THE WHITE FILE: Life is cheap? Our common welfare is of no real value?

(For The Punch – Issue 3 January 2012)

“Days and moments quickly flying

blend the living with the dead;

Soon will you and I be lying

each within our narrow bed.”

Edward Caswall

The year 2011 was without doubt the most challenging for The Bahamas in modern times.

The global economic downturn has reverberated locally without mercy, with thousands of Bahamians finding themselves unemployed. The latest chapter pm that score came last week when 71 persons were terminated from their jobs at the various port operations of Hutchinson-Whampoa in Grand Bahama.

SMALL BUSINESS AND THE ROADWORKS

      Others Bahamians in business were fighting an uphill battle to survive in a severely depressed market in which patrons were simply not in a position to patronise in their usual manner..

      On that score, business persons operating along Blue Hill Road, Market Street, Robinson Road, Wulff Road and elsewhere complained bitterly that the government’s massive roadworks had severe negative effects on their income, as customers found it difficult to get to them.

      That was probably true to a very small extent. The truth was that there was simply not that much money in circulation, and no matter how much politicians and others attempted to stir up trouble in that connection, the truth was the truth.

      Ironically, a number of those complaining about the roadworks and the negative effects were the same persons who were long complaining about the poor  condition of the roads. When the work began on the roads, they began complaining out of the other side of their mouths, wanting, as the old folks used to say, to eat their cake and have it too.

      Anyway, all New Providence roads were made usable for the Christmas and New Year holidays, even though, as the government announced in December, the total work on the roads will not be completed until July of this year.

THE AGENDA OF THE UNIONS

      It was a year in which trade unions appeared to conspire against national progress on a number of important national fronts, practically tempting the government to take extreme action which could have rendered the present administration as being anti-labour.

      There was the contentious matter of the sale of 51 percent of the Bahamas Telecommunications Company to Cable and Wireless. The disposal of part of the corporation had for a long time been on the agenda of governments of both the Free National Movement and the Progressive Liberal Party.

      The Bahamas Telecommunications and Public Officers Union and the Bahamas Communications and Public Managers Union  ganged up on the government, organising protests, rallies, walk-outs, and demonstrations, one of which brought on an ugly clash with police.

      Nevertheless the government concluded the deal, which was later ratified by the House of  Assembly.

      Later in the year – on the breast of Christmas, in fact – customs and immigration offices threatened industrial action which would have slowed down operations at ports all over the country. Compounding that situation was a threatened work-to-rule by the Bahamas Air Traffic Controllers Union.

POLITICAL PURSUITS

      On the political scene it was a year of much change and rearrangement, perhaps the most dramatic being the establishment of the Democratic National Alliance by independent Bamboo Town Member of Parliament Branville McCartney, who had once served as a junior cabinet minister in the FNM government.

      In mid December in the governing Free National Movement, the minister of Housing, Kenneth Russell, who serves as the MP for High Rock in Grand Bahama, was advised not only that he was being relieved if his cabinet post, but that in the new constituency configuration, he would not be nominated for re-election

      Last year the Progressive Liberal Party had its full to bursting share of political incidents and intrigues which must certainly have thrust the organisation’s leadership into drafts of new strategies.

      Among other issues, in December came the news that the PLP’s MP for North Andros and the Berry Islands, Vincent Peet, would not be offering for e-nomination because of some personal issues. Subsequent reports were that the PLP will nominate Dr. Perry Gomez to replace Mr. Peet.

      Today all three political organisations are in the process of completing slates of candidates for the next general elections, which are scheduled to take place within months, well before the May deadline.

THE CURSE OF CRIME

      Yet what dominated the headlines for the entire year was the extent of crime and criminality in The Bahamas – particularly murder – which had the Royal Bahamas Police Force pretty much on continuous red alert, and grieving families making endless treks to cemeteries.

      By year’s end there had been a total number of 127 murders, the last having been committed last Friday, with barely 35 hours left in the old year. In 2010 the total murder count was 94.

      The police said that a majority of the murders were committed by prolific offenders, and instituted a “Rapid Strike” force which has nevertheless gone a long way in detection and apprehension of criminals.

      The minister of National Security, Tommy Turnquest, on the other hand, publicly criticised the judiciary for being too lax in the granting of bail to known repeat offenders.

      In the third quarter of the year Prime Minister Hubert Ingraham addressed the nation, when he announced a package of legislation which included the restriction of the granting of bail under a number of circumstances.

      Throughout the year the tremendous crimes against the persons have included murder, attempted murder, rape, attempted rape, armed robbery, robbery, and attempted armed robbery. All that is not to mention of minimise the many cases of sexual and other assaults against children.

      In the words of Prime Minister Ingraham, “for some life is cheap; our common welfare is is of no value . . . this vicious assault of crime affects all of us, it destroys lives and damages livelihoods.”

      Yet all that pertains to what the government is doing, to the effectiveness of new legislation, to the work and the successes of members of the Royal Bahamas Police Force. Nothing can have real effect without the will of the people.

