Play To People’s Fantasies – “The truth is often avoided because it is ugly and unpleasant. Never appeal to truth and reality unless you are prepared for the anger that comes from disenchantment. Life is so harsh and distressing that people who can manufacture romance or conjure up fantasy are like oases in the desert: Everyone flocks to them. There is great power in tapping into the fantasies of the masses.” – Robert Greene: Law 32
As I watched and listened to the Free National Movement in Convention, this question popped up in my mind: Blah, Blah, Black Sheep have you any pull? From the looks of it the answer is yes. Somewhere lurking in the shadows of that great assembly must have been a gaggle of masterful fixers. If they were there, my surmise is that they were all quite black. By the time it was announced that Tommy T. was finally – and yet again – designated to be Leader, everyone knew that he had overcome a giant, none other than Brent Symonette.
Of course, no one will ever know how the fixers got Symonette to yield, but most sensible people believe that this good brother did not like what he saw when tearful negroes swore that they would support Pop’s son the same way they did Sir Roland on the tenth day of the first month in the year of Our Lord one thousand, nine hundred and sixty seven.
As most people believe and accept, history – written or imagined – is full of surprises and riddled with mysteries. For every question which has an answer, there are invariably others which compel us to ask what “might have happened if…”
For example, what would have happened if Mr. 99.99% Sure – Brent Symonette had followed his near certain conviction that he could beat the living daylights out of Tommy Turnquest and Zendal Forbes in the contest to determine who would become the leader of the once great Free National Movement.
But what if Mr. Symonette had run and had lost. What then about all of those predictions and tears about Brent’s colour (read lack of colour) or about party unity had the FNM been united behind this wonderful brother.
And, of course everyone knows by now that Brent Symonette was left a pair of cufflinks and about $10,000.00 by his truly wonderful father, Sir Roland Theodore Symonette. For as much as I know or care at this juncture, they must have been magic cufflinks and for sure, the ten grand must have been prayed for by Nicodemus, Mary Magdalene, Lazarus, Peter, James and John. I say so because Mr. Brent Symonette has surely gone on to parlay these bequests into what is reportedly one of the great personal fortunes in The Bahamas. What if ‘Pop’ Symonette had not been so miserly with his great fortune and had left Brent Symonette hundreds of millions of dollars?
This and other questions have popped up in my head this past week as I tried to reflect on the United, Ignited and Excited Convention of the once great Free National Movement. And to be dreadfully honest about what I think about the FNM spectacle, the truth is surely that they get the highest mark for proving that they are alive. And, if the truth be told, it was Tommy T. All The Way.
You have to give it to this erstwhile torchbearer if he is to get it for intensity and sweat. Between the interminable blah, blah, blah and bull about how lazy Prime Minister Christie is and the maniacal refrain “More Fire,” Tommy T. was able to score repeatedly with his many references to bleachers and Wisdom and the wisdom of paying over a million dollars to rent them. More fire!
Again, to be dreadfully truthful about the matter, once Brent had explained why he did not want a white man to be leader of a party which wanted to be led by a white man, I began to glaze out. I knew by then that I had been set up for what is for me and many other Bahamians, a real downer, namely the crushing disappointment of the anti-climax. Having allowed myself the negro luxury of believing and hoping against hope that old master had finally retuned to take up his old burden of leading, I was let down by the news that Brent, the white man, had decided not to contest the leadership of the FNM.
At that juncture which was right before the FNM could be taken to the next level, I was convinced that my next best bet for the top post was my illustrious colleague Zendal Forbes.
As things turned out, this Androsian was crushed under the weight of a refurbished FNM machine. But to be truthful – yet again – Forbes was not utterly crushed. A living breathing, decent, courageous and law-abiding tenth of the delegates honestly and sincerely believed that the brother had the right stuff.
And so I come back to my ‘what if’ question. What if Zendal Forbes was able to buy jumbo shrimp, offer building contracts to ten midgets and two giants? What if the fix was in for my colleague? What if they all were still allowed to play the game Roland Theodore Symonette played so well in the years when he parlayed his high intelligence, business savvy and daring into a fortune, the very one from which he plucked a pair of cufflinks and ten thousand dollars for his beloved son Brent?
So, brothers and sisters there you have it. Brent Symonette did not contest the leadership of his party. Tommy T. is again the leader. Other very familiar faces have assumed their rightful mien as their owners prepare themselves to score cheap points about pipe lines, blah, blah, blah, bull and baloney. Where – pray tell me – is More Fire when you really need it.
Rough Cut, The Bahama Journal
