The truth is that 2016 was a hard year for my family. It was,
as my old friend and fellow Original BE Darrin Culmer would say, rough. But as difficult
as the year was for my loved ones and me, the Commonwealth of The Bahamas also
suffered through what seemed to many like increasingly tough times. And while I
am not inclined to dissect the year that was in detail, there were some things
that happened in 2016 that I believe are worthy of being underlined.
One note before I dive in. In another forum, I noted that Oxford
Dictionaries had selected as its “Word of the Year 2016” the term “post-truth.”
This adjective denotes “circumstances in which objective facts are less
influential in shaping public opinion than appeals to emotion and personal
belief.” The term bubbled up through the almost stream-of-consciousness
punditry of the “left” in the United States (US), when confronted with an
increasingly stubborn electorate that refused to accept a paradigm which
proposes that objective fact ought to outweigh appeals to emotion and personal
belief in shaping public opinion. The rise of President-elect Donald Trump,
despite his obvious and undeniable unsuitability for the highest office in the
US – obvious and undeniable to the liberals – is the most high-profile effect
of life in a post-truth US.
In The Bahamas in 2016, there were a number of instances in
which it mattered not a whit what was objectively factual – or even true – when
John Q. Public made up his mind on an issue. Politicians and leaders, including
religious and civic leaders, told the public outright lies and bent and twisted
the truth in ways that left those in society who value truth agog. Still, John
Q. Public accepted what accorded most closely with his personal beliefs and
that which appealed most strongly to his emotion, and moved forward resolutely
and happily misinformed in many instances.
Take for instance the fact that for the fourth consecutive
year, Standard & Poor’s (S&P) downgraded The Bahamas’ creditworthiness –
and this despite $895 million in value-added tax collections and the supposed
impending opening of Baha Mar – and in the face of the fourth consecutive
downgrade of The Bahamas’ creditworthiness, the Christie Administration tucks
its chin into its chest and attempts to dismiss S&P (!!!!) as if that
agency does not quite understand its work. Let’s be clear, S&P has 26
offices around the world and a history that dates back more than 150 years. The
company makes its living by providing high-quality market intelligence in the
form of credit ratings, research, and thought leadership. The company rates 268
sovereigns or governments. The company has more
than 1 million credit ratings outstanding on government, corporate,
financial sector and structured finance entities and securities. In 2015 S&P
rated more than $3.6 trillion in new debt. And for the recalcitrant jingoist
who insists that S&P could be wrong about our economy, the record is that of
all corporate sector investment-grade ratings issued by S&P, 1% has
defaulted over the most recent five-year period. So chances are, their analysis
of The Bahamas’ economy and creditworthiness is accurate.
If, therefore, I were to characterize the year, I might be
tempted to melodrama, and suggest that 2016 was the year the truth died in
Bahamian public life. But I will shy away from such deliciously tempting histrionics.
The Spin Is In
It is January, 2017. This month the Progressive Liberal
Party (PLP) – the supposed “party of Majority Rule” and the party long
associated with poor Black Bahamians – goes into convention, and most people
expect an early election shortly thereafter. Heading into the 2016 Christmas
holidays, the PLP released a catchy little video with a nicely Auto-Tuned vocal
listing the Christie Administration’s accomplishments in 2016, beginning with Junkanoo
and a Climate Change Agreement. The video goes on to list, as accomplishments:
·
RISE prepaid card
·
Freeport fire station
·
Mortgage relief program
·
Deficit reduction
·
Freedom of information
·
National Health Insurance
·
BAMSI (The Bahamas Agriculture and Marine
Sciences Institute)
·
Swift justice
·
Baha Mar
·
The University of The Bahamas
An objective perusal of this list (link to the video
attached below) highlights two things: the Christie Administration has a
tendency to count as complete that which it has begun, and the Christie Administration
also likes to take credit for work that culminated on its watch but which often
took years to come to fruition. Both are lies. Counting something that is in
the process of completion as complete is a lie.
The claim that the Christie Administration brought you a
deficit reduction in 2016 is an outright lie.
