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.

WHITE FILE: Thanks to the BCB, too many still walk in darkness

(Punch – 9 January 2012)

“I have always been glad of the company of my fellow sinners.

But, Lord, preserve me from these paper saints.”

ANONYMOUS

Last week the Royal Bahamas Police Force unveiled a bold strategic plan to make the year 2012 safer for citizens.

As part of that programme, Police Commissioner Ellison Greenslade said that the Force will depend heavily on the Church in The Bahamas to assist in the massive effort to ensure that in the new year there is not a repetition of the bloody and lawless scourge of 2011.

As 2011 drew to a close, the Bahamas Christian Council issued a statement calling for peace, stating: “We appeal to all Bahamians to end this year and begin the new year in a culture of thanksgiving, prayers and intercessions. To do anything else opens the doors for a new year far worse than this dying one.”

The Council called on Bahamians everywhere to remember that the depth of thecountry’s social and moral problems all need divine intervention.

It was refreshing to hear the Christian Council speaking out in such a meaningful manner, but we were nevertheless bemused to read in a local newspaper last Friday a headline, “Call for Ban on Porn”.

The headline was followed by a story which revealed that the Bahamas Christian Council had called for a ban on pornographic movies appearing as part of on Cable Bahamas’ programming.

It seems the Council, following some intensive “research” on the subject, handed an official recommendation to the Utilities Regulation and Competition Authority’s draft Code of Practise for Content Regulation.

Interestingly, the Council said it had arrived at a position on the matter after watching twelve X-rated films at the home of a senior citizen. The level of titillation in the room during those dozen showings must indeed have been frenzied, no matter how holy and devout and divinely led the members of the viewing panel.

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But let us not hastily judge the judges. Our chief concern here is that through the many years the Bahamas Christian Council has appeared to be extremely selective on the pubic issues the Council decides to address, to protest against, and, where sufficiently genuine and important, to attempt adjustment or change in the government’s posture or the public’s mindset.

We recall come time back when the Council raised a hue and cry against the arrival of a cruise ship whose passengers happened to be homosexual and lesbian couples. Yet time after time there are cases of gay Bahamians, some of them teachers, who sexually molest innocent children.

The protestations and recommendations of the Bahamas Christian Council are, to say the least, as the saying used to go, as quiet as a church mouse.

There has, of course, been the neverending case of the Council’s position on the matter of the numbers business in The Bahamas, an issue stretching back to years before majority rule.

It has been an issue with which successive governments of the old United Bahamian Party, the Progressive Liberal Party, and the Free National Movement have wrestled, but could arrive at no point of resolution because, it is widely believed, of the influence of the Bahamas Christian Council.

The Council, an organisation with what has been seen as a litany or flexible principles, has traditionally said NO to gambling, beginning in the early 1960s when the UBP government refused to bow and allowed casino gambling by issuing exemptions to the colony’s anti-gambling laws.

The Progressive Liberal Party government of the late prime minister Sir Lynden Pindling back in 1979 actually drafted legislation which would have legalised a lottery in The Bahamas. The matter went to Parliament for a First Reading, but never went any further.

The then powerful Bahamas Christian Council’s continuing position on gambling powerfully prevailed. Politicians were not prepared to risk their popularity and electability by angering the Church.

That position prevailed, ironic and hypocritical in its nature, despite the quite obvious fact that so much of the proceeds of winning numbers-players ended up each Sunday in the collection plate, to a great extent funding the rich and expensive lifestyles of pastors who shamelessly ascend pulpits and rave against gambling.

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Again and again over the years ministers of the gospel, real and spurious, married and single, have been accused of depraved social misconduct in their churches and in the community. Some have ended up before the courts, some in cells at Her Majesty’s Prison.

None can recall the Bahamas Christian Council expressing little more than disappointment that one of its own has fallen from the throne of grace and offering regrets to the affected families and congregations.

It is sad and unfortunate that last week the Bahamas Christian Council might have rendered itself ridiculous in the extreme with the statement regarding the broadcasting of pornographic movies as part of the programming of Cable Bahamas.

The BCB pushed the point that the decency and standards of The Bahamas will erode over time because of the showing of pornographic movies, and urged URCA put the protection of children above “the perverted preferences” of adults, going further to recommend times when explicit movies may be shown.

