require a visionary outlook. I entirely agree. He says the political issues are as acute as in 1967. I agree too #
  • This goes both ways. The measure of validity depends upon the amount of assurance a speaker has in his/her voice, upon personality, not fact #
  • Listening to #Love97 - Duane Sands defending the record of the #FNM My problem with the discussion is that propaganda eclipses expertise #
  • & nothing wring wt that RT @JoeyGaskinsJr Leslie Miller saying #FNM funded by old UBP connections in Easter Road, Lyford Cay. #Bahamas2012 #
  • Absurd RT @JoeyGaskinsJr "More money being spent in this election than ever before."- Daryl Miller #Bahamas2012 #
  • Can't agree there RT @JoeyGaskinsJr I think once you lose a seat in parliament, you should step out of politics. #Bahamas2012 #
  • Talk it RT @JoeyGaskinsJr Come on @TeejGrant! No need to biologize false gender differences. #
  • Will the government? RT @ricklowebahamas Will the unions and their leadership answer to the Bahamian taxpayer? http://t.co/xW8nLwtM #
  • RT @peepaltreepress Britain destroyed records of colonial crimes http://t.co/lpVkOwNe via @guardian #
  • LOL RT @HeracliteanFire We got a Nigerian email scam today. But by post. And from China. #
  • Still waiting for #PLP document. Feel in need of some vision. Reward our patience & share some. ##Bahamas2012 #
  • Kudos to Eugene Dupuch Law School for the evening & to the candidates who turned up. #DemandDebates #
  • Cunningham (#DNA): initiate a system by which MPs can be recalled, whether by constituents or cabinet is not clear. #Bahamas2012 #
  • Pinder (#PLP): Representation is a big job and should not be done as a sideline. MPs should be full time jobs. #DNA 's Munroe disagrees #
  • Facing the future: all parties myopic & unconscious of the spirit of the times. #FNM in hotseat but little light shed by others #Bahamas2012 #
  • Hot air & platitudes re the question about the arts & culture. Not high on any agenda. Only #PLP recognized economic opps. #Bahamas2012 #
  • Munroe (#DNA): Too much PM power over Judiciary. Curtail it. Judiciary should be independent and seen to be. #Bahamas2012 #
  • RT @Truth242 Is legislative reform on your candidate's agenda? ASK HIM/HER! >> And #DemandDebates #
  • RT @Truth242 @nicobet Most Bahamians don't have access to justice so as to review Executive decisions. We need written standards>>SNAP #
  • RT @Truth242 @nicobet Far too much Executive discretion, I agree. Nearly every law is SUBJECT to 'discretion' by the Minister >>hear hear #
  • #DNA reforms go further. Fixed life of Parliament. Campaign finance reform. PM's power curtailed by consent, not consultation, of opposition #
  • All parties would seek constitutional amendments. #FNM women, #DNA & #PLP limit PM power #Bahamas2012 #
  • Pinder (PLP) simple constitutional reforms can curtail PM powers-Boundaries Commission, powers to appoint senior officials etc #Bahamas2012 #
  • Munroe (#DNA): the position of Prime Minister is despotic in nature and by constitution. DNA will limit PM's power. #Bahamas2012 #
  • Munroe (#DNA) Citizenship by birth not supported. Only children born to people with status are Bahamians. #Bahamas2012 #
  • Hunt (#FNM): constitutional amendment required to allow any Bahamian, make or female, to confer citizenship on children. #Bahamas2012 #
  • Pinder - constitution a living document. Need for amendments as time goes on. #Bahamas2012 #
  • Catching up on the tweets from the Governance Panel #DemandDebates #
  • RT @JoeyGaskinsJr I just want to hit the reset button on Bahamian politics....#Bahamas2012 Best one yet #DemandDebates #
  • RT @nplaughlin Files from Anguilla and the Bahamas in the "secret" colonial records newly released by the British gov't http://t.co/dg0wwaxs #
  • RT @nplaughlin "Every sensitive document kept by the authorities in British Guiana" destroyed in Independence handover? http://t.co/Vj1z1toM #
  • RT @JoeyGaskinsJr RT @dwayneroper: DR: Life of a Hashtag: #DemandDebates http://t.co/rVB0w3ef (cc: @nicobet )<< very cool! >> Ditto! #
  • RT @KnowlesAsh "@gotyouhigh Best advice anyone could ever give: Always be kind and polite, and have the materials to build a bomb. " >> Heh #
  • RT @museum_studies Activism in museums? Italian museum starts burning artworks in protest. http://t.co/ZNB0EiR9 >> Bit extreme #
  • RT @AncientProverbs When spider webs unite, they can tie up a lion. -Ethiopian Proverb >> Call the spiders #
  • AKA young men in yellow shirts laid redshirt effigy in road.Who created young men? RT @JoeyGaskinsJr #PLP create effigy of #FNM #Bahamas2012 #
  • Eugene Dupuch Panel Discussion on Governance. R. Pinder, H. Hunt, W. Munroe, K. Cunningham #DemandDebates http://t.co/GcoW9bEd #
  • On constitutional amendment - K. Cunningham - amend citizenship via women & ultimate power of the PM #DemandDebates #
  • H. Hunt - honesty and integrity are her strengths. #DemandDebates #
  • W. Munroe - representation of constituency, second only to greater national good. #DemandDebates #
  • Good governance: K. Cunningham - good opposition. R. Pinder - good legislation & representation. #DemandDebates #
  • All parties represented. Good stuff. #DNA #PLP #FNM all here. #
  • Will tweet till phone charge dies. No Internet. #DemandDebates #
  • At the Eugene Dupuch sponsored panel discussion on governance. #DemandDebates #
  • USA not the best example I can think of for model election systems. Concentrate on our own flaws. They have enough. #DemandDebates #
  • Like the #DNA ads though. But is there substance behind the rhetoric? #DemandDebates #
  • Feeling insulted by the repetition of the "opportunity society" ads. Few opportunities for qualified young people. #DemandDebates #
  • Lester's points are sound. Listening is a valuable virtue, Darold. #DemandDebates #
  • Not a whole much else I agree with - more sound than light so far. Thanks for the numbers, Lester. #DemandDebates #
  • Listening to Guardian Talk Radio regarding elections. One thing I agree with. Elections to consider like this: 1967 and 1977 #DemandDebates #
  • Still undecided. Issues clear; solutions not. No Plan from PLP yet. Time running out. Waiting to be wooed. #DemandDebates #
  • Bahama Republic http://t.co/LBFlysvT #
  • “@sablikatriumph: @nicobet hi there, the last elections also didn't have political debates? #DemandDebates #Bahamas (#Curacao)”>>No debates #
  • “@sbaranha: I am an undecided voter in St. Anne's." I am an undecided voter in Montagu. Help me decide. #DemandDebates #
  • Is "free" trade undoing the progress attempted by the 20th century? Gap between richest & poorest sounds feudal to me https://t.co/m1jVnIJe #
  • “@JoeyGaskinsJr: @nicobet did you peek the #twitpic lol” >>> Did but haven't seen nor read The Hunger Games so didn't get it yet #
  • “@JoeyGaskinsJr: Wherever there is a binary there's trouble...gender, sexuality, racializations and nationalisms.” >> Add partisan politics #
  • “@ricklowebahamas: Bahamas Elections 2012. Trend setting site for the elections. http://t.co/b2pRbf62” >>Go Alex! #
  • “@sbaranha: @JoeyGaskinsJr @Tribune242 - Every time a Bahamian newspaper re-designs their website, the old stuff gets lost.”>>On purpose? #
  • “@wardmin: Finished reading #theHungerGames today. Now I can go see the movie! :)” >>> I need to start #
  • “@JoeyGaskinsJr: Headed home...” >>> Transatlantically, or across town? #
  • “@DBoodooFortune: The Art of Danielle Boodoo-Fortune: April thoughts http://t.co/VnlNWmTl” >>> Love your art! #
  • “@BahamasWeekly: Police investigating shooting incident resulting in death of 12 yr oldhttp://t.co/LP6aHnOJ” >>Most gun ownership's illegal #
  • “@InjusticeFacts: 1960: the 20% of the world's people in the richest countries had 30x the income of the poorest 20%, in 1997: 74x as much.” #
  • “@mydnaparty: Great nations like great people must decide what they want 50 years from now and then work like a dog to get there.” >> Amen #
  • Twitter Weekly Updates for 2012-04-15 http://t.co/zqUrT7EC #
  • RT @JoeyGaskinsJr: I will fight free-market capitalism and the conservative economic agenda in the Bahamas… >>>Hard to choose a party then #
  • …marking… rescue me… marking… somebody say something good... #

