© 2015 Patricia Glinton-Meicholas
Chaos is threatening to engulf our country in the 42nd year of what we call our independence and democracy.
Reflecting intensely lately on governance and politics in The Bahamas and the dangerous conflation of the two in the minds of the majority of our leaders and the many who blindly place their trust in them, I have come to the following conclusion. Corrupt political power is addictive. The more it is ingested the more the cravings for it arise. It is a sweet that rots the moral fibre of its addicts and ruins the teeth, guts and general health of those who are dominated by the addicts. I’m not being unnecessarily pessimistic. Consider the amount of misplaced outrage that has been expressed in places high, low and questionable about respect for high office, much more in service of self-vindication than for the benefit of our homeland.
Among those who claim leadership, I see little or no compassion for the people of this country who are living in fear of crime, in fear of losing jobs and homes, in fear of losing dignity in the fight to survive the growing drought of opportunity and certainly in fear of political victimization. Instead the greatest effort is towards self-aggrandisement and not national development. I cry the beloved country when I see a photograph of Bahamians, faces in ecstasy and hands reaching out to their new god, whose notion of salvation is the “Big Bang Summer”. The veil that once separated the people from this heavily monetized savior was rent by politicians bent on holding on to power at any cost.
My purpose in writing today is to help to direct a tsunami of outrage towards those areas where such impassioned attention is so desperately needed. If there are others in this country who desire a cause for outrage, I offer the following:
Why is there no outrage that murder is fast becoming the preferred method of resolving conflict, administering justice or earning a living? Crime, in general, is gutting this country, draining it of its lifeblood, yet all we get from our leadership is inertia at best or directing blame at the Police or at the former government or anywhere other than at its ineffective leadership. It is clear that the situation has become critical. So, what is the response from the top?
A member of government without a parliamentary seat but with a heavy portfolio as an apologist for government missteps recently took to the airwaves to do more deflecting regarding several thorny issues. This time some not so subtle blame was launched at a colleague who does occupy a seat in Parliament and Cabinet. My question is—if something slips from the hand and shatters, can we, in good conscience, blame a single finger for the calamity? Doesn’t the fault lie in the failure of all the fingers to communicate and work together and all should therefore be held equally culpable? That must certainly be the case with governments.
The failure of public education in this country must surely generate outrage even in the most passive among us. In return for a lion’s share of the national budget, achievement in our schools is an omen for imminent disaster in this country, rather than a herald of future progress. The national average in English and Math achievement hovers determinedly over grades D+ and E like flies over rotting flesh. Despite this, the only outrage we hear from the Bahamas Teachers Union relates to working conditions and more pay for themselves, while the collective voice remains silent regarding the needs, frustrations and failures of their charges. Why no outrage at the obvious inadequacy of some of their members and of deficient parenting and home conditions? Despite pitiable academic performance, we spend more time on Junior Junkanoo than on structured remediation and on turning rivers of self-examination and truth on the Augean Stables that education administration and practice have become in our beloved homeland.
Honestly, though, what more can I expect when doing a junkanoo shuffle is held as prime criterion for fitness to lead a nation, no matter that the people are drowning in their own blood as their leader gets ‘dizzy feet’. Even more cause for despair is evidence that a fond brother confuses strength of governance with winning an election and ‘looking good’ after the attainment of the promised three score and ten. Could this confusion be the source of increasing government failure—not appreciating that once its election is declared, politics and party cheerleading must give way to running the country for the benefit of all Bahamians, not just party pundits, Cabinet members and sycophants. Is this possibly the reason that Parliament seems to have become a marketplace and grabfest, where members come to trade personal favours and national opportunities, feathering their own nests while leaving the people’s cupboards bare?
And the problem is not just with Parliament, selfishness is invading the very marrow of the nation. Despite the black eye that Bahamas tourism and hospitality is getting internationally, a union leader in that quadrant could recently muster no greater contribution to the debate than “I told you so”, while keeping the collection plate front and centre.
