The Silly Season? This Too Shall Pass Away

More and more these weeks and months leading up to the coming general elections are being described in various quarters as the “silly season”.

That is meant, presumably, that the players in the ongoing political debate are prone to saying things they would not ordinarily say, making charges and laying blames they know could never be substantiated, and generally entering into exchanges which are frivolous and sometimes asinine when there are genuine and pressing issues crying out for sensible argument.

To a degree, perhaps all that is fine, providing as it does a kind of comic relief – as Shakespeare often insinuated in his tragedies – in between the heavy sessions concentrating on the planks of the manifestos of the various contending political organisations.

Politicians of all shades are often fascinated by large crowds, particularly crowds of their own known supporters, and the more the crowd applauds and wave pom-poms and and yell for more, the more the speaker heaps on what often is largely and perhaps essentially bull, with some of them actually dancing to the music.

All that has become part of the silly season, when the chief objective is to impress the electorate to the extent that on election day the people will respond by voting for the most impressive party or individual.

Already, even before there is an indication of whether election day will be weeks or months away, the remarks of vitriol and vituperation have begun flying fast and to an extent furiously, with parties charging against one another with political ferocity.

Of course the insinuation of the Democratic National Alliance into the fray has tended to make a difference in the ongoing tenor of the debate, but that has only added a third dimension to what in this season, for a good part of the electorate, is reduced to little more than confusion.

Up through the years there have been incidents during campaigns which may have been considered ridiculous or laughable, but which, at the end of the day, have actually helped to dull the sharp edge of the constant contention.

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Back in 1946, for example, when the late Sir Henry Taylor tested the political waters for the first time, he encountered a variety of situations on the campaign trail which were alternately hilarious and heart-breaking.

Taylor, who seven years later was to become one of the three founders of the Progressive Liberal Party, had offered as a candidate for his native Long Island in a a bye-election necessitated by the resignation from the House of Assembly of the representative, Guilbert Dupuch.

Taylor was virtually penniless at the time, and in fact had to search around for the fifty pounds for his nomination fee. Yet this penniless man, who years later would become the third governor general of the Bahamas, had the gall to boast that he would not pay a penny for a vote.

His opponent in the face was Alexander Knowles, a successful farmer whose son, James, would one day represent Long Island in the House an serve as a cabinet minister in the Free National Movement government.

It was a rough campaign for the penniless Henry Taylor, but he roughed it and toughed it against a strong and well heeled adversary, some of whose campaign generals began spreading the word that Taylor was a heavy drinker and therefore not fit to sit in the House of Assembly.

One night when he was speaking during a campaign meeting in Glinton’s in the north of the island, when he knew that a cousin of Alexander Knowles was in the audience. He told the crowd that he was well aware of the accusations that he was a drunkard.

“I am not a drunkard,” he said, “but I have been talking to you for the last hour, and my throat is dry. Have any of you gentlemen in he audience a bottle in your pocket? Please bring it to the platform that that I can relieve my thirst.”

Several bottles were brought up, and Taylor took a sip from each.

“Now, gentlemen, if any of you do not drink, I want you to vote for the teetotaler, Mr, Alexander Knowles. Those of you that drink, please vote for me. I guarantee that I will beat him.”

Henry Taylor lost that election, but went on the win the seat in the general election of 1949.

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Sometimes the silly season turned tragic, as during the campaign for the fateful 1972 general election, the first in which the then infant Free National Movement was a contender.

The body of an FNM supporter and campaign worker, Barry Major from Grant’s Town, was murdered in Perpall Tract. There was an extended investigation, and his killers were eventually executed.

Then there were those incidents in the 1956 general elections which cold hardly have altered the outcome of that poll, but which were learning trees. The PLP had been established in 1953, and offered a full slate of 29 candidates in New Providence and the Out Islands.

One of those incidents involved the West End seat in Grand Bahama where the party’s candidate went missing on nomination day, and so he Bay Street candidate won the seat by acclamation. One report was that the PLP’s man had been “detained” in South Florida and couldn’t get back in time.

Another story was that he had received a handsome gift of several hundred pounds, via Bay Street, not to nominate.

Then there was the election in Acklins and Crooked Island, where the PLP’s candidate was young A. Loftus Roker.