Powered by Twitter Tools

Bahama Republic

in , , ,

Election fever has brought some interesting things back to my attention, such as this blog, Bahama Republic.It's not that I didn't know it existed. It's right there in my blogroll, among the various links that are expired, obsolete, or moved. That means I knew about it three, four or five years ago (don't know how long ago I constructed the blogroll—the older I get, the more time compresses into one big blur). Still. As is the case with many of those links, I haven't revisited it in some time.But links to its posts are resurfacing on Facebook via the Demand Debates campaign, and because there's more discussion regarding life and work at the College of The Bahamas.Go check it out. It's good reading. I tend to fall into its camp with regard to the ways in which we view ourselves, our fundamental conservatism and fear of confrontation, our need of "brain-un-washing". I particularly agree with the idea that 2012 and possibly years to come "may see the continuation of the unfinished revolution of the 1960/70s." I'm not sure I share all of its cynicism, and while I am as unimpressed with the "achievements" of the past five years as the author is, I have not been convinced that a return to a PLP administration will be the magic bullet that solves all our problems.My only criticism? There's nothing on the site to indicate who's behind it. Now while I can't blame a person (who for all I know may well be a civil servant, and therefore prohibited from exercising the constitutionally guaranteed right of free-ish speech, or a sitting MP, or even—weird thought—a down-low member of the FNM cabinet) for wishing to keep a low profile, the lack of identifiable authorship does give me pause. Anonymity is sometimes necessary, but in this cyberage it is also an easy way to make statements for which one does not have to take responsibility. We live in a country where responsibility is too easily shifted from the person to the generic; it seems to me that one way to counter that failing is for each citizen to step up and take personal responsibility for what they feel, think and say.That said, what do I know? I don't know the author's situation, and for all I know his/her livelihood may depend on keeping the powerful happy. In that case, the blog itself is an exercise in responsibility.In any event, go read Bahama Republic. It's heartening to see the continued level of discussion, and well worth it.

Twitter Weekly Updates for 2012-04-15

in
  • Well worth considering RT @globalvoices How should we react to beggars? http://t.co/OkRwdXtS #SriLanka #poverty #
  • BEC power gone off @ 4 am. Woke up. 8:30 am the BEC robot calling the house, say if the power restored. BEC I am not a robot. I need sleep. #
  • RT @TheRyan1908: I dont think most Bahamians appreciate the value of education unless they have to pay for it. >>> I happen to agree. #
  • RT @KnowlesAsh Should I even vote? All 3 parties seem inadequate. >>> My dilemma exactly. We still have one more document to go though #PLP #
  • RT @KnowlesAsh Culture & Heritage section of the #FNMManifesto is weak. >>> it's worse than weak. It was fuller in 2007 and has been pruned #
  • #DNAVision released today. Still digesting the #FNMManifesto Hope there's more hope in the Vision. #DemandDebates #
  • “@sbaranha: @nicobet - Did you hear HAI promising to remember those who don't strike & threatening to remember those who do?” Didn't. Glad. #
  • “@Tribune242: Tribune Business:STOPOVER VISITORS TO HIT 1.88m BY 2022http://t.co/gutFgrzj” This is GOOD news? Why will it take that long? #
  • “@mydnaparty: Vision Book 2012 & Beyond has been released!!! - Click on the link to view:... http://t.co/AZfPvNxh” Downloading tonight #
  • #FNMManifesto Any proposed changes to exchange control to give individual entrepreneurs direct access to global markets? #DemandDebates #
  • #FNMManifesto p. 39: REALLY disappointed in tourism plans. Continued handing off of main industry to foreign hands. #DemandDebates #
  • #FNMManifesto p. 37: Tourism achievements seem to be window dressing. What was the impact - economic, environmental? #DemandDebates #
  • #FNMManifesto p. 38: Not impressed by the extension of concessions to private cruise ports. Why help our competitors? #DemandDebates #
  • #FNMManifesto p. 33: I like the Return to the Island initiative. A lot. Want to know details. #DemandDebates #
  • #FNMManifesto p. 32: creed of salvation by foreign investment (aka nation-for-sale) continues. #DemandDebates #
  • #FNMManifesto p. 31: Complete process of accession to WTO. Disaster in the making. WTO not geared to benefit small nations #DemandDebates #
  • #FNMManifesto begins (p. 4) with an anti-PLP screed. Are we preparing for 5 more years of insulting almost half the nation? #DemandDebates #
  • “@KheliAshlee:I really wanna see a debate tho.Leaders should debate and all those running against each other should as well” #DemandDebates #
  • This college professor wants to know that her tax money isn't going to continue being spent on hefty foreign consultant fees #DemandDebates #
  • This college professor wants to know what the role of intellectuals will be in the next 5 years of FNM rule #DemandDebates #
  • Not interested in selling more of the country. Want to know what plans there are for encouraging widescale Bahamian participation in economy #
  • #DemandDebates Want to know what lies between the Manifesto's lines cos what's written isn't wowing me. Talk to me. Earn my vote. #
  • Disappointed. No real faith in people expressed. A conservative, cautious manifesto when we need radical vision. Train citizens not servants #
  • Investment in manual labour not intellectual achievement. Plans for university delayed. Training favoured over education. #DemandDebates #
  • Looking for some real alternatives in the economic arena but saw more of the same. Investment in servitude not creativity. #DemandDebates #
  • Lowering of Junkanoo ticket prices is not an achievement. Capping revenue on a multimillion $$ industry is not visionary. #DemandDebates #
  • C'mon #PLP let's see your vision. Want to know how you will face the future. Issues matter to this voter; feed me. #DemandDebates #
  • Not impressed with cultural agenda. Cultural economy sparking economic recovery elsewhere. No mention here. Next? #DemandDebates #
  • Some of FNM Manifesto 2012 reads suspiciously like PLP Plan 2002 - Urban Renewal initiatives? Wasn't that a fail? #DemandDebates #
  • Are we going to see governance in next 5 years rather than continued political point scoring? Not an auspicious beginning #DemandDebates #
  • RT @KnowlesAsh @savageminds Anthropology was Not All White Males: Early Ethnographies by Women & Persons of Color http://t.co/b89qox1Q /KF " #
  • #DNA talking issues. #FNM Manifesto up. #PLP we're waiting - #DemandDebates #
  • Finally, #FNMManifesto https://t.co/ibn3Pk4B No university for the Bahamas in the next 5 years. Aren't we good enough yet? #DemandDebates #
  • Come now @branmccartney - all politicians will say anything before an election. Stick to issues - What makes you different? #DemandDebates #
  • #DemandDebates The Bahamian electorate has become weary of campaigns without substance http://t.co/mLs6PbQR #
  • FNM, PLP or DNA? No, a PCB -- Proud Citizen of The Bahamas. Join me: #DemandDebates #
  • Still giving the DNA kudos for engaging with issues, even when I don't agree with their stands. PLP and FNM: we're waiting. #DemandDebates #
  • Haven't picked a colour yet. I kinda like the Bahamian flag myself. But life is too short to listen to screaming and shouting and rallying. #
  • Listening to DNA Good Governance. Issues matter. Not sure that prettiness is a criterion for election though. #DemandDebates #
  • Just had a flashback to David Lindsay-Abaire's Good People starring Frances McDormand. Don't ask why. Don't know. http://t.co/jjHSbIG4 #
  • RT @joeybahamas RT @nicobet: @joeybahamas Huh! curiouser & curiouser<< i feel like i'm being investigated now lolol << No fear of that! #
  • Point is there were shades of complexity in Bahamian race/class continuum that makes reductionism nonsense. Bahamas mixed US & WI attitudes. #
  • Social conservatism is a different thing and was almost always expressed racially. Adderley certainly married light, Toote lighter. #
  • Fought for education etc. GHS and so on. Sat in House of Assembly between the wars. Later what was progressive may have become conservative #
  • Amen RT @vkrussell @nicobet I hope that the student work doesnt come down. It would be a sad day for freedom of speech and expression. #COB #
  • Not that the light skinned didn't disassociate from darker skinned but colour was not always a sure marker of class. #
  • This light/white thing is relatively new, mostly post-PLP, post-1992. Also influenced by Haitian racial categories. #
  • Tings change RT @JoeyGaskinsJr My light skin, American & British education & my class background make me get called "white" constantly #
  • #DemandDebates RT @JoeyGaskinsJr McCartney uses Toronto as eg.of low murder rates.Canada has not executed since1962. #Election2012 #Bahamas #
  • Just heard that the #COB Colour of Harmony art protest may be coming down. Hope it's not true—unless the students take it down themselves. #
  • Just almost got creamed by a driver flying a party flag coming the wrong way out of a one way street. Way to advertise your party dude. #