Shouldn’t there be massive outrage that members of the governing party should howl in feigned indignation that a ‘foreigner’ answered the Prime Minister man to man in a diatribe initiated by the former, yet remain silent when one of their number threatens to misuse ministerial powers relating to immigration to even scores? Why is there not national fright at the purported correspondence between one of the parties in the Baha Mar dispute and a prominent government negotiator, an exchange which appears to suggest an unseemly and dangerous collusion and a government that has cast objectivity to the wind?
Why is there no outrage at government-designated inequality among foreigners? Why favour the voices of external consultants who sing harmony with government while turning a deaf ear to local expertise? I am appalled that a National Health Insurance consultant can pontificate and laugh to scorn the just concerns of the Bahamas insurance industry, when government has yet to give their proposal a fair hearing. I am appalled that the Bahamas Electricity situation grows murkier by the minute. Wasn’t the recently signed contract to bring modern management to BEC? Shouldn’t we be outraged to learn that the day of salvation from the play of light and darkness is still distant and what we have paid for is a business plan? A member of the National Cabinet has proposed psychological examinations for investors and Members of Parliament. I believe if we begin with members of Cabinet, all the other interventions will become unnecessary.
Why is there not terror that our public health care system is in obvious disarray and yet government is well on the way to forcing us all to subject health and life entirely to this chaos? Why are there so few journalists who do their research and ask the hard questions—such as, what are the countries where an all-pervasive health insurance scheme is working well and what systems do they have in place that underpin the good functioning of said systems? Why are we willing to commit more hard-earned money to the same ramshackle provisions for health care management and accountability?
How many of us are outraged that, all of a sudden, the men who appear to be alternate prime ministers have begun to use such words as ‘probity’ and ‘transparency’, which they had previously banned from their vocabulary? Shouldn’t the greatest outrage be reserved for the fast-footing of a member of the “justice league” who has decided to further deplete the nation’s purse by engaging legal action to remove two members of the opposition from Parliament, adding to the folly of his government’s spending on the winding up of Baha Mar? Dear Sir, where is your outrage at case files that flit away in the night and delay court actions. Where is your outrage at the backlog of criminal cases, where the indicted languish so long in prison before trial that some have served their sentences by the time a justice of the Supreme Court actually pronounces them. I would respect you more if you had taken your leave of the ruling party, instead of using the excuse that your leader would not accept your resignation. May I suggest that you devote more time to solving some of the inefficiencies and corruptions in the area of your own portfolio? As the Book of Proverbs advises: “Speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves, for the rights of all who are destitute.”
I could speak of rodentia and sinking ships here but refrain. Could a looming party convention and elections be the source of all this new-minted righteousness? How can these good gentlemen fix their mouths to utter such terms when they have been front and centre in breaking, one after the other, the promises they made to the Bahamian people leading up to election day and conveniently forgot the moment victory was declared? Gentlemen and Ladies of Government, what happened to the solutions promised for the “first hundred days”—now being stretched with bold-face effrontery into “give us another term to get it done; we didn’t know how deep the problems were”? You have surely forgotten the promise to “believe in Bahamians” when you voided the results of the referendum on gaming to allow for the seemingly unrestrained flourishing of gaming houses deep into the nation’s heartland and the bread and circuses of “Big Bang Summers”. I assure you, democracy begins to die when you ignore the vote of the people, especially when it does not contravene the Constitution or the laws of the land or of nature.
You promised support for the Police, who daily risk their lives to keep our society from falling into anarchy. Yet, you have a junior minister talking gleefully to the press about finding a way to defeat the court ruling that you must pay the Police for overtime already worked. For shame!
What happened to the promised push for diversification of the national economy? What is the parliamentary response to the IDB-sponsored book “The Orange Economy” by Filipe Buitrago Restrepo that promotes the development of the creative industries? (Download it for free from the internet.)
I challenge women members of the National Cabinet and the men no less: Why no outrage at the rise in domestic violence, especially against women and children? When you at last raised the wind to speak about the referendum on the ability to confer citizenship on one’s children, you said that you favoured a delay, so that you could educate Bahamians on the subject. So, where is the education programme or are you hoping that your promise will die quietly, smothered by our fears of increased taxation and other economic weights?