The PLP had won four seats in New Providence, and one of the victors, Randol Fawkes, was traveling by mailboat to Crooked Island to assist the young candidate during the last days of the campaign there.

Apparently on that trip Roker revealed to Randol Fawkes that he, Loftus, was not quite 21, the legal voting age, which also meant the legal age for nominating to run for a seat.

The late Eugene Dupuch won the seat, and it was said that through the discretion of Kendal G.L. Isaacs, who was then Solicitor General, that legal action was not taken against Loftus Roker, who in later years was elected to the House of Assembly and served in several cabinet posts in the PLP government.

Most likely general elections this year will not take place until somewhat nearer the summer, and so the silly season will have to be endured for some time yet. The angry exchanges will continue, with even close friends or relatives lashing out in political anger, most of which will be regretted when the elections are over.

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In the meantime, the season must be endured, and Bahamians might find some solace in the story of an eastern monarch who had seen and done just about everything and, bored, he summoned some of his wisest advisors and ask them to go and search for an expression that would bring him hope.

They searched diligently, and after a time returned to the monarch and handed him a parchment on which they had written, “And this too shall pass away.”

So it shall. So it shall.

‘Hoolie’ Seymour: the epitome of the real Bahamas

(For The Punch – Issue 12 January 2012)

In each community, in New Providence and no doubt in the Family Islands, there has always existed a mainstream circle of male friends who come together at no designed, agreed or specified time to share memories of what used to be and what has transpired as a result, and to hold forth on the present passing scene.

They have traditionally been of diverse political and religious persuasions, mostly older men who have passed through several generations and have experienced all the changing scenes of life in The Bahamas, stretching far before the coming of majority rule in 1967.

When one passes there is a void, a vacuum, a terrible dent in the fabric of the fraternity, but the group moves on in a kind of wordless understanding that they have indeed over the years become a peculiar group.

This is about Kenneth Aaron Seymour, part of a Grant’s Town group of sporting,game-playing enthusiasts, who passed away last December. But let us first delve into the nature of such groups in Grant’s Town through the generations.

Most weekday afternoons down Blue Hill Road under an ageless seagrape tree, there has for years existed an interesting convention of older Bahamian men engaged in a hotly contested game of dominos.

The tree, located immediately south of Rodgers Corner, has a network of leaves so thick that residents underneath could easily withstand medium rainfall, especially when it came at a critical juncture of the game when quitting was beyond the thinking of any of the challengers, or the ever-present audience hovering.

Among the group of players there is a steady contingent of locals – older gentlemen who reside in the general Grant’s Town or Bain Town area, and who obviously find delight in spending leisure time in the company of old friends, playing or observing, and often engaging in casual conversation about the passing scene or the trend of current activities.

 From time to time the group is joined by game-playing zealots from outside the immediate community but who for years have added refreshing colour and challenge to the gathering. enthusiasts

These have included such as the Rev. Addison Turnquest, the unconventional Anglican priest some referred to as the Ayatollah, who, interestingly and obviously with the sanction of the late Anglican bishop Michael Eldon, contested a seat for the Free National Movement in the 1982 general elections.

Another fierce regular contender is attorney Sir Cyril Fountain, who once served as the Member of Parliament for North Long Island, then went on to become a justice of the Supreme Court. He ended up as Supreme Court Justice.

Over the years the gathering has been a sort of continuation of traditional male camaraderie in historic Grant’s Town. Back in the 1940s and 1950s, when the late MP Spurgeon Bethel operated Neely’s Bar at Rodgers Corner and Blue Hill Road, men used to gather to play Awari* and discuss the leading topics of the day.

Even more celebrated than that was the traditional gathering of men, led by the late, prolific undertaker Gerald Dean, playing Awari, dominos and checkers outside the Cotton Tree Bar farther up Blue Hill Road opposite the Southern Recreation Grounds.

Of historic interest is the fact that it was there at the front of the Cotton Tree Bar back in June 1942, as the Burma Road riot was bubbling, that the Provost Marshall officially read the Riot Act, declaring a dusk to dawn curfew.

Of course the centrepiece of that Grant’s Town male comradeship was the great silk cotton tree which was located on the eastern side of Blue Hill Road between Lewis and Cameron Streets, a half block south of St. Agnes Church, with its sprawling roots extending to the middle of the road, so that at that point traffic often became one-way.