Powered by Twitter Tools

Elections—and beyond

in , , ,

So, in the parlance of the day: Papa done ring da bell.Whatever that means.Don't get me wrong. I can talk the talk like any other Bahamian in 2012. Papa = the current prime minister, Hubert Ingraham. "The Bell" = the announcement of a date for the next general election. I know how to translate the statement.I just don't know what it means.Here's why. Some time ago, I wrote up my own manifesto (since the political parties vying for leadership of the country hadn't seen fit to share any of their promises or policies for the next five years) as a voter, a participant in a process that is commonly called "democratic". Since that time, others have joined me in making similar statements, and a few voices have called for our leaders and other politicians to have the balls to step out from behind their carefully crafted propaganda and open themselves up to discussions of issues with reasonable citizens.But, disappointingly, and with one important exception (Branville McCartney of the DNA) they haven't.And this, to my mind, does not bode well for our future. This is, after all, not like any other election year. For one thing, there are three major parties contesting the general election, a broad slate of independents, and a few fringe parties as well; for another, the two oldest parties are in fact comprised of the political parties that have made some impact over the past twenty years—the BDM in the case of the FNM, the NDP in the case of the PLP, and the CDR split between the two. Even the DNA has absorbed at least one extant party into its ranks: Rodney Moncur's Worker's Party. For another thing, for any dispassionate person, it is very unclear who is likely to win the next election. Popular support for both parties seems to have declined since 2007 and 2002. Back then, both the FNM and the PLP had trouble finding public spaces that were large enough to hold the assemblies of their supporters, and ended up taking turns on Clifford Park itself, which was packed with bodies sporting the shirts of the party colours: red for the FNM, yellow for the PLP. This season, however, the largest gatherings in Nassau have taken place on beaches—which, thanks to the generosity of both parties in giving away Bahamian beachfront property to foreign investors, are relatively small spaces in our city-island. This past Easter Monday, the FNM repaired to the Montagu foreshore, (for which it seems to have no trouble taking credit, but which was actually renovated by a private concern acting, at least officially, in a non-partisan manner) and the PLP occupied the Western Esplanade. Photographs have been circulating around cyberspace in an effort to compare the two gatherings and suggest that one was bigger than the other. There is a sort of frenzy on Facebook and other places Bahamians gather, where people engage in heated and emotionally charged exchanges of—what else?—propaganda, hurling the same invective our MPs have been hurling at one another across the floor of the house of assembly. But there is also a very large silence as well, and it is this silence that makes the outcome of the election so difficult to determine.I'd like to consider that silence at some other time, because I find it very interesting. It's a silence that sits in judgement, that does not buy into the insult-trading or hop the partisan bandwagon. It's the kind of silence that affected the outcome of the Elizabeth by-election, where a seat was won because the majority of registered voters did not turn out to vote. I know that Larry Smith has argued that low voter turn-out is not uncommon for by-elections, and I agree to a point, but I also sense (as does he) that there is more at work here than that; it seems to me that there is a growing group of Bahamians who watch the antics of all the political parties with a mixture of disgust and despair, because all politicians alike are missing the point. Which is that no matter who wins on May 7th, 2012, we will all have to live in this country together on May 8th.So my question is this. Given the passion and energy being expended in tearing down the other parties, or the other leaders—in dismissing reasonable questions and observations as "FNM" or "PLP" or even "DNA"—each of these being intended as insult, what happens the day after elections, when one party has won and the other(s) has/ve not? How do we work on building a nation of Bahamians? I have heard absolutely nothing from any party about what the future holds. The PLP has crafted some very general principles for the next few years, but these, when decoded, seem to amount to a reinstatement of what was in the works between 2002 and 2007 when they were in power. The FNM has focussed very much on vague generalities like "proven leadership" and "deliverance", and what has been done, largely in material, infrastructural terms, in the very recent past (one or two years at most). The DNA speaks in broad terms, pushing the buttons that they feel gain them support, but not showing any real coherent ideology about which their philosophy has been crafted (well, OK, to say that the PLP and the FNM have any coherent ideology would be being too kind, but at least their track records suggest that one group makes noises that are vaguely populist while the other tends to appease the local business community).Election seasons last for no more than six months at best. The remaining four and a half years require some measure of governance. And what frightens me the most in this election is how much it seems to be a game to those who are playing it. It's entertainment, a sport, which involves the kind of trash-talking that one expects to hear at a football game (American or soccer, makes no difference) or before a boxing match, but which has very little place in the governing of the country. One could argue (and I certainly would) that for four of the past five years, there was no governance at all, but just more of this sparring in the house of assembly, just more trading of insults back and forth across the floor, while the world got on with changing its foundations all around us and the ground on which our society and economy rest crumbles away. I am not impressed by the roads and the harbour or the extension of the hospital, as every one of these, no matter the expenditure, represents to my mind a kind of patch on a society whose foundations are in danger of falling apart. Nor am I impressed with the way in which the opposition opposed these things, because, well, whining and insult do not an opposition make. And I'm also not impressed with the kinds of "solutions" proposed by either of the opposing parties, because no one is explaining how they are going to implement those solutions. I would venture to suggest that it is time that the era of development-by-foreign-investment come to a close in The Bahamas. But I see no evidence that the parties who have governed for the last twenty years in that climate have come up with any ideas about how to manage this country all by themselves.So as we stare down the home stretch, as we slide into these last three weeks before Bahamians go to the polls and cast our votes, I would like at least one day to be dedicated to having the people who are contesting the elections to tell us what their vision is for this nation. Where do we go from here? How do we find our place in the twenty-first century? Why should I cast a vote for men who were educated before Bahamian Independence, and whose philosophies are, must be, out of place in this digital, global age? Why should I cast one for a man who has ridden the wave of dissatisfaction with our leaders to prominence as a real third-party contender, but who has not yet crafted a vision of his own as to how the country might be different?Do I have hope for the Bahamian future, no matter who wins the next election? I can't honestly say that I do. I have seen no vision from any of our prospective leaders, but see divisiveness and excess among their followers. So I'm preparing for five more years of struggle, no matter who wins or doesn't win this election; for five more years of escalating violence in our society; for five more years of a contracting economy, traffic problems, and decreasing revenues. I'm preparing for five more years of governmental desperation, of prostitution of the country to the biggest donor (China seems to be the crowd favourite right now), of undereducation and of brain drain, no matter who wins. Because the governing of a country—and of a postcolonial, neocolonized country on the edge of America at the turn of the digital age—is a delicate, precious business; and, because governing in such a climate requires more than snap decisions made by a despot, the demurring of a wannabe democrat, or the pontification of a malcontent, I have seen no indication that any of our prospective leaders are capable of governing at all.May 7th can't come soon enough. But, people, think what May 8th will bring. 