“Children are staying up later and getting up earlier, and many of them have radios, televisions, and internet access in their bedrooms. Accordingly, we believe that the watershed period should be between 11pm and 4am,” the BCB said.

Well, it would seem that is a matter of responsible parental control, and church pastors from their pulpits have an infinitely greater authority and responsibility to influence parents than Cable Bahamas or URCA.

In fact, just what the hell are members of the Bahamas Christian Council doing watching twelve dirty (or “art”?) movies in the home of a senior citizen who, the Council claimed “is ignorant about parental controls and who in any event can’t operate her set top box.”

The Council noted that the woman’s house was frequented by many minors who understand how to use the remote control to navigate the channels and view the pornographic content.

Clearly, it would seem, the Christian Council’s job is to deal with that situation where it exists, in the home and in the congregations. That is part of the proper and effective guidance, education, and shepherding of the flock, and hardly an issue aimed at attracting headlines whilst, somehow, the flock is still merrily watching porn.

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Back in 1973 when the late Dr. Reuben Cooper, as president of the Bahamas Christian Council delivered the Independence sermon on Clifford Park, he chose his text from the second chapter of the First Epistle of St. Peter. The words of that text remain extremely relevant today:

“You are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people; that you should show forth the praises of Him who has called you out of darkness into His marvellous light”

Thanks to today’s Bahamas Christian Council – more concerned with closing an eye here, seeking the headlines there, speaking out only selectively everywhere, and too often ignoring the ignorance of the people – far too many Bahamians have yet to experience that marvellous light.

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Memorable deaths and funerals we have known

(For The Punch – Issue 18 July 2011)
THE WHITE FILE by P.  Anthony White

 The people who pretend that dying is rather like strolling into
the next room always leave me unconvinced.
Death, like birth, must be a tremendous event.
~ J. B. Priestley ~

          Up through the years many writers, and especially poets, equally in former times and in the present, have had a morbid, incessant obsession with death, cemeteries, and the afterlife.

           Yes, even here in The Bahamas we live day after day, week after week with death and funerals, and, like the Irish who have always been passionate about death, wakes and funerals, death is hardly ever simply a passionate episode.

           Perhaps the most demonstrative example of that morbid, incessant obsession with death, funerals and cemeteries was the quite lengthy 19^th century poem by the English writer Thomas Gray titled ELEGY WRITTEN IN A COUNTRY CHURCHYARD.

           In that work, the poet actually took his time walking through a cemetery in Stokes Poges in England, pausing to comment on what might have been in th elife of  the person buried there. At one point he paused to write:

 “Perhaps in this neglected spot is laid

Some heart once pregnant with celestial fire,

Hands that the rod of empire might have swayed

Or waked to ecstasy the living lyre.”

            We recall back in 1959 how when we were only a youngster at school in New York the late American jazz singer Billie Holliday passed away after a long and tragic battle with drug addiction.

          They organised a memorial service  for the occasion, held on Riker’s Island, which sits in the East or Harlem River, midway between, between Manhattan and Queen’s. Thousands turned out and under the food lights paid endless tributes to an ebony songstress who had turn out simply and ruinously to have become an angel flying too close to the ground.

          Then around midnight came the announcement over the loudspeakers that they were about to turn off all the lights, and invited all in the audience to light a match or flick on a cigarette lighter. In the bleak blackness thousands of little lights flickered, and from the speakers came Perry Como’s voice intoning that haunting song:

It is better to light just one little candle,
Than to stumble in the dark!
Better far that you light just one little candle,
All you need’s a tiny spark!

If we’d all say a prayer that the world would be free,
The wonderful dawn of a new day we’ll see!
And, if everyone lit just one little candle,
What a bright world this would be!

          It was a sad, sombre, and  serene scenario in a city which seldom knew utter peace and quietude, but those who were there will never forget New York on that touching occasion when the death of a black megastar singer practically brought to tears the city that never slept.

          There was another occasion in Brooklyn in New York back in the 1960s when a beautiful Bahamian girl from East Street perished tragically.