Where is the outrage at government’s making up for its failure to contain its own profligate spending in first class jaunts abroad by adding another tax weight to the already breaking back of the citizenry? Where is the outrage at the one-plus-one-equals-fifty million accounting system used to assess the success of Junkanoo Carnival. Is the enjoyment of however many thousands of a booze and dance fest enough to justify the spending of $12 million in a persistently sluggish economy?
Is The Bahamas heading towards becoming a failed banana republic (without a viable banana industry) where people can be imprisoned or worse without trial for daring to question their leaders’ fitness to govern? Why does a high churchman spend more time stomping politically for his son than plying the gospel of Christ in the pulpit? How urgently we need statesmen to act out of love of country at this time when Bahamian society is fast devolving amidst an exponential rise in antisocial behaviour, a lag in the achievement of ungendered equality in basic human rights and the failure to thrive in so many aspects of society and family life!
Bahamians, I challenge us to take a good, long look at ourselves to see the extent to which we, the people, share in the responsibility for the failing of democracy in our land and twisted values and morals in high places. A government is a reflection of the people—our greed, our willingness to sell our birthright for a mess of pottage, our delight in cupboard love; that is, our love for those who come promising handouts and our accepting without questioning the legality of the sources and without decrying the misuse of public funds. How can we expect to have an equitable and a peaceful society when many of us happily use religion to relegate some of our fellow citizens to the dung heap of Bahamian life because our over-inflated sense of righteousness or corruption declares them to be on the wrong side of politics, gender, sexual orientation and ethnicity. It is strange how a person’s god is often a reflection of that person’s own character or lack thereof.
For those who are sufficiently outraged and wish to do something of benefit to our country, I propose the following:
For the improvement of Bahamian education, all of us must take responsibility for raising it from the grave of failure. I beg the powers that be to lead the way by respecting teaching as a profession like any other and raising the level of training and remuneration of educators accordingly. Make teacher education consist of four years of mastering the subject area and a year for methodology, ethics and the practice of teaching. Teachers should recertify every three years. Let there be a private and public ethics committee to oversee education policy and the behavior of educators and administrators. Make teacher assessment real not the cursory passage and lip-service I know exists in many quarters. Develop a true meritocracy in this and other areas of professional practice. Start adult classes to allow parents and guardians to upgrade their education to enable them to assist their children in a meaningful way.
Let’s acknowledge in practical ways that our children have different gifts and the education system must begin to institutionalize this fact in the National Curriculum and classroom practice. To lump everyone in the BGCSE stream is a folly that produces failure. Some students are more gifted creatively and practically. Let’s celebrate them and create model schools for the visual and musical arts, crafts, mechanics and entrepreneurship. Every child, whatever may be his or her gifts, should leave school with good literacy, numeracy and at least one employable skill. Overall, take politics out of the Ministry of Education and the classroom and out of every other public service endeavour for that matter. Remove the sacred cows who milk the system rather than giving nourishment to our people.
For probity in the conduct of the people’s business, heads of agreement documents should be made public in their entirety and before, not after the fact. For the improvement of parliamentary conduct, give teeth to the Disclosure Act and any other regulations that compel openness about subjects that are relevant to national matters. I want to know who the beneficial owners are of all buildings rented by government agencies. I want to know what morganatic marriages for profit have been formed between MPs and consorts who would not be sanctioned by law or common decency. We have a parliamentary channel on television, but it is not a pretty sight. I propose that those who hoot and clatter when another member is speaking at the behest of the Speaker to be escorted from the House. There should be a penalty for parliamentarians who do not attend a reasonable number of sessions of Parliament and offer comments of merit rather than schoolyard rants. Chairmen of political parties should be banished from speaking for government. When election time comes around, they are welcome to use all the deviance they can muster. It is the buyers/voters who should educate themselves and beware.