There especially on Sunday mornings the men gathered to have their shoes shined by the legendary Ralph and his small team of workers. There the men, some of them leading professionals inside and beyond the community, debated the large and fatal issues.

The men, just about all of them now passed into eternity, included such as Members of the House of Assembly Bert Cambridge and Dr. C.R. Walker, Gerald Dean, Robert Turnquest, Spurgeon Bethel, Booze Rodgers, Big Hutch, Earl “Bing” Cambridge, Randol Fawkes, Jim Russell, and on occasion the quite knowing and loquacious Dr. Cleveland Eneas. 

Sometimes they debated well past noon, when the bell at St. Agnes would begin pealing, announcing the termination of the 10.30 a.m. Service, and it was not unusual for the church’s rector, Canon Milton Cooper, in his flowing black robe, to venture over to catch a piece of the action.

That had been the nature of Grant’s Town up through the years, where the men, their day’s work finished, would often gather for a game, for hearty argument and chatter, and, most of them, for a little of what St. Paul noted was good for the stomach’s sake.

It yet continues today under the seagrape tree, even though, from time to time, a member of that venerable band slips away forever.

That happened on 16 December last year, when Kenneth Aaron Seymour, who seemed always to light up all of Grant’s town, slipped into eternity following a bout with cancer. On 22 December, a handful of days before Christmas, his funeral services were held at his home Church of St. Mary the Virgin. .

He had been born in Cat Island in 1931, and at his homegoing service the sermon was delivered by the Rev. Canon Warren Rolle, a fellow Cat Islander, who had served as rector of St. Mary’s until 2007.

 A proud product of the old Government High School in Nassau Court, Kenneth Seymour, long called “Hoolie” by his friends, was one of those articulate Bahamians who, from boyhood, read voraciously, and in later years enjoyed watching films of worth and value.

It was no doubt he spoke with a stentorian tongue, his tenor and diction rising and falling according to the statement or the message it was his intent to convey. In that regard he often reminded one of classical educators like Rosalie “Rosa” Smith, Mildred Dillette, and headmaster Theodore Glover.

 It was no wonder that in the late 1940s and early 1950s he became keenly interested in plays written by then John Taylor, who had grown up in St. Mary’s Church. He began assisting in the stage work of the performances, which took place usually in St. Benedict’s Hall on the grounds of The Priory on West Street.

 Those were John Taylor’s productions of such as “Man with Maid”, “Gaolbird”, “Columbus”. and “O, Absolom”, and the main players were usually Calvin Cooper, Matthew Sawyer, Gertrude Gibson, and Sylvia Coakley.

Eventually John Taylor went off to New York to study, especially theatre, at Columbia University. However he switched to Theology instead, and was eventually ordained as a deacon and then a priest in the Episcopal Church.

In 1956 Fr. Taylor returned to The Bahamas, and eventually became a curate at St. Agnes Church in Grant’s Town, under Canon Milton Cooper. In 1958 he wrote a play,“The House on Calamity Street” for performance on the stage at St. Agnes Schoolroom. His carefully chosen cast included Kenneth Seymour, Edwin Archer, Frederica Turnquest, Gertrude Gibson, Cynthia Love, and The White Boy.

Years later after Fr. Taylor had returned to the U.S. And served in several churches there, he again returned to The Bahamas, and was attached to St. Mary’s. Whilst he was there St. Agnes observed its 150^th anniversary of Dedication, and the rector, Archdeacon William Thompson, requested Fr. Taylor to write an appropriate play to mark the occasion.

Thus came the historic work, “Agnes of Rome”, which Fr. Taylor personally directed. Among his chosen cast was his old standby, Kenneth Seymour. That was 1991 when Hoolie was 60 and still strutting his powerful stuff across the stage, which on that occasion was the Lower Gardens of Government House.

Often in Grant’s Town when he was not playing dominos, Hoolie would chat happily abut the old days and the thrill of theatre. It was a thrill, he used to remind, second only to his service, wherever required, in the sanctuary of St. Mary’s Church, right up until last summer, even when his health was failing.

