One by one the lonely chickens are at last coming home to roost.
Why, asked Senator C B Moss at the close of the recent Independence celebrations, have white Bahamians neglected to participate in events of national importance?
After living long enough to see the fall-out from the hatred sown so many years ago, we admit the tragedy, but also ask the question:
Why should white Bahamians participate?
And why should Senator Moss turn the spotlight only on white Bahamians? Where were all the black parliamentarians who one would have expected to set an example, but were nowhere in sight?
Wasn’t it made clear to white Bahamians when the PLP, under Sir Lynden Pindling, came to power in 1967 that their faces were too white to be shown in public? Everything that went wrong was the fault of the white man. Some PLPs even bemoaned the fact that only black youth went to prison. What was wrong with white youth that they didn’t have the good sense to join in the proceeds of crime and share a jail cell?
Come election time white Bahamians were criticised for voting and financially supporting FNM candidates, most of them black. The irony of this was that because the FNM, composed mainly of black Bahamians, were supported by white Bahamians, the PLP magic wand suddenly turned the FNM into a “white party”. And, in the words of Paul Adderley, who in 1982 was the PLP government’s external affairs minister, because the FNM were indebted to the “white minority” they “could never represent the black people of this country.”
In other words, here was one group of black Bahamians who could not represent another group of black Bahamians, because of their friendship with white Bahamians!
Of course, if white Bahamians had bowed their heads and supported the PLP there would have been no problems. It was just a case of jealousy and sour grapes on the part of the PLP government.
In his analysis of the election at that time, Mr Adderley attributed the victory of black FNM candidates in what he called “white block” areas solely to white voters. He failed to appreciate that in many of those areas there was a sizeable black vote that also went to the FNM.
By this reasoning, one would have expected ﾗ as did Mr Adderley ﾗ that predominantly black areas of the population would give a landslide vote to black PLP candidates. Not so.
For example, Mr Adderley could not explain why in the Carmichael polling division, a black stronghold, which, although he won, he did so by a very narrow margin ﾗ certainly not by a margin that he and his party had hoped for. So it showed that even in black areas there was a strong vote for the so-called “white FNM”.
Here are some of the headlines of those years, which should answer Senator Moss’ naive question and help him understand that people do not usually go where they are not wanted:
Adderley hits out at FNM sellout to “white minority”; “White racist UBP” used FNM “to try to get their country back” claims Adderley; Adderley blames “lack of confidence” in Bahamas on “white racists”; Rahming raises race issue in the Senate; Says white Bahamians “hogged up” the land ﾗ Elliston Rahming; and Sir Lynden spells out “beginning of end” for Bay Street. These headings were selected at random, but this page could be filled with many more like them.
Paul Adderley, whose illogical “logic” has always intrigued us, had a real racist run in 1982. So much so that Sir Etienne Dupuch, the late editor of this newspaper, wrote an editorial under the heading: “Adderley blinded by racism.”
“The PLP is a racist government. In everything they say and do they make it clear that the whites ﾅ both Bahamian and foreignﾅin these islands have no rights. They are merely tolerated by the government,” was the opening paragraph of Sir Etienne’s editorial of June 26, 1982.
He said the racist attitudes of the government had “driven tourists and white investors to other places, such as the Cayman islands, which are booming with investment”.
He said that because of Mr Adderley’s background one would have expected “some measure of understanding of the fact that the Bahamas is entirely dependent on white tourists and white investors to survive.”
Eventually tired of the insults, tired of being sidelined and told their expertise was not needed; tired of only being acknowledged when someone wanted to get their hands into their pockets for a hand-out, many white Bahamians melted into the shadows, minded their own affairs and built their businesses.
And now, almost 40 years later their absence is being felt. And a PLP senator has had the nerve to ask white Bahamians to explain why they have “for so long” neglected to involve themselves in events of national importance.
What would Senator Moss have done if the door had been slammed in his face and he had been told to get out? Maybe, Senator Moss, that is the question that should be answered first.
Editorial, The Tribune
July 28, 2005