Also on that list, the claim that in 2016 the Christie
Administration brought you a fire station in Freeport, a mortgage relief
program, freedom of information, national health insurance and perhaps most
blatantly, Baha Mar, are lies. None of these things are complete or accessible
by the citizen. Not one of these things is available for the citizen to use or
take advantage of in any tangible or real way. So for a political
administration to claim that it brought you these things in 2016 is a lie.
And on that list, the claim that in 2016 the Christie Administration
brought you a climate change agreement and even the PLP signature program Swift
Justice are also less than honest. On April 22, 2016, The Bahamas signed the
Paris Agreement. The agreement’s central aim is to strengthen the global
response to the threat of climate change by keeping a global temperature rise
this century well below 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels and to
pursue efforts to limit the temperature increase even further to 1.5 degrees
Celsius. The Bahamas ratified the agreement in August 2016, and it entered into
force on November 4, 2016. It was the culmination of years of work around the
world, and for the 2012 Christie Administration to claim it brought The Bahamas
this climate change agreement is absurd. Equally absurd is the idea of bringing
an electorate in 2016 a program begun during the 2002 Christie Administration,
and relaunched in 2012 (Swift Justice) or the idea that the already extant
Bahamas Agriculture and Marine Sciences Institute (BAMSI) was somehow “brought
to you” in 2016.
It is this kind of attempt to shove anything in the bag and
make it look full in order to convince a skeptical electorate that contributed to
the weakening of the importance of objective truth in public discourse.
The Gong Show
The rupture and subsequent implosion of the Free National
Movement (FNM) – from Leader Dr. Hubert Minnis’ bungled handling of “Toggie and
Bobo” to Dr. Minnis’ equally atrocious handling of dissent within his party to
the botched convention forced by Loretta Butler-Turner to the ongoing fiasco that
resulted in the FNM losing seven strong members of its Parliamentary caucus
right before a general election – the FNM’s frustrating washout has been a
festering sore on 2016 as well.
Early in 2016, Dr. Minnis – a man struggling to convince an
electorate already eagerly looking for an alternative to a failed and washed up
Perry Gladstone Christie that he, Minnis, is a suitable alternative – sailed to
the Parliament on the wind of the good ship T&B. He advised us that we
would thank him for what he was about to do. Imagine therefore the shock, the
stupefaction, the trauma of watching the royal mess Minnis made of what ought
to have been cause for the resignation of Deputy Prime Minister Philip ‘Brave’
Davis and what should have caused Prime Minister Perry Christie to need to
deliver a national address to explain himself.
To recall, Livingston “Toggie” Bullard and Wisler “Bobo”
Davilma were at the centre of an alleged murder-for-hire plot involving
Canadian fashion designer Peter Nygard. In March, Commissioner of Police
Ellison Greenslade reported that he had launched an investigation into
allegations that Nygard orchestrated a murderous plot against his billionaire
Lyford Cay neighbour Louis Bacon and against lawyer Fred Smith, his chief opponents
in an ongoing campaign against development at Nygard Cay. Court documents have
Bullard and Davilma identifying themselves as high profile gang members and
alleging that Nygard gave them a “hit list” of people to murder or “send a
message” to.
For Dr. Minnis’ purposes, what was pertinent was that both Prime
Minister Christie and Deputy Prime Minister Davis’ names were mentioned in
secret recordings between Nygard, Bullard and Davilma. Instead of watching the
ruin of the PLP, John Q. Public learned that Minnis had met with Toggie and
Bobo, who brought now infamous fish to his home, and John Q. Public watched in
awe as the practiced PLP spin machine barely had to exert itself to turn the
Toggie and Bobo revelation back on the FNM, leading ultimately to the ouster of
former FNM chairman and current Marco City hopeful Michael Pintard.
That farce was perhaps the last straw for some who, behind
the scenes, have insisted that they tried their best to work with Dr. Minnis. I
have pulled out some of the salient points from a memo to the FNM’s Central
Council arguing for an early convention. Despite the outcome of that convention
and subsequent developments, not one of the signatories to that memo has
recanted, and in fact, in a similar document, the number has increased.