I propose that leaders who crave the respect of their people and the world at large should practice respecting others and human rights. When high office confers the right to run roughshod over others, we are dealing with autocracy, dictatorship, tyranny—call it what you like, but it is certainly not democracy and service at the will of the people. As the old saying counsels, even the cat may look at the sovereign. From the ragamuffin to heads of state, the gendered and ungendered, those lacking politically correct connections, the imprisoned, the citizen and the foreigner must enjoy basic human rights in our land, if we are to continue to claim Christ and democracy.
I propose a limit on the spending of government ministers and functionaries, especially on travel that yields high living for the travelers and pictures of their merriment but nothing for the advancement of country and people. I propose published reports on the trips abroad, justifying the role of each member of each contingent and every penny of public funds spent. I would also like an account of how and to whom and why government assets, especially vehicles, are apportioned and how used. And by the way, does the mileage accord with the officially designated use of these vehicles?
Health care reform: I propose massive reform in health care administration, spending and maintenance before government hands more money from overburdened taxpayers into the hands of incompetents and malefactors, who have no better decision-making ability or “probity” than their choice of political party affiliation. Repair the clinics, especially in the Family Islands, get Accident & Emergency at the Princess Margaret Hospital functioning efficiently to reduce the unconscionable waits of people who are sick, in pain and perhaps dying for lack of timely intervention. Let’s give government scholarships to medical students who will specialize in e-medicine and contract to work in Family Island communities. In tandem, establish a web-based consultation system for the assistance of physicians and nurses in communities that do not have the population mass to sustain mini-hospitals. Finish, equip, staff and activate the mini-hospitals that exist. Digitize patient files, make public the names and qualification of suppliers to the health care system. Show us an exact plan of how the proposed National Health Tax money will be better apportioned, managed and audited than what now obtains under the Public Hospitals Authority. Why has government tried so hard to besmirch the reputation of the Auditor General and several reputable accounting firms, who have found incompetence at best and malfeasance at worst? Show us the money!
Economic Diversification: I propose that we talk less of “jobs and more jobs” and the kind of employment that teeters dangerously on a tightrope over the abyss of despair and want, when investors and government fall out. Let’s stop institutionalizing a new slavery and colonialism by increasing dependence on handouts and the Big-Daddy-will-take-care-of-you, plantation mentality and preach more self-reliance and a faultless work ethic when there are jobs. Bahamians have long proven to be highly creative. Let government get out of the business of handouts, which is only a platform for assuring a biddable electorate. It is time to empower people to self-reliance and a truer independence. Promote more creative cottage industries and adopt the true role of governments—that of facilitation of opportunity through timely and just legislation and fair and “transparent” management of public assets.
For those who are in love with the notions of revoking citizenship, let me just say that, despite my name, I was born in a settlement deep in the heart of one of the almost forgotten islands of The Bahamas to parents, grandparents, great grandparents and fore-parents even further back who were also born in these blessed islands I love so dearly. Or has it become treasonous to love one’s country and refuse to remain silent in the face of its rapid unravelling owing to uncaring and corrupt politics?
A very pretty wedding took place at St. Agnes Church this morning, when Mr. Percival J. Hanna of Meallett’s Orchestra, and organist of St. Agnes Church, was married to Miss Leola [Leona], eldest daughter of the late Mr. Chas. Butler and Mrs. Butler of the Southern District, by Rev. Canon George, assisted by Revs. Senior and Tillard. The bride and party arrived at the church at 7:30 a.m. where they were met by the Choir, and the Gym Club, (of which Miss Butler was a member), under Nurse Wood. The club formed a guard of honour and strewed their colours on the ground as the bride passed, leaning on the arm of her uncle, Mr. Herman Butler, who gave her away. Mr. John Forbes stood as best man. Miss Gladys Bailey presided at the organ and some of Mr. Hanna’s friends in the Orchestra provided other music. After the wedding a photograph of the party was taken by Mr. A. E. Armbrister of Armbrister’s Studio, and the party proceeded to the groom’s home in Meadow’s Street, where they will hold a reception this evening.