          Ethel King was truly, as they say in modern parlance, drop dead gorgeous. She was part of the great King family of East Street, which had deep roots in Cat Island. Her sisters were Octavia, former registrar of insurance companies, and Gladys who, like Ethel, had migrated to New York.

           A brother, Roy, had studied law in New York and eventually became a judge in Rochester in upstate New York.

          Ethel had had an unsuccessful marriage to Percy Pinder Jr., son of the entrepreneurial elder Percy Pinder who in fact had been the first to build and operate a movie theatre Over-the-Hill. After she and Percy separated she used to be frequently on the arm of the late Ernest Strachan, then employed in the French Department of the United Nations, before he returned in Nassau to become Chief of Protocol for the Bahamas Government.

           Ethel took a job in Manhattan and was living in an apartment in Brooklyn. The full story will probably be never known, but there was apparently a young Puerto Rican fellow who fell desperately in love with Ethel who, it seemed, was not interested.

          Once morning as she left her apartment for work, walking through the basement of the building, the young fellow accosted Ethel and perhaps for the last time pleaded for her heart. According to the New York Amsterdam News, when she again spurned him he opened fire on her with a handgun, and then turned the weapon on himself.

          The two were discovered lying next to each other on the ground of the basement.

           The funeral for Ethel, who had grown up in St. Agnes in New Providence, was held not long afterwards at the Episcopal church of St. Mark’s  in Brooklyn. The little church was packed with Bahamians living in New York, and scores of others who travelled to the city for the sad occasion. Among that Nassau contingent was Lynden Oscar Pindling.

          Back in New Providence some years later – in early 1969 – there occurred the death of  a bright and promising young thespian who had striven since his teenage years to master 6the stage in The Bahamas and in so doing to bring along other youngsters with a yearning for the footlights.

          Basil Eric Antonio Saunders was a truly ambitious lad who quietly felt his reach should always exceed his grasp. After studies in London he returned to The Bahamas and began teaching English and drama in the public school system, whilst, along with The White Boy who had been his childhood histrionic partner, continued acting, producing and directing. At one point he had a stint as an insurance agent, but his heart was never really in it.

          Yet at an early age B.E.A., as many referred to him, developed diabetes, and at only 31 years old he passed away. The town was stunned that one so young, so talented, so brilliant, so filled with a lust for life should have been plucked so prematurely from that life.

          It seemed half that town showed up at St. Agnes Church for one of the most mournful yet flambouyant funerals seen in Grant’s Town, after which he was buried in the extreme northern section of the church’s cemetery on Nassau Street next to Gibbs Lane. To mark the occasion The White Boy penned and published a poem on the life of Basil Saunders. The final stanza read thus:

“Now up against the northern wall

where friendly footsteps seldom fall,

when others last to withered end,

you’ll still be smiling, childlike, Friend.”

The community was in a dither back in early May of 1990 with the passing of Sir Cecil Wallace Whitfield who had for some years been afflicted with cancer. As Leader of the Opposition he had been  treated at home and abroad at the expense of the Bahamas Government, and had returned home to carry on his political assignment as best he could.

          He died in a Florida hospital surrounded by family and political colleagues. In the Free National Movement there was widespread speculation about the future leadership configurations of the party, especially since general elections were just over two years away.

          Orville Turnquest was at the time deputy leader of the party. That was about six years after Hubert Ingraham and Perry Christie had been fired from the PLP cabinet of  Sir Lynden Pindling. Ingraham, then an independent Member of Parliament, had thrown his parliamentary support behind the FNM.

          Whitfield had pretty much handpicked  Ingraham as his successor, and subsequently the party’s Central Council concurred.

          The ornate funeral was held at Christ Church Cathedral, and amongst those paying  tribute to his old childhood friend and political nemesis was Sir Lynden. The interment was in the Eastern Cemetery, where his father, Kenneth Whitfield, was buried a few years earlier.

          Of course ten years later, in 2000. Sir Lynden himself succumbed to prostate cancer, and after some deliberation the decision was made to have the funeral services conducted at the Church of God on East Street.

          Following the funeral,  at which Prime Minister Hubert Ingraham spoke, there was a massive procession – joined in by political friend and foe alike – down East Street, west on Wulff Road, north on Blue Hill Road, then west on Meeting Street to St. Agnes Cemetery on Nassau Street.