Nassau, What Happened?

in , ,

Check this out:

Nassau, What Happened? Is a group project that anyone can contribute to by adding his or her own line to a collective poem about the city of Nassau. It will be part of Transforming Spaces 2012 under the theme of “Fibre”.Inspired by an exercise by the poetry festival O, Miami, this exercise is designed to bring many voices together at once in order to hint at a larger, complex voice.via Nassau, What Happened?.

On the mis-education of the Bahamian citizen

in , , , , ,

One of the reasons I am unmoved by either any of the current political parties' manifesti, plans or proposals, is that I have the pleasure of teaching new groups of young Bahamians every year. This is a pleasure, because they are far more open and interested than they have any right to be, given the abysmal neglect of their generation and those immediately preceding them by the governments of our nation; but it is also a scandal. They know so very little about their country, themselves, and the world they are expected to navigate.We came into our own as a nation in 1973, almost 40 years ago. The generations that straddled that watershed were erudite, educated, aware of the world and our place in it, bent on changing the world they had grown up in, and educated to do so. The generations that they produced, by contrast, are none of those things. There are of course pockets of erudition, handfuls of individuals who can be considered "educated" in the democratic sense of the term, but these are not common. They are usually the products of families for whom The Bahamas matters, who may have earned a critical place in Bahamian history, who invest in education for themselves and their children, not because of what they perceive that education might earn them but for its own sake. More damningly, they are all too often also the graduates of private schools, hailing from the middle class or the upper middle class, children of privilege. Ironically, our self-rule and our independence, bought at some cost by people for whom education was by no means a given, to whom education was prohibited, has created a society in which the so-called "universal" education has bred a population whose ignorance is legion.As I tell my students, I don't blame them for reaching voting age without knowing anything important about themselves or their country. I can't; the fault is not theirs. But as I also tell them, I will blame them henceforth (to invoke the one-word motto of my alma mater) if they maintain that ignorance now that they know they possess it. That it should proliferate after a generation of Bahamian scholars, all of them investing their time, money, and energy into writing our stories, in penning our histories, in telling tales about us, is an indictment on every single government of The Bahamas since independence.But even that indictment cannot be evenly spread. Different administrations bear different kinds of guilt. The first Progressive Liberal Party administrations must shoulder the responsibility for skewing our history, for telling only part of it, for erasing whole chunks of Bahamian life and experience from the spoken record. Even given the fact that there is something understandable in the fact that the first decade of community building in the wake of majority rule was given over to the Black Bahamian experience, the continuation of that bias into the third decade after Majority Rule is unconscionable, given the fact that The Bahamas was the site of not one but two important republics in the New World, and a site of a very ancient, if politically skewed, democracy. The myth created out of the PLP rhetoric of the 1970s and 1980s was that Black Bahamians had no vote and no voice in the pre-PLP era. The result of this half-truth is that young Black Bahamians were never made aware of the role of free African settlers in the Eleutherian Republic—the second republic in the new world—or of the Pirates' Republic of the end of the seventeenth century, which, though branded as lawless and rebellious by a Britain intent on global conquest, was also multi-racial and strangely democratic. The other result of this half-truth is that successive generations of Black Bahamians were created who had, and have, no comprehension of the actual composition of the Bahamian population, who take fair-skinned Bahamians of colour for the "whites" who controlled the nation in the past, and who take actual white Bahamians of ancient pedigree for tourists; and this serves to disenfranchise otherwise productive Bahamian citizens, to render them invisible, to remove from them a real stake in the fortunes of the nation.The first Free National Movement administrations, on the other hand, must bear a different responsibility. Perhaps coincidentally, the change of government from PLP to FNM occurred in the same year as the complete phasing-out of General Certificate of Education, the international school-leaving qualification previously earned by Bahamian students. The creation of the BGCSE was not the doing of the FNM, but the way in which it was administered must be. It is on the doorstep of the FNM that we must lay the blame for the continued miseducation of Bahamians. The miseducation of Bahamians with regard to the Bahamian citizenry and the place of whites within the Bahamas was addressed, but was done so as destructively as the miseducation of Bahamians under the PLP had been done. Instead of increasing the knowledge of young Bahamians about their nation and the world within which it existed, a choice was made to decrease that knowledge. History was not only made an optional subject, but even the origins of the Bahamian nation itself were concealed. It is impossible to recount the story of the rise of universal democracy in The Bahamas without privileging the role of the PLP; and so the history of the post-independence Bahamas was not taught at all. It is impossible to talk about slavery without acknowledging the oppression of Africans by Europeans; and so the history of Bahamian enslavement was not taught at all. By erasing critical eras of Bahamian history, by valourizing pre-1967 heroes such as Stafford Sands and Roland Symonette, or by recognizing (belatedly) other pre-independence heroes such as Cecil Wallace-Whitfield,  the first two FNM administrations effectively blotted out the story of the Bahamas that obtained between 1967/73 and 1992.I am told—I wasn't there, but have no reason to doubt the source—that during the 1990s, attempts to address living Bahamian history were actively discouraged by serving educators. I am thinking about an incident recounted by a colleague of mine, who told of a time when he stood up to make some reference to the days of Black Bahamian oppression at a school assembly where he was a guest speaker, only to be rebuked by the head teacher, who told him that teaching young Bahamians about the past would encourage racism against white people. That helps to explain the huge gaps in the knowledge of the students I teach today, some twenty years after that most recent active erasure of our selves. These are students who have heard of Martin Luther King, of Malcolm X, of Barack Obama, but who have no idea of who Lynden Pindling and Milo Butler and Cecil Wallace-Whitfield were, much less having even heard of other great Bahamians like Randol Fawkes, Etienne Dupuch, or Roland Symonette. They do not know what was suffered to give them free access to education, or what it means to be able to earn a college degree. They have barely heard of apartheid, the Holocaust, or colonialism. They do not know that the red, white and blue they associate with the Stars and Stripes were also once the colours of the Bahamian colony, not because of our American proximity, but because of our annexure to Britain. They have never heard of the Haitian Revolution, or know that Haiti was the first and the only successful ex-slave republic anywhere in the world. They do not know that, when he was released from prison and knew that victory for native South Africans was assured, Nelson Mandela came to The Bahamas to study the way in which we had achieved majority rule without bloodshed and created a successful society in its wake. They do not know who Nelson Mandela is. They do not know, and yet they are expected to become full citizens of this African-influenced, slave-shaped, postcolonial nation. The idea is absurd.And so I regard the incoherencies that pass for election rhetoric with a sense of disgust. These people who are now on their game, who are engaged in the grotesque performance that passes for "democracy" in the voting nations of the late capitalist era, are either complicit in the creation of the mass ignorance of the voters, or they are the products of the skew-eyed histories that have shaped our existence since independence. How can anyone who believes in democracy as the expression of the will of a people, support any set of politicians who have so completely seen to the erasure of the kind of knowledge that best informs that will? How can one, with good conscience, cast a vote in this climate? Why should I care about the leaders of the parties, when I know that they will all come out the same in the wash—blustery, misinformed/misinforming, irresponsible?Somebody tell me why.

Some scammers en gat no shame!!

in ,

Got this today. I laughed so hard I had to post it here.