Today in Grant’s Town, Hoolie is already missed as that exuberant, silver-haired fixture with the stentorian voice who enjoyed the company of his fellow Bahamians, who was once toasted as as outstanding thespian on he local stage, and who, for all his 80 years enjoyed every cycle of his colourful life.

 Kenneth Aaron “Hoolie” Seymour was truly the stuff of which the real Bahamas is made . . . for what it’s worth.

* AWARI: An abstract African game also known as the “African Bean Game”.

“Awari is an ancient game originating from Africa which consists of 12 holes in the ground (called houses) split up into 2 rows of 6. Designed for two players, each player selects a row as their territory. Each house starts with 4 seeds in it.” READ MORE

>> Read more about and PLAY ONLINE HERE

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.

Please Get It Right: Today’s FNM Grew from a Pained PLP

For The Punch – Issue 3 March 2011
by P. Anthony White

In this or another space from time to time we recount the birth and development of the Progressive Liberal Party, starting in late 1953, as the beginning of the thrust of the Bahamian masses to that historic first general elections in 1956, majority rule in 1967, and eventually to full statehood in 1973.

At each stage there was a vibrant presence of democracy, and particularly following the birth and development of the Free National Movement, and organisation which, it could be said, sprang from the bowels of the PLP, the result of the ambitions of some further to test the buoyancy of that democracy.

And so that birth, development of the FNM, a party which this year marks its 40th anniversary has evolved as an integral part of the modern history of The Bahamas, and Bahamians, especially the young, no matter what their political inclinations, have a right and a need to know.

What should be of interest to historians is that the Free National Movement did not come about as the result of the gentle or simmering yearning huddled masses yearning to breathe free, but rather like the restless awakening of a passionate woman who refuses to remain blind when light is shimmering all around. Those would-be historians need to get the story right.

The fact of the matter is that the events of 19 August 1992 – when the PLP government was toppled after nearly 26 years in office – became a powerful climax to a national political odyssey which began technically in the House of Assembly on 13 May 1970.

That was when the maverick Member of Parliament for the St. Barnabas constituency of New Providence, Randol Francis Fawkes, who has served as Minister of Labour and Commerce in the first PLP government, moved the following Resolution:

“Whereas Government, by its failure to consult with investors prior to the passing of Legislation nullifying the effects of certain provisions of Government’s agreements with local and foreign businessmen has caused the economic dislocation of the resources of the Commonwealth.
“AND WHEREAS moneys are being paid out to the Hon. Clifford Darling, the Minister of State, when unlike other Ministers no specific office of duties assigned to him are shown in the Bahamas Official Gazette.
“BE IT RESOLVED, that this House has no confidence in the Government.”

It was at that point that the MP for Freetown, the late Simeon Bowe. Who was then a Parliamentary Secretary in the PLP government, moved that Mr. Fawkes’ Resolution be amended by deleting all the words of the Resolution and substituting, instead, the following:

“Whereas this Government has a responsibility to the people of this Country to discharge its duty in their best interest and,
“Whereas this Government is discharging such duties (and) has done so to the satisfaction of the people:
“BE IT RESOLVED, that this House has confidence in the Government.”

The question was put and passed, and the record shows that the House resolved that the Resolution be amended as agreed..

It was a pivotal point in Bahamian political history, for it was then technically that black Bahamians were challenged publicly to support or vote against the black Bahamian government.

Some Members were absent from the chamber when the matter was put. Of those present, staunch supporters of the government and the prime minister, Lynden Pindling, remained seated during the vote, suggesting their were voting their confidence.

Of those who stood, indicating a lack of confidence, a majority were members of the then opposition United Bahamian Party. There were other members standing against the government, however, who were PLPs. Among them were the eight, including two cabinet ministers – Cecil Wallace-Whitfield and Dr. Curtis McMillan – who became known afterwards as the Dissident Eight.

At that time, the PLP government was barely three-and-a-half years old, but problems with the leadership had existed since the party’s convention of 1968, and indeed when Cecil Wallace Whitfield stood as one of those lacking confidence in the government and in the prime minister it was the second occasion upon which he had been openly and publicly defiant.

Yet Wallace Whitfield and Dr. Curtis McMillan remained in the PLP cabinet following that May 13 vote. Instead of any flickers of conciliation or mending of broken fences, the political chasm inside the PLP had widened.