From the memo, some things jump out. Firstly, the FNM’s MPs
felt they were under attack!
The memo begins, “Over a period of months, the forum of
Council meetings has been used to attack FNM MPs for what they describe as our
failure to protect or defend the Leader and make him look good. Recently, the
MP for St. Anne’s, Hubert Chipman, gave a brief but powerful defence of the MPs…Nevertheless
the unjustifiable attacks on the MPs have persisted and intensified.”
Next, the argument is often advanced that the FNM MPs who
split from Minnis never supported him.
In the memo they state, “For well over three intensely
frustrating and oftentimes painful years the Parliamentary team, and former
colleagues, did everything they could to help and support the Leader. We gave
the leader every opportunity he needed to take command of the Party and lead us
to victory. In doing that, the Team repeatedly gave the leader tremendous
latitude and deference to set the pace and the tone. Regrettably, we and the
Party met with failure at almost every turn. Dr. Minnis just did not trust the
team, nor did he trust the more than 70 years of experience in political leadership
that it represented…”
And in the memo, these MPs challenge outright the image
Minnis apologists put forward of an honest man trying to change a corrupt
party.
The MPs say, “over the course of four years one of the most
significant deficits that the parliamentarians struggled with was the matter of
trust. Frankly, year after year after year, MPs came to the sad and
heart-breaking conclusion that we simply could not trust our leader. He
repeatedly proved himself not to be a man of his word…Unfortunately, time after
time after time we have proven that the Leader would say one thing and do
another, knowingly and intentionally distort the facts (and) misrepresent the
words or views of his colleagues…”
And in successfully arguing for an early convention, the MPs
broached a subject that many would rather have stayed behind closed doors –
they opened the race issue to scrutiny. Recalling the party’s history of
uniting Bahamians, the MPs said, “The FNM brought Bahamians of all races and
creeds together. Today, the FNM has become a party where white Bahamians are
made uncomfortable to attend a Central Council meeting…When Dr. Minnis
perpetuated this ‘us against them (white and middle income people)’ attitude in
our Central Council, that was a major blow to our confidence in him. The FNM is
better and bigger than that.”
And the convention. Oh, the convention.
What has been said about the FNM Convention and the
aftermath is too fresh to chew over just now. But since there are things to be
said, I will deal with the fallout from the FNM convention at another time. Let’s
consider this a pin that we put in that subject.
Strong Delusion
The other area in which the absence of objective truth and
the play to emotion and personal belief affected public discourse in 2016 was,
of course, the now infamous gender referendum.
Now, months past the poll, those who led the charge against
the proposed changes strut about the public square as though they have been
handed the keys to the kingdom. What is disturbing is not the Cheshire-cat
smirk of self-satisfaction of the “no” lobby, it is the fact that the “no” lobby
demonstrated an amazing ability to capitalize on the “post-truth” era in which
we live.
The logical arguments have all been trotted out and analyzed
to within an inch of their lives by all who care to invest the mental and
intellectual energy making a decision based on reason and fact. However, what
was “true” was not relevant to a startling number of people who were unashamed
and unrepentant in their decision to vote “no” for reasons that had nothing to
do with the questions on the ballot. But consider what those who admittedly voted
without even having read the bills they rejected accomplished. According to the
prime minister, the purpose of the bills was so that Bahamian men and women would
be able to pass citizenship to their families in the same way, and so that it
will be impossible for any future Parliament to pass laws discriminating
against either men or women. The “no” vote thwarted that aim. Terminated. With
extreme prejudice.
