In a world where turbulence is the norm rather than the exception, Bahamians who wish to survive – and perhaps even prosper – must come to a keener understanding of the need for them to work together for the achievement of the common good. This would mean, in the first instance, that they should do their ‘level best’ to minimise pulling and hauling in their collective deliberations.
If politicians were to take this to heart, they would understand that the country loses when one party acts as if they had within their ranks all of the best brains in the nation. The same principle applies to the parties in opposition, when they come to that miserable place, where they are convinced that they have all of the best answers to all of the questions on the national agenda.
In this regard, the Christie team is surely to be commended for their effort to break with this entrenched culture, by putting in place any number of consultancies and commissions. While these constitute on advance, they are far from fulfilling their real potential.
We are convinced that the time has come for Bahamians to review the way they do government and politics, and for them to re-vision their entire approach to making vitally important public decisions. However this process goes, Bahamians should come to a keener appreciation of the need for their leaders to work together – at the summit – to pool their ideas so that they can arrive at the best possible decisions.
In a situation where resources are already limited, it is nothing short of criminal for one group of elites to be at loggerheads with another, solely on petty political grounds. The Bahamas with a population of less than 350,000 people can ill afford this destructive game. Indeed, Bahamians can see what happens to countries when parry politics is infested with tribalism, and when the party in power comes to see itself as the be all and end all. Or for that matter, Bahamians can also see from the experience of other Caribbean countries, when the party in opposition spends the bulk of its time plotting its return by planting seeds of revenge, and otherwise conniving and contriving their return to the heights of power.
The people of this country and their counterparts in the region deserve better. The truth, today, is that it will not come anytime soon, if politicians and labour leaders do not consciously decide to put the national interest before their own narrow and parochial interests. In a nutshell, this nation and its Caribbean counterparts are in urgent need of patriots and statesmen.
The Bahamas and its sister nations in the Caribbean are today locked and deeply enmeshed in a world economy and international political order over which they wield little or no real influence. While practically everyone understands this elementary fact of the matter as regards these small island developing states and the effective limits of their power, very many politicians, labour leaders and other so-called cultural gatekeepers routinely ignore the stark realities of life under conditions of dependency, vulnerability and fragility.
When for example reference is made to the reactions of many Bahamians and some of their neighbours in the Caribbean to any number of cultural imports – whether religious or secular – the reaction is often frenzied and grossly out of proportion to the presumed provocation. Interesting, too, a similar phenomenon prevails at the political level. Any number of politicians – while in office – speak realistically and knowledgeably about the real limits they face, as they search for the means to match campaign pledge with requisite deed. And, as predictably, when they are in opposition, they revert to the old habit of imputing to current office holders all manner of incompetence, stupidity and lack of attention to the public good.
What makes this situation both laughable and increasingly pathetic is the indisputable fact that there are real fiscal constraints, which do prevent governments from doing all that they would wish, on any given occasion.
But even as we concede this aspect of the argument, we note that there are occasions when government is complicit – albeit tacitly – in the creation of the web of complaint in which it so often enmeshed. Take for example the unholy mess concerning proposed pay increases for public sector workers. Had it not been for a series of half steps and evasions along the way by the former government, its successor and the labour unions, the public would have already been made aware of the import of the current fiscal crisis facing the Government of The Bahamas. And had the public been better informed about the entire matter regarding the funding of public goods, the so-called ordinary ‘man in the street,’ might have been amenable to the idea that they should pay more for the healthcare and education of his children.
As we have indicated – time and again – all Bahamians should be awakened from their slumber, ‘smell the coffee,’ and realize that they cannot continue as if nothing had changed. The sum of the entire matter is that of Tuesday, September 11, 2001, everything has changed.
Editorial, The Bahama Journal