Attention,The Federal Government of Nigeria through provisions in Section 419 of the Criminal Code came up with punitive measures to deter and punish offenders. The Advance Fee Fraud section deal mainly with cases of advance fee fraud (commonly called 419) such as obtaining by false pretence through different fraudulent schemes e.g. contract scam, credit card scam, inheritance scam, job scam, loan scam, lottery scam, ?°wash?± scam (money washing scam), marriage scam. Immigration scam, counterfeiting and religious scam. It also investigates cyber crime cases. This is to officially announce to you that some scam Syndicates were apprehended in Lagos, Nigeria few days ago and after several interrogations and tortures your details were among those mentioned by some of the scam Syndicates as one of the victims of their operations.After proper investigations and research at Western Union Money Transfer and Money Gram office to know if you have truly sent money to the scam Syndicates through Western Union Money Transfer or Money Gram, your name was found in Western Union Money Transfer database amongst those that have sent money through Western Union Money Transfer to Nigeria and this proves that you have truly been swindled by those unscrupulous persons by sending money to them in the course of getting one fund or the other that is not real, right now we are working hand in hand with Western Union and Interpol to track every fraudsters down, do not respond to their e-mails, letters and phone calls any longer they are scammers and you should be very careful to avoid being a victim to fraudsters any longer because they have nothing to Offer you but to rip-off what you have worked hard to earn.In this regard a meeting was held between the Board of Directors of The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) and as a consequence of our investigations it was agreed that the sum of Two hundred thousand US Dollars (US$200,000) should be transferred to you out of the funds that Federal Government of Nigeria has set aside as a compensation to everyone who have by one way or the other sent money to fraudsters in Nigeria. We have deposited your fund at Western Union Money Transfer agent location EMS Post office Lagos, Nigeria. We have submitted your details to them so that your fund can be transferred to you.Contact the Western Union agent office through the email address stated below about this notification letter and the transfer of your fund;Contact  Williams WhiteEmail: williamswhite90@gmail.comTotal Claim (US$200,000)+2347088319583Yours sincerely,Sarah Math ()Assistant Investigation Officer.The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC)15A Awolowo Road, Ikoyi, Lagos.Nigeria

This is the return address:

From: Crimes Commission (EFCC) <finance@akron.cn>Subject: Letter From Sarah MathDate: January 31, 2012 3:04:15 AM ESTReply-To: westernunionpayment@123mail.cl

Just a note

in

A little apology.Been writing posts via iPad today, using the Wordpress app, and have run into a couple of glitches. Thats why, if youre following this blog via twitter or Facebook or an RSS feed, you may have got a couple of erroneous and annoying updates that lead nowhere. Im having the devil of a time maintaining the links in my posts -- for some reason something in the app is stripping out crucial HTML coding punctuation. For those of you who know HTML, youll know what losing your pointy brackets can do to your posts.So Ive unpublished the affected posts and will fix and reload later.Apologies to all. From me. And on behalf of my app.

Answering the challenge: a consideration of patriotism, democracy, and voting - part I

in , , ,

Of all the responses to the Voter's Manifesto I received, it was the one that challenged it that I appreciated the most. Not that I didn't welcome the people who commented and wrote in support of the Manifesto, or that I am not happy to know that the original seemed to have struck a chord with several other voters; but at the heart of democracy is, and must be, the ability to disagree. A space for dissent, for disagreement, for debate, must be built into any democratic system; democracy cannot hope to be achieved when no debate takes place.And it's not enough for room to be left for debate; that's only the first step in the democratic process. Unless debate happens—and debate that is rational, not polemic, slander or other forms of empty political rhetoric—unless, in other words, the group of people for whom democracy was provided do not exercise their freedom to speak, the process cannot survive. Silence paves the way for tyranny, and so also do name-calling and mud-slinging. There is very little that's democratic about a host of people, all clad in rainbow-coloured clothing, gathering insults into a pile to throw at one another. In that scenario, Ian Strachan's comment that no matter who wins the general election, the losers will be the Bahamian people is spot-on. What's missing from our political discussion is any reference to real, debatable issues, and any honest debate about them; and if we hope to maintain our hold on democracy, already tenuous in several respects, blind agreement can be as unproductive as senseless personal attack.So to the critique of the Manifesto, which was described by its critic as "ill-conceived, emotive, and racist". The main area of contention was the "I do not believe" section, which rejected the ideas

In response, the critic observed that

  1. the Bahamas already has a fully democratic process for electing its leadership 
  2. it is arrogant to suggest that a population of under 400,000 people has every single skill, knowledge and experience to address the issues faced by the country

and concluded that these statements "seemed designed to elicit anti-foreigner responses". The response challenged me "to defend your words and demonstrate the error of my interpretation".Here is my defence. To the first, the claim that the electoral process in The Bahamas is "fully democratic". This I challenge on many levels while at the same acknowledging the core of truth in the statement. On the one hand, we have a right to be proud of our electoral record. Great changes have taken place in The Bahamas via the ballot box, without bloodshed, and with a relatively low incidence of coercion, fraud, or corruption, the common understanding of all of the above notwithstanding. One could of course argue that there is a long-standing practice of wooing voters with cash incentives or of rewarding them for their support with gifts of food, or, apocryphally, large appliances; I could counter that with the challenge that the twenty-first century has seen an overall reduction in the value of these incentives, given the fact that neither of the two latest elections resulted in any major hiring of supporters to work in the absolute security of the Government Job. But I digress. We have a strong democratic tradition when it comes to voting for people to sit in Parliament. But we have a very poor democratic tradition when it comes to raising, debating or considering issues that have relevance for our nation; what passes for "political" discussion in our country is really personal attack and gossip dressed up in cotton tees.There are several areas in which we fail miserably in the development of the democratic tradition. The first is in the fact that, unlike other democracies, Bahamians have only one tier of representation. In our elections, two-thirds of the population may vote only for the national government. The city of Nassau has no local government, and there is no talk of any serious nature of creating one any time soon. Although we talk about urban renewal and the regeneration of downtown Nassau, the agency that we imagine will be given the responsibility for this is a corporate entity appointed by the government and accountable to no ordinary citizen. Family island communities have a measure of local governance, but urban Bahamians are governed by corporations—the Port Authority in Freeport, and whatever the title of the proposed agency will be for Nassau.The second is in the method by which our representatives are chosen. It's not good enough to invoke the Westminster model of parliamentary governance here; I am arguing that no matter where it came from, it does not meet our needs. In Nassau (where, I repeat, our Members of Parliament are the only voices we have at the governmental level), our much-touted ability to vote is seriously compromised by the fact that voters have the very last say in choosing the candidates. There are no primaries, no public weeding out of candidates, no debates, no means by which the average person can vet the candidates before they are presented to us. The selection is in the hands of the political parties alone. This dilutes the democratic process. I'm going to quote Pat Rahming here, because his poem "Power", now four decades old, continues to resonate:

cuz vot’n ain’ much powerif somebody else guh choosethe choice

The third is that the representatives are not answerable to the people from the time they are elected to the time they begin to campaign for votes three, four or five years later. Voters, having gone to the polls, made the best choice they could from among a group of (generally) unsuitables, are obliged to sit back and live with what they have done for five years. We cannot recall our representatives. Our representatives have no obligation to report to us what they have done with our trust. All we can do is watch them make fools of themselves and a mockery of our state on the Parliamentary Channel, and at best talk behind their backs—or on the air, sometimes—while smiling and kowtowing to their faces. Our so-called full democratic process has succeeded in making passive hypocrites of too many of us.The fourth is that in order to create democracy, more than a vote is needed. A voice is also not enough. We got our vote in the 1960s when women were allowed to cast ballots, and we got our voice in two parts: in the 1960s when we elected the first majority government of The Bahamas, so that the faces that ruled us looked like ours, and in the 1990s second when the Free National Movement made it possible for different perspectives to be heard on the airwaves by breaking the broadcasting monopoly that had hitherto been held, by law, by the Broadcasting Corporation of The Bahamas. Neither fact seems to have prevented us from enacting the same dumbshow of electing and revering individuals who by their greed, lack of exposure, lack of knowledge, lack of morals, or lack of sense of self have proceeded to disenfranchise the average citizen even more. We need more than a voice; we need to be given the kind of education that breeds a sense of pride, a sense of honour and a sense of integrity so that we, the citizens, can exercise that voice in such a way that democracy is strengthened. That is clearly lacking. The very real oppression of the 1970s and 1980s—by which dissent by ordinary people was silenced in numerous ways, not least among them the very real activity of victimization, when opponents could be, and were, stripped of their livelihoods, their positions, and their reputations—has given way to an oppression of the mind. We have the channels and the means to speak, but what we have to say is ignorant of Bahamian history, lacking in substance, and small-minded.And so. We live in a nation that is nominally very democratic, but that is actually little better than any tyranny—and perhaps worse, because we are comfortable with our situations and so prefer not to rock any boats. We live and die by our passivity, and when things don't go well for us, we complain, we moan, or we lash out with knives and guns. Our democracy is a veneer, and a thin one at that.End of this part of my response; more to come

A Reader Responds to the Voter's Manifesto

in , , , ,

Got the following response to my Voter's Manifesto. It was sent privately, for reasons the writer makes clear, but as that individual has encouraged me to post the response and to respond in my turn, I'm honouring the request.