          There the body was received by then Anglican bishop Drexel Gomez and St. Agnes rector the late Fr. Patrick Johnson, assisted by The White Boy. Afterwards Sir Lynden was entombed in a special and imposing mausoleum in the cemetery.

          Bahamians have over the years continued to have a fascination for funerals in all their forms and fashions, and it never really matters the identity of the deceased if there is something special about the arrangements.

          A few years ago with the brutal murder of fashion designer Harl Taylor, mortician Ted Sweeting introduced to The Bahamas an interesting new embalming trend imported from the United States, whereby in the viewing room of the funeral home the full-clothed body was sitting in a chair in front of a desk with pen in hand as if engaged in work.

           For two days it seemed the whole Bahamas had beaten a path to Sweeting’s Colonial Mortuary on Blue Hill Road just to have a view of the fantastical scene.

          And so death, wakes, funerals and the celebrations afterwards are still rudimentary parts of Bahamian life, and will perhaps persist in that way for hundreds of years, so long as Bahamians continue to be born, to live, and to die.

The Fascinating Story of a Man Called Henry

THE WHITE FILE For The Punch – 7 March 2011

“What though the radiance which was once so bright
Be now forever taken from my sight;
Though nothing can bring back the hour
Of splendour in the grass, of glory in the flower,
We will grieve not, rather find
Strength in what remains behind.”
~ WILLIAM WORDSWORTH ~

There are thousands of young Bahamians, many of whom have somehow gone through the school system in The Bahamas, who will, unfortunately, never figure prominently in the future scheme of meaningful things in this country, and for a variety of equally sad reasons.

A vast majority of them are males. Some are unemployed because they are unemployable, or else because they simply have no desire to work. Others are consumed by alcohol or drugs, and yet others who evolved into offenders against society, are languishing in Her Majesty’s Prison.

Of course there are thousands of other young Bahamians who are the pride of their families and their communities, who are shaping their lives in positive directions, who appreciate the need for diligence and hard work, who have set career goals for themselves, and who appreciate that they will be expected to participate and to perform when comes the time for their generation to take over.

They are the hope and waiting glory of the next chapter in the life of The Bahamas. Some of them, an anticipation of that challenge, have involved themselves in causes such as Toastmasters International, and, on a younger stage, The Gentlemen’s Club. Youth groups in the various churches are designed to promote thought and eventually to shape leadership skills.

In that same manner, years ago, intellectually industrious groups of young people found themselves engaged in debate on large and profound issues on the community and international levels.

We remember one such group, styled the Young People’s Organisation, which back in the 1950s assembled upstairs at St. Agnes Schoolroom at Cockburn and Market Streets to debate issues such as Capitalism versus Communism.

Members of that group were such as Joseph Hollingsworth, Wilshire Bethel, Veronica Turnquest, Vernita Johnson, and Kendal Nottage, the latter of whom was the president. The White Boy hovered on the perimeter.

The outspoken Nottage, who hailed from East Street and attended Government High School, went on to be called to the Bahamas Bar after studying as an articled law student in the chambers of Paul L. Adderley, was later to be elected to Parliament, and to serve as a senator and Cabinet minister.

Kendal Nottage – whose younger brother is Dr. Bernard Nottage, MP for Farm Road and Grant’s Town, and former cabinet minister in two PLP governments – was one of those eager and capable young Bahamians who aspired to office early, and who was identified by the late PLP leader Sir Lynden Pindling as a positive political prospect in the country.

In the meantime elsewhere back in the 1950s. Over-the-Hill, in places like Kemp Road, Fox Hill, on Wulff Road, and in Chippingham there were other small groups of bright young Bahamians who understood and appreciated the political state of the colony – Bay Street versus the masses – and who would meet casually and discuss the pros and cons.

Following the collapse of the short-lived Citizen’s Committee, the Progressive Liberal Party was established in the fall on 1953, and that establishment and the ingredients included in the party’s Platform, widely publicised in the Nassau Herald, provided provocative fodder for those young groups debating around the town.