By the PLP convention in October 1970 – five months after the no-confidence attempt – there were clear indications of a breaking point. Cecil Wallace-Whitfield, them the Member of Parliament for St. Agnes, was Minister of Education and Culture, and had performed admirably in that capacity, including new teaching concepts and learning, introducing revolutionary learning aids.

PLP leader Lynden Pindling delivered the convention’s keynote address on the first day, and a volatile keynote it was indeed. Lashing out at his critics and obviously confident about the measure of his support in the party, he warned those who disagreed with him: “if you can’t fish, cut bait; if you can’t cut bail, get the hell out of the boat”.

Yes, as The Tribune’s Nicki Kelly wrote back then, it was a masterful speech by a master politician, and it contained just the ingredients, the challenge, the temptation for revolution inside the party. Cecil Wallace-Whitfield had been born a revolutionary.

The crowds cheered wildly, others quietly drank in the great challenge, and yet others sucked their teeth and strode from the convention hall at the Sheraton British Colonial Hotel.

As each convention night progressed, cabinet ministers, one after the other, reported on the activities of the relevant portfolios, setting out also what future plans there were. It was not until Thursday evening that the Minister of Education and Culture was scheduled to report to the convention.

Cecil Wallace Whitfield was already not a totally liked figure in the PLP by those who misunderstood or misread his thinking in standing up and daring the brilliant black prime minister, and especially in standing shoulder to shoulder with the white Bay Street MPs when they voted against the PLP government five months earlier.

But Cecil Wallace Whitfield had never planned to participate in any popularity contest at the time, or at any other time. He strode up the centre aisle of the convention toward the platform, whilst Coconut Grove MP Edmund Moxey played rousing music on the organ.

The minister presented an expansive and detailed report on his portfolio, reading in measured tones from neatly typed five-by-seven index cards. He finished his official report and shoved the pile of cards into his coat pocket. At the same time he extracted a second set of a few cards from another pocket. He looked around the hushed hall and the organ started to play. He turned deliberately to Edmund Moxey and said that he wanted no music.

A few minutes before that the guards at Government House had opened the gates to admit a car in which rode Edwin “Vikey” Brown, and Ms. Beryl Pierce. One was a St. Agnes constituency general and the other the private secretary to Cecil Wallace Whitfield at the Ministry of Education.

Reading from his second set of cards, the Minister of Education told the convention that he had listened to all that had occurred during the week. He spoke of agreed principles which had sustained the PLP through the years, and about a philosophy and commonality of purpose which had brought the PLP to the seat of government, but which, he felt, had been violated.

All that he could not repudiate, he said, “no matter how grave my disillusionments”. Then, Cecil Wallace-Whitfield said, at 8 p.m. that evening he had had delivered to His Excellency the Governor his resignation from the Government of The Bahamas.

He then uttered what became his immortal epigram: “Free at last. Free at last. My soul is dancing!”.

From the West End and Bimini delegation table near the front, MP Warren Levarity leapt to his feet shouting an anguished, “No, no. Not yet, Man!”

Others were screaming in disbelief whilst the greater numbers were shrieking in something akin to merriment. At his Kemp’s Bay constituency table, PLP leader Lynden Pindling sat quietly, unsmiling amidst the pandemonium swirling about the room.

In the days and weeks that followed Dr. McMillan resigned as Minister of Health, and Dr. Elwood Donaldson gave up his post as Sports Commissioner. The troops, led by the gallant eight who had stood in Parliament on 13 May that year, rallied, and before the end of 1970, a curious creature known as the Free PLP was on the scene.

It was the first necessary step from the PLP to the Free National Movement, and the historical revisionists, no matter where they stand politically, need to get it right.

Get it right . . . for what it’s worth.

Those Diastrous, Unforgettable Elections of 1977

THE WHITE FILE For The Punch – 28 February 2011

We often speak of how more than half a century ago, when we were a budding teenager, we used to sit almost at the feet of our mentor the late Cyril St. John Stevenson, and listen to his myriad tales of political revolution and evolution in The Bahamas.

Today we often reflect on how much of what he recited had gone before had a definitive bearing on the existing state of political affairs in the colony.