Happy New YearI wish to challenge your Voter’s Manifesto as ill-conceived, emotive and racist. You will notice that I am doing this in a private message rather than a post.I would rather post and challenge publicly, however, unfortunately, foreigners do not have freedom of speech in the Bahamas without fear of consequences, and so I am forced to challenge you in private.I request that you honour my request for anonymity, but I encourage you to post (anonymously) and respond to my challenges in public.I have no argument with your ‘I believe’ section.I suggest that you are being intentionally emotive and encouraging misunderstanding in your ‘I do not believe’ section.‘I do not believe that Bahamians need help, time, or training to deepen and strengthen the democratic project’ I am not sure what you mean by ‘project’ but the Bahamas already has a fully democratic process for electing its leadership so this statement seems gratuitous and a little divisive to me.‘I do not believe that Bahamians need help, time or training to address those problems that our country is struggling with now’ Wow this is an arrogant statement, to suggest that a population of under 400, 000 people has every single skill, knowledge and experience to address the issues faced by the country. In this context I am reading ‘help’ as ‘help from non-Bahamians’ as I don’t see what else it can mean.Let me take an example that is close to your heart ……. COBCOB has been struggling for over 10 years now to transition from a community college to university status.• I question what percentage of Bahamian lecturers at COB became qualified for their job in the Bahamas? I believe over 98% of Bahamian COB lecturers gained their education abroad.• There are a number of foreign lecturers at COB. According to work permit requirements, COB was unable to fill those posts with Bahamians or work permits would not have been granted.Did you mean that you want to get rid of all the foreigners from COB and stop Bahamians going abroad for their education?Let me take another example………. The economy.The two largest industries in the Bahamas are tourism and off-shore banking. Both of these industries rely on foreign investment and international interactions.You might not like Sol Kerzner building Disney Land on Hogg Island, but it is one of the largest employers in the Bahamas, and there were no Bahamians in a position to build at the same level, as proven by Baha Mar, which tried for a number of years to elicit Bahamian investment and failed, and also could not generate the skill set required for high rise construction within the Bahamas.The off-shore banking industry functions through cooperation between the government of the Bahamas and international banks, who generate significant income for the Bahamas.These two industries between them generate the majority of the wealth of the Bahamas and the majority of opportunities for Bahamians. Take away the foreigners and the money of the foreigners and both will collapse, along with the economy of the Bahamas.You may not like the Bahamas’ dependence on foreign industry, but the Bahamas cannot do without it until it generates a broader economic base.Your statements seem designed to elicit anti-foreigner responses.What does it say about a country who shows such little respect for the foreigners legitimately living there?“If you want my vote don’t come waving flags or t-shirts or offering promises of more jobs laying cement, gathering laundry or taking orders for rich white people from abroad.”Are you saying it would be ok if they were rich black people from abroad?I do not think you intended to be so disrespectful to those white foreigners living in the Bahamas, but it is significant that, whilst addressing your agenda of quality of jobs provided by the government, you are comfortable using derogative phrases like this.This document does not match your usual quality of work in my opinion. I think it is significant that you published it on MLK day in the USA and its style is derivative of the ‘I have a dream’ speech.I invite you to defend your words and demonstrate the error of my interpretation.I moved to the Bahamas because it is a country that still values family, community and humanity. As you correctly state, it is a country full of people with talent and creativity. I love the Bahamas and the people of the Bahamas and I believe I make a positive contribution to this country, so I find it hurtful to hear ‘getting rid of the foreigners’ as an election platform.

 

A Voter's Manifesto

in , , , ,

With elections around the corner and three political parties, none of which appear to have formulated, much less articulated, any new or credible plan for Bahamian development or growth in twenty-first century (and no, planning to beg more rich people for more money to buy up more of our precious archipelago does not count), I think it's time for the average Bahamian, the voter, to exercise her democratic right and put down in pixels what will or will not get her vote.I am a Bahamian who has never been represented by any party that has held power in The Bahamas to date. I am a woman, middle class, neither black nor white, a cultural worker and intellectual, a citizen and a voter, an ordinary Bahamian who does not campaign, carry a voters' card, attend rallies, or otherwise show her face during the silly season that surrounds politics.I pay my taxes in every way they are presented to me. I have never sat in a politician's office to beg for anything when doing so was not part of my job as a civil servant. I have been eligible to vote in the past 6 general elections but in that time I have only once been visited by a prospective MP, who believed that he was making a social call on old friends, my parents. I have never,  in my civilian position, called any sitting politician for a job, for a handout, for a favour, for any sort of help. I do not work in the tourism industry, real estate, the construction industry, or any other other area that figures in political discussions of "jobs" and "economics" or anything else.I am one of thousands of productive, independent, patriotic Bahamians who make this country run on a daily basis. I took the opportunities offered to my by the first independent government of The Bahamas and went off and earned a college degree. I came home because I wanted to serve and build my country. To date, my country has not put in place anything to serve and build me; to every politician who has served in parliament in the time I have been voting, people like me have been invisible. In our democracy, we do not count.And so: a voter's manifesto.

I believe:
  • that Bahamians are as intelligent, as resourceful, as industrious, as talented and as deserving as any other group of people on the planet;
  • that Bahamian innovation, creativity and adaptability carved this nation out of these scattered rocks in the sea, and that that innovation, creativity and adaptability will make flourish in the twenty-first century;
  • that Bahamians are full human beings, with needs that go beyond the merely material;
  • that The Bahamas is as important as any other nation in the world, and should be treated as such;
  • that our human capital -- the ingenuity, intelligence, talent and independent spirit of the Bahamian people -- is the most important resource that our nation has.
I do not believe:
  • that Bahamians need help, time, or training to deepen and strengthen the democratic project;
  • that Bahamians need help, time, or training to address those problems that our country is struggling with now;
  • that Bahamians need help, time, or training to make our country better.
And so:
  • I, the voter, do not care what colour T-shirt you offer me or what three letters you cast before my face.
  • I believe in democracy.
  • I do not care nearly as much about the history of your particular party (or of your opponents) as you think I do.
  • I do not care about how good (or bad) you look in a suit, how well you speak off the cuff, or whether your leader is God incarnate or the Devil himself.
  • I care about this country we all share.
  • I care what you and your party are planning The Bahamas will look like tomorrow.
  • I want to know the details.
  • I believe that it is the right of a people to elect a government who will represent them and not the foreign interests who come offering the latest wads of cash or promises grander than the grandest Prime Minister's.
  • I believe that is the obligation of a government to seek out and hear the needs of the people whom it represents.  All the people, not just the vocal few at the bottom who have depended thus far on their crippledness to coerce their representatives into enact ill-thought and hurried acts of bribery-in-return-for-votes, or the fatcats at the top who enact coercive acts of bribery of their own.
  • I believe in governments who represent and serve the people who vote for them, not the people who pay them, or bully them, or frighten them.
  • I believe in equality. That is not to say that I believe that all people are universally idiots, or that we must make all decisions according to the lowest possible common denominator. Rather, it is to say that I believe that all citizens—and, indeed, in a truly civilized nation, all people within our borders—should be equal under our laws and treated as such. No better, and no worse.
  • I believe that our ideals should be more important than individual exceptions.
  • I believe that a nation should be founded on ideals. Tell me yours.