Before going further, I want to point out that contrary to
what I perceive to be a popular view held by some “yes” voters, I do not think
the entire “no” vote was out of ignorance. I think a significant proportion of
the “no” voters meant exactly what they voted: no to gender equality. It is
easy, and tempting – perhaps too much so – to excuse the “no” vote as an
exercise in ignorance, obfuscation and scare tactics. Yes, the “gay boogeyman”
was a real thing. Yes, the church played up the anti-gay fears and prejudices
of the community in a way that, were I to be less charitable, I would say
looked a lot like “gay panic” to me. Yes, Greg Moss, Harvey Tynes, Maurice
Glinton and others successfully introduced the terror that a “yes” vote would
open the gates to gay marriage, and that Bahamian women would marry foreign men
in droves and thereby change the complexion and nature of The Bahamas. These
things are all evident from the reportage of the day. But what has become
evident in the months following the referendum is that a significant portion of
the “no” vote was a calculated, cool-headed and therefore ultimately much more
frightening rejection of the very notion of equality of the genders.
To quote Prime Minister Christie, “the bills do not propose
radical change. Instead, this is about making sure that the supreme law of the
land reflects our values and our commitment to fairness.”
One must question what values and commitments the outcome of
the referendum reflects.
Look at the questions separately again: the first proposed
Amendment would allow children born abroad to obtain Bahamian citizenship from
either their Bahamian father or mother, in those circumstances where the other
parent is not Bahamian. Right now, only Bahamian men are entitled to pass their
Bahamian citizenship to their children born abroad in these situations.
Christie distilled the essence of the bill: “This amendment
says Bahamian mothers and their children should have the same rights as
Bahamian fathers and their children.”
The second amendment would have enabled a Bahamian woman who
marries a non-Bahamian man to secure for him the same ability to apply for Bahamian citizenship –
following the same steps, and subject to the same considerations – currently
afforded to a Bahamian man married to a non-Bahamian woman.
After explaining how the bill would not make citizenship
automatic for foreign husbands of Bahamian women, and just how arduous the
sometimes 10-year-long process is, Christie said, “Amendment two is designed
only to help real Bahamian families, and its purpose is to give Bahamian
women the same rights as Bahamian men.”
Amendment three would have allowed an unmarried Bahamian man
could pass on his Bahamian citizenship to a child fathered with a non- Bahamian
woman, if he is able to prove by DNA evidence that he is the father. This right
currently belongs only to women.
And the fourth amendment would have updated Article 26 of
the Constitution, so that it would become unconstitutional for Parliament to
pass any laws that discriminate based on sex, which is defined as “male or
female”.
I do not propose to re-litigate whether this amendment would
have opened the door to same-sex marriage. I say no, but I don’t really care. The
inability of the political directorate to convince the electorate that this was
not a ploy to force gay marriage on Bahamians speaks volumes about the trust
deficit Christie is facing, but that’s another story for another time.
What I want to point out is that in the first two
amendments, Bahamians voted overwhelmingly and convincingly – with blood in their
eye, as the saying goes – to absolutely refuse to give Bahamian mothers and
their children the same rights as Bahamian fathers and their children, and to
refuse to give Bahamian women the same rights as Bahamian men. So if there is
any question as to what the referendum accomplished, let me do my best to lay
that question to rest: by voting as it did in the gender equality referendum,
The Bahamas told every woman – every mother, daughter, sister, wife, niece,
aunt and grammy – that they are not only less than their male counterparts, but
that they – every last one of them – are deliberately less. That they should
not have the same rights as men. That this is what they meant to do is corroborated
by the finding in Dr. Ian Bethell-Bennett’s focus group studies at the University
of The Bahamas that young Bahamian women and young Bahamian men believe women
are inferior to men, and that they believe women are supposed to be subservient
to men.
To every female pastor, preacher, priest with whom I am
friends or acquaintances, I challenge you – how in God’s name can you support a
community that tells you you are less than a man? Not that you are “different
from” a man, as Dame Joan Sawyer spuriously tried to insinuate, but “less than.”
What kind of god do you serve who tells you you are not as worthy to be His vessel
as a differently formed fleshly creation? How can you continue to get up and
preach or minister in a religion that tells you you are not as good as someone
else in the same religion? I am a born-again, Spirit-filled Christian man, and
I have made grave mistakes in my life. I am no saint, nor am I a genius. But I
have read the Bible cover to cover, and I see no indication in the Bible that
is the basis of Christianity – God’s Word!!! – that men are superior to women.