One such small, loose, but energetic group used to gather evenings at Butler’s food store, a modest grocery business on Blue Hill Road in facilities now occupied by the Urban Renewal and Bain and Grant’s Town Centre. The store, the precursor to the present Butler’s Bargain Mart farther down Blue Hill Road, was managed by the late Asa Butler, fourth son of Sir Milo and Lady Butler.

Asa, who was a former student at Government High School, was himself quite a debater and had a keen interest in politics no doubt because his illustrious father had been a political mover and shaker since the 1930s – and so the shop was a perfect venue for those lively sessions, which sometimes stretched past ten o’clock in the evening, long after the shop was supposed to have been closed for the night.

That group of itinerant debaters included such as Joseph Hollingsworth, Franklyn Butler, Rawson McDonald, Frank Watson (a first cousin of Asa), and The White Boy.

Yet it always seemed as if the debating circle was not satisfied or compete until the arrival of a fellow who somehow became the unofficial dean of the corps, who was slightly older than the rest, and to whom so many looked for the final wise word on a particularly argumentative point.

That was John Henry Bostwick, a fellow who, even before he turned 20, seemed to know a healthy little of almost everything, and a great deal about a lot of other things, especially those things which provoked the most heated arguments among the group, and which, almost with something like a wave of the hand, he instantly resolved.

Like Kendal Wellington Nottage, the young and effervescent John Henry Bostwick seemed destined for meaningful future public and political life and office, despite what some considered a stubborn nature, then reconsidered a nature, back in the 1950s, which was not so much stubborn but defiantly insistent that common sense should figure in any argument one hoped to pursue to fruitful conclusion.

Like Kendal Nottage – Henry Bostwick, who attended Government High School and later Calabar High School in Kingston, Jamaica – went on to become an attorney-at law, and in fact developed, like the late Eugene Dupuch, as one of the country’s most accomplished and outstanding criminal attorneys.

Yet in so many of those youthful gatherings of budding intellectuals, although far too many of them turned out to be charlatans, pseudo intellectuals, and fatuous four-flushers, Bostwick, from as far back as the late 1950s, displayed all the signs of a political mover and shaker in the future Bahamas.

This year John Henry Bostwick, Queen’s Counsel, with God’s help will achieve his 72nd year to heaven. Over those years, in addition to his courtroom stardom, he has attained and accomplished much in the political arena, and in fact his contributions to the enhancement of democracy deserve note and commendation.

We remembered this particularly last week when in this space we recounted the fascinating political story of the 1977 general elections which saw the ruling Progressive Liberal Party chalk up a massive victory, primarily because the Opposition was split into two camps.

On the one side the Free National Movement was led by Cecil Wallace-Whitfield, and on the other, yes, the leader of the Bahamian Democratic Party was John Henry Bostwick, at the time barely 38 years old.

All round, that was a fiery campaign, even though the odds were slim that the opposition, especially sawn asunder as it was, could bring down Lynden Pindling and his PLP government. Yet John Henry Bostwick was determined to give the battle his best shot.

In fact, considering the make-up of the BDP with his heavy Bay Street complement, Henry Bostwick was perhaps the most acceptable national face the party could offer the masses. When during the campaign he complained to the PLP government that because of the tough economic times some Bahamians were scavenging at the Blue Hill Road dump for food, he also issued an ominous warning:

“When sufficient people in this country feel their bellies aching, they will lose all sense of reason. I urge the government to wake up, and take heed.”

When the votes were counted following that gruelling campaign, the BDP had won only six seats, with Henry Bostwick capturing the seat for the Montagu constituency, and becoming the Leader of Her Majesty’s Loyal Opposition in Parliament.

By the 1982 elections, the opposition was once again a single fighting force, and Henry Bostwick was to remain a prominent part of that force. Later, on the governmental watch of the Free National Movement, he became president of the Bahamas Senate.

And so, it might be said, John Henry Bostwick, who had become one of The Bahamas’ most outstanding courtroom orators, an effective and powerful political preacher, a sobering Leader of the Opposition, and a stern but fair president of the Senate had his practise range in a modest grocery shop on Blue Hill Road back in the 1950s.

Today in the late afternoon of his full and bountiful life, he richly deserves to be resting on his laurels. However, the nature of the man, John Henry Bostwick, says he is not at all ready for resting.

No, Sir, not John Henry Bostwick.

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.