If you want my vote:

  • Don't come waving flags or t-shirts or offering promises of more jobs laying cement, gathering laundry or taking orders for rich white people from abroad.
  • Don't come not debating policy.
  • Don't come bad-talking the other politicians around you.
  • Don't come not knowing basic things about this country, about governance, about policy, or the world of the twenty-first century.
  • Don't come expecting my political philosophy to do the trick and make me vote for you party because it happens to be the next best thing to the ideals I hold.
  • Don't come expecting your track record to move me.
  • Don't come expecting my colour, my family name, my friends, my profession, or any other attribute to influence the way I vote.
  • Don't come trusting in your personal political arrogance and my continued political passive stupidity.
  • Come talking to me about the Bahamas you will create the day after Election Day, and come telling me in detail how we are going to create it together.

It had better be a different Bahamas from the one I live in today.•••More links:A Reader Responds to the Voter's ManifestoAnswering the challenge: a consideration of patriotism, democracy and voting - Part IOn the mis-education of the Bahamian citizen

Towards A Voters' Manifesto

in , ,

It's 2012 and the silly season is officially upon us. Bloggers and tabloids and Facebook commentators have begun their discussions and predictions. To quote Pat Rahming (and I'll quote him again before this post is over), everybody catchin politics like germ.It's a rare situation this election. For the first time in 35 years, it's a proper three-way race; in almost all of the 38 new constituencies, voters will have the option to choose candidates from one of three parties.Predictably, and unfortunately so, the discussion is progressing the way football hooligans support their favourite teams. Most of the loudest voices have painted themselves with the war-hues of their favourites, so that the air has taken on the quality of a rastafarian flag or (to employ the more common metaphor) a stoplight; the political parties (I am tempted to call them teams) adorn themselves in the party colours of red, gold and green.Equally predictably, the squabbling is as shallow and as thought-free as that paint. In almost no quarter does one hear discussions of the issues that affect us all, regardless of party -- of the economic future of the country, of ways in which we hope to function as citizens, of the kinds of fundamental changes that are necessary for the continued process of nationhood -- of questions of how to expand and deepen the democratic project, or how, in this small country of 350,000 people, to find solutions to the problems that plague us.I've been thinking for a long time now that what we need are not more political parties with platforms, plans and promises as fragile and transparent as cheap glass. No. What we need is a voters' manifesto -- a code by which we, the voters, live and move and cast our votes. So I've been thinking about what I want from a country and from a representative, and working back from there. Watch this space -- as I develop it, I'll post it. Maybe you'll share my perspective. If so, let's work for our own small change whenever the election is called!

Happy Majority Rule Day

in ,

When exactly are we going to make this a national day of observance?Last year, efforts were made to remind our people of the significance of this day, which, despite the failures of the present, was such an achievement that it inspired Nelson Mandela upon his release from prison to study The Bahamas in crafting a new South Africa.This year, a pretty general silence.Well, I for one will observe this day -- a day that made it possible for my father, my mother and my uncles and aunts to hold the positions they held in the late twentieth century, and for which basic freedoms our forefathers fought. If you're black, brown, tan, beige, golden, milky coffee, ecru, or ivory, no matter what color shirt you wear, go read some history; chances are that without the victory of January 10 you would not be where you are now.So: Happy Majority Rule Day. Let's grow some respect and some ideals. Neither is a waste of time.

Getting on the Bus…An Account of Portia Simpson-Miller’s 2006 swearing in « Active Voice

in

Let’s hope that she meant what she said in her thoughtful, well-articulated maiden speech, That line about balancing people’s lives rather than merely balancing the books was a brilliant one and I think captures the nation’s predicament superbly. Portia also said that she couldn’t make the necessary changes without the wholehearted help and support of the people. Again this is something that couldn’t have been stressed more. It’s an obvious thing but one that only a leader who inspires and moves the people can achieve. If anyone is capable of doing this it’s Portia Simpson-Miller.There was something symbolic about the mingling of the crowds at Portia’s swearing-in. Those who came early got good seats, regardless of the people they had been intended for. All Michael Lee-Chin was standing by the way, and other rich and powerful faces were seen waiting in vain for seats. But as Portia said money shouldn’t make some people more important than others, learning shouldn’t make some people more important than others (loud cheers broke out at this) and neither should colour, class or gender. Jesus, she’s written my column for me, said John.

via Getting on the Bus…An Account of Portia Simpson-Miller’s 2006 swearing in « Active Voice.

What I like here are the lines I've highlighted. Annie Paul didn't write them in red.

In Memoriam: Alex and Violette Zybine

in , ,

Got a piece of terribly bad news this morning: the Zybines are dead. They were found in their Mexico home, having both succumbed to carbon monoxide poisoning from their heater.For those people who don't know, Alex and Violette Zybine were dancers who worked in The Bahamas during the 1960s and 1970s. They were engaged by Hubert Farrington to look after the fledgling Nassau Civic Ballet while he worked at the Metropolitan Opera in New York -- in fact, that's where he met Alex. Violette was my first, and only, ballet teacher. Alex founded the New Breed Dancers and most of the successful Bahamian classical dancers of that era were trained by him -- among them Lawrence Carroll, Christine Johnson, Paula Knowles, Ednol Wright, and Victoria McIntosh, among others. They returned to Nassau four or five years ago, and were planning another visit. I heard from Violette, as I always do, just after Christmas, with a set of lovely photographs. I'll share just two of them here.  May they rest in peace. 

The Duty to Vote - by Simon

in , ,

I've been thinking about this commentary by "Simon" of Bahama Pundit (and the Nassau Guardian):

To refuse to vote is a decision.  It shows a level of disdain and contempt for our democratic system.  There is certain arrogance to those who feel that voting is beneath them and that they won’t participate in electing “those politicians” (who, incidentally, are our fellow citizens).

Voting is not fundamentally about politicians.  It is about the citizenry choosing their elected representatives and holding them accountable.  Democracy, like the human condition is imperfect, requiring constant improvement and renewal.  The alternative is a system of anarchy.

There is also an immaturity to those who refuse to help choose the nation’s elected representatives and refuse also to participate in governance.  Still, they expect someone else to make the tough decisions on everything from crime to the economy to education.

Often, these same individuals have much to say on issues of public policy though they refuse to vote or become involved in governance.  There is a level of hypocrisy by those who sit on their high horses complaining about the politicians while refusing to participate.

A refusal to exercise one’s right to vote is a dereliction of a basic right for which many have fought and died, and for which many are still struggling.  For the progeny of slaves it is a sort of disregard and dishonouring of the struggles of those ancestors who for generations fought for basic freedoms, including in The Bahamas for majority rule.

Those who refuse to exercise their right to vote for cavalier and unreflective reasons, do a disservice to the witness of Martin Luther King Jr., Nelson Mandela, Aung San Suu Kyi, Bahamian men and women freedom fighters, and protestors around the world today for whom the right to vote is a democratic gift not to be taken lightly nor for granted.

The Right and Duty to Vote - via Bahama Pundit.

In many—many—respects I agree with him. The right to vote is more than an entitlement; in any democratic society, is a responsibility, the major responsibility perhaps, of citizens in democratic societies. Simon's right to shift the point from the politician to the citizen, and is also right to remind his readers about the cost of democracy, and to remind us all not to take it for granted. But there is a whole lot more to it than that, in my opinion.