DAYS AND MOMENTS QUICKLY FLYING

      In far too many instances of serious crimes in The Bahamas last year, there could have been prevention by family and friends, who looked the other way and chose not to cooperate with police, reporting suspicions or even pointing the finger directly at persons they knew was committing crimes.

      The point is, will that attitude continue into this new year? Will the citizenry continue to look the other way when young boys and girls are viciously assaulted by sexual beasts roaming the neighbourhoods? Will there continue to be this obscene silence as the murdered bodies pile up around the communities?

      It is all a matter of choice when people consider that one day in this new year it could be possible that theirs would be one of the bodies piled up, ready to lie in long, narriw graves.

      Some years ago a German pastor, Martin Niermoller, commenting on the inactivity of German intellectuals following the Nazi rise to power, purging their hosen targets, group by group, wrote the following:

    First they came for the communists,

    and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a communist.

    Then they came for the trade unionists,

    and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a trade unionist.

    Then they came for the Jews,

    and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a Jew.

    Then they came for me

    and there was no one left to speak out for me.

In The Bahamas Ignorant Armies Clash by Night

- for The Punch – Issue 24 March 2011
by P. Anthony White

“ . . . we are here as on a darkling plain
Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight,
Where ignorant armies clash by night.”
Matthew Arnold, DOVER BEACH

This marks the second occasion upon which we have commended the Member of Parliament for Bamboo Town, Branville McCartney, in this space or another, for a display of integrity.

Earlier this week Mr. McCartney, who had been elected to the House of Assembly in May 2007 as a candidate for the Free National Movement, announced that he had resigned his membership with the governing party.

After the elections, in which the FNM was successful and became the government, Mr. McCartney was appointed a state minister, first for Tourism, and subsequently of Immigration. Early last year he resigned his cabinet post, citing an opined difference with the government with regard to policy, but nevertheless expressing his continued support for the FNM and the government.

Again on that occasion, in this space or another, we traced political history back to 1970 when the late Sir Cecil Wallace-Whitfield led seven other Progressive Liberal Party Members of Parliament in supporting a House of Assembly vote of no confidence in the PLP government and in prime minister Lynden Pindling.

At that time the Member of South Beach, the late Carlton Francis, a former headmaster and educator, who was Minister of Finance, on his feet in Parliament reminded the eight dissidents that “there is a path for honourable men to follow when they find they can no longer follow their leader.”

The eight, of course, voluntarily or not, went in a different political direction from their leader, and the result ultimately evolved into the Free National Movement, which served as the government of The Bahamas from 1992 until 2002, and has again been the government since 2007.

For the record, the eight had taken the honourable path suggested by Carlton Francis, and which he was himself eventually to follow when as a cabinet minister he disagreed with the PLP government’s plan and policy to extend casino gambling in The Bahamas.

Today it seems Branville McCartney has chosen to follow that honourable path by tendering his resignation from the FNM, just as he did when he resigned as a cabinet minister.

Twice in relevantly recent times that has happened in the opposition Progressive Liberal Party. That was the case when Malcolm Adderley resigned his Elizabeth House of Assembly seat, prompting an early 2010 bye-election which was won by the PLP’s Ryan Pinder.

It happened again last year when the PLP MP for Kennedy, Kenyatta Gibson, left the PLP and walked across the floor of the House, allying himself politically with the governing FNM.

That is the way things are done by honourable men and women, especially in critical times when political leaders need to be able to rely on their loyal members and supporters, and most especially when leaders need to count committed Parliamentary heads in matters such as the BTC debate now taking place in the House of Assembly.

Prime Minister Hubert Ingraham has already announced his principle that should the House of Assembly vote go against his government’s decision to sell 51 percent of the Bahamas Telecommunications Company to Cable and Wireless, he would consider that a vote of no confidence in his government, and will call early general elections.

We have been around, politically, and we are not certain, from where we sit, that all FNM MPs are acutely aware of the significance of what will take place as a result of the extent of their support of the BTC resolution and how they vote, or of the significance of what the prime minister said with regard to that vote.

Hubert Ingraham, none can afford to forget, especially not at this juncture, long ago proclaimed that he is a man who says what he means and means what he says, and has not yet to date gone back on that proclamation.

Back in 2001, when Mr. Ingraham took the decision that he was ready to step down from the FNM leadership, he caused the party to hold a special convention for the election of a leader-designate. Of the three principal candidates vying for that post – Tennyson Wells, Tommy Turnquest and Algernon Allen – Mr. Turnquest emerged as the winner.

There was a great deal of bitterness in parts of the political camp of the FNM, which was at the time still the government of The Bahamas. That bitterness, and sometimes outward criticism of the party’s leadership, coupled with the issue of the February 2002 Referendum, conspired wickedly to energise the opposition PLP to mount its biggest and most expensive and flambouyant election campaign ever.