I see cultural mores reflective of a period in history, but we ignore the
slavery talk in the Bible because slavery is no longer the law of the land. We
have edited it in our heads and hearts and practice so that when we see “slave”
in the Bible now we read “servant” or “employee” or what have you. A slave is
neither a worker, nor a servant nor an employee: a slave is chattel. Property.
If we can accept that with the passage of slavery from favor, the Bible does
not lose its relevance, how come we hold onto the foolishness of what I believe
are clearly fallible interpretations of Scripture and poor theology that
proposes male superiority? It’s nonsense!
I’m going to open a theological can of worms here, and quote
Galatians 3:28 (New International Version (NIV)): “There is neither Jew nor
Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all
one in Christ Jesus.” While this text does not abolish gender roles as some
argued in the early part of the 20th century, even the most
conservative of theologians have come to accept that the argument is more
subtle than that, and that it is about a difference in gender roles, rather
than a hierarchy of gender. I know. Can of worms. But I do not believe, nor do
I believe the Bible supports, the view that in Christianity, men are superior
to women.
And even if we were to take the view that men are superior
to women, and base it on Scripture, it is difficult – impossible, for me – to imagine
a reference in which the sense of hierarchy of roles is not a reflection of the
relationship between Christ and the church. The church for which Christ died.
For which He was crucified, mocked, stabbed, separated from the eternal bliss
of communion with His Heavenly Father. The church, for which Christ SACRIFICED.
Show me a Bahamian man who insists that his wife is
subservient to him who can demonstrate a life of sacrifice for his wife and I
will let that man believe – unmolested – that his wife is his subordinate and
that God ordained it so.
And just in case we get the impression that this was
something that was an unintentional side effect, Senator Rodney Moncur – long acknowledged
as a man of the people who speaks eloquently for the masses – has taken to
sending greetings to women on his show whom he is thanking for “voting against
gender equality.” He says nothing about voting against the gay agenda. He does
not mention voting against immigration traps and allowing foreign men to get
access to Bahamian citizenship. He says, and he means, voting against gender equality.
Bad Juju
So, the PLP’s inability to simply tell the truth, the FNM’s
inability to get anything right, and the middle finger The Bahamas showed to
Bahamian women – driven largely by Bahamian women themselves, as usual – are all
reasons that 2016 was a tough year.
But what makes these things possible?
The fact that the PLP knows its base does not care. They are
born PLP, live PLP and will die PLP. They tell you so, proudly.
The fact that the FNM is unable to accept that it made a
mistake with Dr. Hubert Minnis, and subsequently allowing him to gut the party
of all its strengths. Frankly speaking, had Loretta Butler Turner been a man,
she would be leader of the FNM and likely the next prime minister. The FNM
should be ashamed of itself. But even more, if the party was unable to stomach
Loretta Butler Turner, then of all the MPs who won their seats in 2012, Peter
Turnquest is the next best choice, some might even argue the first best choice.
Instead, Turnquest has been content to stand in the shadow, prop up a failing
Minnis and risk continuing to alienate those voters who in a couple of months’
time will be asking him why he didn’t step up.
The fact that The Bahamas genuinely feels that men are
better than, more important than and superior to women.
For these reasons, I count the obstinacy of political
blinders as one of the great lessons and one of the great tragedies of 2016.
I say nothing of the devastation of Matthew, the
mind-numbing inconsistency of Bahamas Power and Light Company (BPL), the attack
on our financial sector that was the Panama Papers leak.
I say nothing of the celebration, the spontaneous national combustion
that followed Shaunae Miller’s dive for gold, or the other national combustion –
not quite spontaneous – that was WeMarch.
I hope that the joy of the Miller Gold and the other
positive things that did happen in 2016 – like the establishment of the
University of The Bahamas – are enough to banish the bad juju, and that we can
take 2017 as a fresh, clean slate upon which to inscribe the greatness of our
nation, the awesomeness of our communities and the brilliance of our families.
Conquer!