For I have a problem with this idea that the responsibility in any democratic society is one-way, that it adheres to the citizen only, and that the politician is exempt. Because while I agree wholeheartedly that one has a duty to register and even tend to agree that one should turn out to vote, I balk at the idea that my vote must be constrained by the choices offered to me by people who, it seems, more often than not, have very limited imaginations about the potential of this nation, who indeed have very limited comprehension of statehood at all, and who are really put in place because they bowed down and said the right things to the right political overlord. Even in the most informal cases, a person has the right to abstain when the time comes to vote, and that abstention is counted; it is, in effect, an anti-vote, a rejection of the choices placed before one, or of the lack of choice imposed on the voter by political machineries that are fundamentally antidemocratic at their very core. What, after all, is democratic about a system in which representatives are chosen in the wake of an unholy alliance between a set of individuals entrenched in a political game and the super-partisan delegates whose job it is to choose and/or ratify candidates? When does the ordinary citizen, who is faceless and nameless and often even party-less, get to have some say in who will sit in Parliament on her behalf?

So while I agree with the duty of every citizen to participate in this most fundamental of democratic rights and responsibilities, and while I think that Australia is on to a good thing—every citizen is obliged to vote by law—I resist entirely this idea that the politician has no responsibility to the citizens or to the state that they govern. I especially resist it in our Bahamaland, where local government is another word for more direct taxation and where there is no such thing for the over two-thirds of the population who reside in the city of Nassau. There is nothing democratic about the shifting around of constituency boundaries by that parliamentary joke called the "Boundaries Commission"  and there is nothing democratic about the musical chairs being played by the three political parties in scrambling to find candidates who, by some strategic algorithm, are best poised to win within some made-up geographical area. And so I reserve the right, having registered and planning fully to turn out to vote, to make my displeasure known at the polls if (or when) the three parties who are scrambling for power do not show me enough respect to offer for office an individual for whom I can vote without feeling that the choice is one among many evils.

In short, I believe in the citizen's duty to vote. But it doesn't stop there. I believe as much, perhaps more, in the politicians' duty to govern. And until I am confident that they think as much of this nation as I do, I reserve the right to choose no one to represent me at all.

Joey Gaskins on Elections

in , ,

There's a strong new voice out there in opinion-land. It's the voice of Joey Gaskins, a Bahamian currently studying sociology at LSE. He's already made interventions in all sorts of arenas, to some personal cost; but he's still writing. Hats off to him. My plan is to go and dig up the various positions he's taken, and to link explicitly to the group blog to which he contributes. But in the meantime, here's his latest opinion, as published in yesterday's Tribune:

A nationally televised, internet streamed, radio broadcast of our two seasoned political leaders and the firebrand new contender debating policy, defining differences in ideology and comparing visions of the Bahamian future is beneficial for all, especially the Bahamian people.I know I'm not alone when I say that I'm interested in hearing what our hopeful leaders have to offer, outside of the theatrics of adversarial parliamentary posturing and away from the throngs of adoring fans. Despite the fact that some political leaders believe they must no longer compete for their inevitable ascendancy, that they are tried and tested, these are new and unusual times.The politicians and the politics of the 1990s -- even of 2007 -- are obsolete. And as far as the politics of the Bahamas is concerned, both of our long-standing parties have seemed comfortable with the formula bequeathed to us by our colonial forefathers, a pepper-pot of traditionalism in some areas and a discourse of modernisation in others -- a dish which has resulted in the gradual disintegration of the Bahamian middle class over the last decade in the face of a global economy in transition, concentrating wealth more and more in fewer peoples' hands.This is also not the most opportune time for a greenhorn politician to stake a leadership claim with a less than impressive political resume. The simple answer would be to say the Bahamas needs a new politician or a new political party, when in actuality what I think we need is a new politics. I am left unconvinced that, in what has become a politics plagued by ego, we should suffer yet another political contender asserting his dominion over our government with an air of entitlement.via The Tribune.

I agree. But I would go further. I am not interested in what only the leaders have to say; our politics and our administration has been too top-down, too hands-off for most of us. I want to hear what the leaders have to say, but unfortunately I don't have much faith in any of the current contenders (though I do have my own personal fondnesses). I would like to hear also from the people standing for election in my own constituency. In this country devoid of any sort of meaningful local government I want to know how the one person whose job it is to represent me and my neighbourhood and that convenient fiction called the constituency plans to do it. I want to know which legislation they plan to address in the next five years' time, how they hope to review it, how it is going to help me. I want to know what my prospective MP thinks about the Bahamas in the 21st century and how he or she intends to serve my interests. So debates for leaders, by all means; but I want to hear from our representatives even more; for I have absolutely no intention of casting a vote for any political party in 2012. Rather, I want to place men and women of honour and integrity in the House of Assembly, where they have a job and a responsibility to do that should transcend their loyalty to their party or their Prime Minister or Leader of the Opposition. I want to have more men and women of courage in the House of Assembly who will be prepared to defy the party whip and stand up and speak for their constituents. We have no local councils to appeal to, and so our national MPs must do it for us. I want to see debates at that level too.Write on, Joey! And for those who haven't yet read his work and the work of his contemporaries, I suggest you look for him. His is a voice we would do well to heed, now and in the future.Happy new year.

Ghosts and Christmas

in

My friends and others have been awfully solicitous this season. It's the first one since Mummy died, since indeed my brother and I joined our cousins in being the elders in the generation (and pretty young elders we are too, the eldest of us being not yet 52). Christmas is a time for family, a time for gathering together with elders, and in our family in particular Christmas has always been special. But in all honesty it hasn't been as hard as people, myself included, might have expected. In many ways, last Christmas was harder. My mother was at her lowest, I believe -- not physically, but emotionally and psychologically. She was coming to terms fully that she was not going to lick the cancer. She was trying a rough new chemotherapy regimen, and the side effects of this one were far crueller than the one before. It was a desperate move, because she'd not long ago come back from Texas, where she had gone in a last-ditch effort to fight the disease, and the consensus there, after much consideration, was that there was not much that could be done. She was depressed. She was unable to eat and was being fed intravenously. She was confused -- a side effect of the chemo. She couldn't find words to express herself. And more and more she was in pain. The good thing about Christmas for her was that she saw family and friends who would not ordinarily be in town. The bad thing was that she knew she was never going to see them again. Last Christmas was the difficult one.Still, the memories I have of last Christmas -- memories of her room, which was cheerful enough, with windows on three sides and the afternoon sunshine slipping through the blinds, memories of all those people who loved her finishing the projects she had engaged them to do when she was still well -- painting the house for Christmas, installing a generator, rewiring the house, and so on -- are bittersweet. They are bitter because my mother disappeared for a short while, and because Christmas was for all intents and purposes without her, even though she was physically with us. They are sweet because there were moments that were very special -- like the concert that was held for her by the Highgrove Singers, on her back porch, with her sitting, wrapped in her dressing gown with her chemo cap on her head, listening to the impossibly beautiful music and weeping because it was so beautiful. There was the morning, in the new year, after we had decided to stop the treatment as it was hurting her as much as it was helping, when I woke up to find my mother beaming in her bed; "Nico," she said, "I had a thought." And this was so very special because we knew then that the chemo brain was disappearing, her mind was clearing, her words were returning, and she was able to think again. There were the visits she had just before she went into hospital, where her mind was sharp again even though her body was weak, and she was able to ask about families and send love to the absent. And there was the day -- I missed it -- she asked to go sit in the garden, and the other day she asked the nurses to take her out to inspect the brand new paint job. There was the day she went into hospital when she was being given options for her care and she was making her own decisions -- a day full of worry and trepidation, but also a day that we treasured because, weak as she was she was once again herself: brave and decisive and trusting and ultimately fully committed to life.So this Christmas wasn't the tragic one that we expected to be. We are not fighting anything, and we are not trying to win any battle that is bound to be lost. The cousins who make up our so very young generation of elders all came together at my brother's house, us and the new generation. We Skyped the absent among us and spent some Christmas with them. We thought, and sometimes talked, about the ghosts of Christmases past -- our absent mothers and fathers, grandparents, uncles, and aunts. And we watched the children coming up in our shadows, and it was all, all good.