The FNM government lost the February 2002 Referendum, and on the heels of that defeat, in the May 2002 general elections, to a great extent because of division and disgruntlement in the party, and not necessarily at the rank and file level, the FNM went into a lost the 2 May 2002 general elections.

Up through the years from time to time, both the Free National Movement and the Progressive Liberal Party have suffered the political pain of fracture in the ranks, fracture sometimes so severe that it erodes party strength and public support, none of which is politically healthy near election time.

We write often of the disastrous 1977 general elections, when the opposition was split completely in half. Many argue that a huge contributing feature in that split came about because in the Free National Movement a dispute arose about the party’s candidate for the South Long Island seat.

On the Cecil Wallace Whitfield side the preference of a candidate was Tennyson Wells, a Long Islander, whilst the Bay Street faction favoured another Long Islander from Mangrove Bush, James Knowles.

There was to be no compromise, yet the impending fracture in the party had to do with infinitely more than the candidacy for Long Island, nor, as others contended, did it involve any sinister attempt of the old Bay Street diehards to regain control of the opposition in the hopes of returning Bay Street to the government.

It had more to do with a clash of strong political personalities in the opposition. Although a forceful, fearless and charismatic individual, Cecil Vincent Wallace Whitfield was also doctrinaire and dogmatic. He believed – and perhaps he had every right to harbour such a belief – that the Free National Movement was his political baby and that was that.

Others in the party, some of them veteran and seasoned politicians, no doubt respected and admired him, but were not prepared to follow blindly. There were yet others who had in another place gone through that “One Man’s Dream” syndrome, and would not endure another running of the episode.

The upshot of it all was a split, with the FNM led by Wallace Whitfield and the new Bahamian Democratic Party headed by Kendal Isaacs. Yes, when came elections, in South Long Island James Knowles was the BDP’s candidate and Tennyson Wells carried the banner for the FNM.

The PLP was able to chalk up a massive win at the polls in that election, a victory rendered even more massive because of the political disarray in the opposition. Yet through wise and tolerant dialogue, the fracture could have been avoided.

If personalities had been prepared to come to the discussion table, checking their egos at the door, that 1977 elections need not have been so disastrous. There was no way even a combined opposition could have triumphed, but at least the fundamental political chord would have remained intact for the next confrontation.

There was the case in the Progressive Liberal Party leading up to the 1997 elections when the party altered the constitution to call a leadership convention to allow for the election of two co deputy leaders to serve under party leader the late Sir Lynden Pindling. The outcome was that Perry Christie and Dr. Bernard Nottage, both former ministers in the PLP government, were elected to those offices.

Following the 1997 election, however, Sir Lynden resigned both as party leader and as a Member of Parliament. There was the need for a new party leader. The candidates were Christie, Nottage, and Philip Galanis. Actually, after the first ballot Bernard Nottage polled more than Christie, but not the required 50 percent.

There had to be another ballot. Philip Galanis pulled out of the race, and Perry Christie sailed to victory. At the next PLP convention Nottage again ran for the leadership, This time Christie stumped him.

That did not go well with Bernard Nottage, who apparently felt that something had gone awry. He soon resigned from the PLP, and went on to establish the Coalition for Democratic Reform, where, in fact, he was joined by such as Phenton Neymour and Charles Maynard, both of whom are now FNM cabinet ministers.

No doubt again much pain and political fracture could have been avoided through consultation and open argument around the table, with egos checked at the door, and party generals and political middlemen kept at bay.

For years in The Bahamas far too often around the political executive table and in the trenches there is mindless warring which dilutes the organisation’s forward battle thrust, and especially at times when there is a desperate need for all hand on deck, and fully accountable.

The ancient writer Thucydides presented an account of a battle during the Peloponnesian War which occurred on a beach during the invasion of Sicily by the Athenians. That confrontation took place at night, and the attacking army became so disoriented that in the darkness some of the soldiers were actually killing each other.

There is a lesson there for politicians and political organisations who cannibalise inside their groups because they often confuse friend with foe, lashing out left and right, sometimes ignorantly, often with sinister deliberation, seldom pausing to ponder the possible effect on the cause at hand.

That has, over the many years, been the sad case in both the PLP and the FNM, both as government and as opposition.

Back in the 19th century, the English poet Matthew Arnold commented on such a situation, no doubt drawing on the battle account rendered by Thucydides centuries before, whilst honeymooning with his bride near Dover Beach, Kent in England, penned the classic poem, DOVER BEACH, some of the last lines of the final stanza which reads:

“Ah, love, let us be true
To one another . . . we are here as on a darkling plain
Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight,
Where ignorant armies clash by night.”

Far too often in The Bahamas have political battles been lost because supposed allied soldiers war on darkling plains like ignorant armies clashing by night . . . for what it’s worth.

Happy Birth to former parliamentarians Frank Howard Watson and Kendal Wellington Nottage, both born on this date in 1940, a very good year.