Back then we were not sitting physically at Stevenson’s feet, but moving about in the print shop of the Nassau Herald on Lewis Street as he banged away on his portable typewriter with its lost “e” key, as he typed scathing editorials condemning the Bay Street demagogues.

He spoke of how sitting House of Assembly politicians like Dr. C. R. Walker and Bert Cambridge could have brought about radical political change had they adopted different political tactics.

Walker and Cambridge were the two members of the House of Assembly for the Southern District of New Providence back in the late 1940s, and were prominent parts of the Citizens Committee, which was organised in 1950 to protest Bay Street’s banning of the movie, No Way Out, which featured Bahamian actor Sidney Poitier for racial reasons.

That grouping had attracted the support of quite a number of the black Bahamian middle class, like the late Justice Maxwell Thompson and could perhaps have made a significant difference in the political outlook of the masses, except that the middle class was prepared to go only so far.

Successive elections, Stevenson used to say, such as the polls of 1949, could have gone dramatically in a different direction, if the will of the masses had been marshalled and directed differently. Stevenson ran for reelection as an independent. The PLP shifted Pindling from New Providence to Andros, where he defeated Stevenson.

Years later, long after he had quite the front line political scene, and when he was getting on in years, we sat quietly with Stevenson as he recounted election after election, attaching special significant to each.

We agreed that perhaps the most celebrated – and most wrenching for many – of all general elections held in the modern Bahamas were the historic polls of 1977, when the electorate was stretched in three political directions. But let us historically backtrack for a spell.

Following the 1967 general elections which ushered in majority rule, the Progressive Liberal Party went on to a landslide victory on 10 April 1968 in an election occasioned by the death of Shirlea Member of Parliament Uriah McPhee.

Not long after that, however, things in the PLP began to sour politically, in fact as early as the PLP’s 1969 convention. Even from then careful observers could detect that St. Agnes MP and cabinet minister Cecil Wallace-Whitfield had his eye on the political crown in the party.

By 1970 premier Lynden Pindling had already fired two cabinet ministers, Warren Levarity and Arthur Foulkes, and at that year’s convention Wallace Whitfield announced that he had resigned from the cabinet. He went on to lead seven other MPs and a number of PLP dissidents in what was known as the Free PLP.

By 1972 there came into being the Free National Movement, which comprised the PLP dissidents, former members of the dismantled United Bahamian Party, and former members of Paul Adderley’s National Democratic Party. Later that year the FNM went into campaign battle against the ruling PLP under the theme, “All Together”.

Fevers ran high in that 1972 campaign, and the FNM contracted public relations experts from Jamaica who had successfully delivered the election in that country for Michael Manley. However, the main issue during the campaign was that of independence the following year, and the PLP, understandably, pushed that emotional issue to the hilt.

That was in September of 1972, and when the votes were counted, the FNM had been defeated dismally. Most dismal of the whole defeat was the fact that every single one of the original eight dissidents – Cecil Wallace-Whitfield, Dr. Curtis McMillan, Dr, Elwood Donaldson, Arthur Foulkes, Warren Levarity, George Thompson, Maurice Moore, and James Shepherd – had lost his seat.

The blow was severe, but a new FNM candidate, Kendal G. L. Isaacs, had won the House of Assembly seat for Fort Montagu. He subsequently became Leader of the Official Opposition. At least for a time, there was peace in the Opposition.

Inevitably, however, by about 1975, there came the famous split in the Opposition, and Cecil Wallace-Whitfield was once more at the centre of it all, surrounded by many who had been with him from the days of the Free PLP.

The other side was formed into the Bahamian Democratic Party. When the 1977 elections were called, both sides offered complements of candidates, some very familiar political faces.

Contesting the election with Whitfield on the FNM side were Bazel Nichols, Frank Watson, Charles Hunt, Clayton Taylor, James Wood, Granville Bain, Audley Kemp, Sterling Quant, Bernard Mortimer, Rudolph Knowles, James Shepherd, and Emerick Knowles.

Additional FNM candidates were James Thompson, Chester Thompson, Peter Galanos, Lucius Moree, Basil Neymour, Oswald Munnings, Warren Levarity, Garnet Levarity, Maurice Moore, Giles Newbold, Edwin Brown, Bill Facquharson and Wideon Pyfrom.

Meanwhile on the BDP side the slate included Geoffrey Johnstone, Roland Symonette, Basil Kelly, Tommy Robinson, Orville Turnquest, Arthur Foulkes, Henry Bostwick, Janet Bostwick, Fred Ramsey, Edmund Moxey, Godfrey Pinder, Clifford Cooper, Edward Barrett, Peter Christie, Erwin Knowles, Norman Solomon, Geoffrey Brown, George Baker, Cyril Tynes and Michael Lightbourn.

In the lead-up to nominations, Whitfield’s political right-hand man, Bazel Nichols, ran shuffle diplomacy between the two sides, resulting in tacit agreement that in places such as North End Long Island the FNM would not mount an opposition candidate. The same was to happen in Governor’s Harbour, Eleuthera, where the BDP did not send a candidate. The FNM also nominated no candidates in Shirlea and Crooked Island.

Additionally, the BDP sent no candidates in Pine Ridge and High Rock, Grand Bahama; in Inagua; in Kemp’s Bay and Mangrove Cay, Andros; and in South Beach and Grant’s Town in New Providence.

During the campaign, from the political platforms, both the FNM and the BDP carefully aimed their cannons at the PLP, carefully and sensible avoiding any criticism of each other.

In the meantime from his own political platform, the wily PLP leader, Lynden Pindling, poked fun at the severed opposition, noting laughingly that, “they were all together, now they are all apart”.

Otherwise in the opposition camps, some races were extremely painful, because they saw close personal friends opposing each other, because they were running as part of opposing political slates.

Such was the case, for example, of the Delaporte constituency, where close friends Arthur Foulkes and Bazel Nichols were representing the BDP and the FNM respectively. Both were defeated by the PLP’s Philip Pinder. In another such case the FNM’s Frank Watson found himself facing the BDP’s Clifford Cooper, with Paul Adderley as the PLP’s candidate.

Mr. Adderley, who as a PLP was first elected to the House of Assembly in 1961, triumphed in the 1977 polls.

Those 1977 elections had proven not only that at the time the PLP under Lynden Pindling was practically an invincible political fighting machine, but that a fragmented opposition, no matter how astute the leadership, would forever fail in The Bahamas.

For a few years following those elections, there were a few other political spin-offs from the mainstream opposition, but by the 1982 elections, the opposition was once again all together. Seat-wise, there were some gains in 1982, but, most importantly, Janet Bostwick, as an FNM candidate, became the first female ever elected to the Bahamian Parliament.

There were even greater gains in 1987, and eventually, in 1992, the Free National Movement triumphed at the polls, with Hubert Ingraham as the party’s leader.

Interestingly, during those historic 1977 elections, Hubert Ingraham was chairman of the governing Progressive Liberal Party.

Finding Peace Against the Raging Tide of Politics

P. Anthony

THE WHITE FILE For The Punch – 20 December 2010

by P. Anthony White

General elections, in The Bahamas tend to bring out the “ugly” in Bahamians who take the issue perhaps far too seriously, forgetting that there will come tomorrow when, like it or not, they will have no choice but to live with one another.

We remember a situation back in 2007 just after that year’s general elections, in which the Free National Movement had emerged victorious. There was bitter resentment on the part of some supporters of the losing Progressive Liberal Party, especially the young.

One evening in the upstairs bistro in Coconut Grove, the old fellow who was always hanging loose there chalked up his cue stick as he prepared to break the balls for a game of pool with his young police friend from Hospital Lane.

Nearby his nubile young lady, resplendent in a pair of tight-fitting blue jeans and a blouse the colour of brilliant morning sunshine sat sipping a tall glass of Mother Pratt and cranberry juice, watching the man with a deep love and adoration which seemed to bloom with intensity each passing day.

It was twenty-seven days after the general elections, and yet among a group of young fellows playing dominoes in the northeast corner of the establishment there was raging an argument over the outcome of those tempestuous polls.

The old fellow shook his head from side to side with a mixture of disgust and sadness across his brow as he broke the balls, sending the yellow six into a corner pocket as his young opponent chalked up.

On the television monitor above the bar where the buxom barmaid stood with her hands under her chin there was projected the PPV movie, The Pursuit of Happyness with Will Smith.

The other set in the room was tuned to ZNS TV-13, which was carrying a live broadcast of the 72^nd annual session of the Bahamas Baptist National Baptist Missionary and Educational Convention from St. John’s Cathedral of Native Baptists on Meeting Street.

In the corner as a young man dressed in a flaming red T-shirt with the message “It’s A Matter of Trust” slammed a domino tile on the table, he blurted out, “Take that. You’all PLPs ain’t never going to accept that cut hip we done give you’ll.”

“Accept? Accept that you’all done tief some seats and now you’all won’t give the PLP all our Senate seats?” That was one of the other young men at the domino table, as none of them, amazingly, missed a beat in the game.

“Hey, you fellows don’t start that s— in here again,” the barmaid shouted. “The election finish so just go back to what was happening before May 2^nd. Play nice now.”

It was as if she were scolding a couple of youngsters running around the schoolyard, but then that was pretty much reflective of the general attitude in far too many parts of the community these days.

The old fellow listened to the exchange in seething silence as his young pool partner shot fruitlessly.

Then the two of them paused and, along with his amused young lover, set their gaze on the television and the Baptist convention broadcast where, ironically, the subject was peace and national unity following the recent elections.

There bringing greetings to the assembled delegates and guests in the ancient and historic church was the new Minister of National Security and Immigration Tommy Turnquest.

Said the Minister: “This 72^nd Convention comes at a very propitious time in the life of our country, because it is a time when, more that ever in recent times, The Commonwealth of The Bahamas stands urgently in need of healing and of the divine intervention of Almighty God.”

Understandably, that passage completely passed the young fellows playing dominoes and continuing their ferocious political argument centred on the results of the election.

The only difference was that they were now talking in softer tones following the chastisement of the barmaid, who was by this time herself glued to the convention on television.

“Yinna tief Blue Hills,” one said.

Another retorted, “Yeah? Well everybody know you’re tief MICAL.”

“Well, everybody know . . . ”

The old fellow could take it no longer. Slamming the cue ball hard on the table, he bellowed.

“Everybody shut your goddam traps and come over here and listen to what they’re saying to you.”

None of the young fellows moved, but halted their domino game and turned to watch the convention from their corner of the room.

They continued to exchange angry whispers through the remarks by the president of the Bahamas Methodist Conference, and then through a concert piece by a young Baptist band. The old man had sat next to his lady, holding her slim wrist as together they watched.

The preacher was the immediate past president of the Bahamas Christian Council, and in addition to calling for political reform and public disclosure of campaign donations, he too voiced the need for healing and unity.

Neglecting such healing at this time, Rev. William Thompson said, would remain at the nation’s peril.

Only two days earlier when he addressed the Bahamas Christian Council’s National Service of Repentance, Healing and Unity, the Anglican Archbishop of the West Indies had implored Bahamians to stop fighting over the May 2^nd elections.

On that occasion the Most Reverend Drexel Gomez noted:

“Although (the) election is resolved, people are still fighting the election, and we have to leave the election behind us.”

Archbishop Gomez warned that The Bahamas has allowed politics to “get out of hand.”

They were all preaching abiding truths – the highly-placed politicians, the church leaders, the editorial writers, even common folk like the sage old man hanging loose in Mother Pratt’s constituency – and there was no doubt whatsoever that they were perhaps practicing that peace and unity at their respective levels.

Indeed the wonderful spectre of the assemblage in the front row at St. John’s Church last that night – the Governor-General, the Leader of the Opposition, the Minister of National Security and Immigration, and alongside and behind them Government and Opposition parliamentarians – bespoke utter peace and unity.

But how far and how swiftly and how effectively was that message traveling? Who was then and is today taking a firm stand among the corridors of the simple and the unlettered, as in that corner of the upstairs bistro and saying with some authority and finality, enough is enough, and then taking the time to explain exactly why?

Rev. William Thompson was still preaching when the old fellow donned his hat and took his young lady to the front door. He had voted proudly for the FNM on May 2^nd, and she, well, she was a proud member of the Progressive Young Liberals.

“You fellows finish listening to what the man telling you on TV,” he said, then put his arm around the slim waist as he and his young love walked down the stairs, together into the night.

Those two, at least, were enjoying sweet peace, perfect peace.