Bahamians are not adequately critical of authority. We are subservient to it. We fear it. We are awed by title, wealth, social station, pomp and circumstance.
We have transferred our fearful reverence of a white, foreign colonial master to a black power elite who rely on the same tools as our former masters to keep us docile and submissive.
Grandiose titles, exhaustive public ceremonies and a disgraceful, divisive, unhealthy tribalism – today brought on by partisan politics instead of the segregation that plagued the Bahamas before 1956 and the lack of power before majority rule – are the same tools used today by a few of our own people who were employed years before by Colonial Britain.
We are still slaves, no longer unwilling, but now we are happy to say, "Don't say that about him. He is an MP, he used to be prime minister, he is prime minister, that's a senator, he is a big PLP, he is a big FNM."
Essentially what we say is, "That's massa."
Those who view the criticism of persons who hold "high public office," as disrespecting the institutions of the country or even the country itself, are traitors to the Bahamian people and are not friends of democracy.
Those who dare say this to a Bahamian public – who find it increasingly difficult to cope with rising prices, crime and a decaying education system – are apologists for a bourgeois sect that would use those of lower socio-economic positions to advance their lives, their interests and their cause.
Legitimised
The governor general, prime minister, the leader of the opposition, the members of parliament, senators, ministers and the rest, they do not legitimise the Bahamas. They are legitimised by the Bahamas and its people.
They have no power greater than what the public affords them. They are worth nothing more than what the public so chooses. They are here to serve. They are here to be elevated or dismissed, as the public thinks fit. They are here to work, not to be revered.
The dignity democracy affords the Bahamian people demands that they know this every day those elected sit in office. It demands that the opposition knows that if elected they will be held to the same standards and that the walk of leadership will not be a gold-paved promenade, but a rocky road strewn with broken glass.
If the economic state of the country is improving, if education is getting better and if crime is down, those who hold public office have done Bahamians no favours. They have merely done their job. Bahamians should demand more from all those in "high public office" or those seeking public office. They should be cynical, critical, an informed mass that knows before a politician opens his or her mouth, what will come out of it. They should be armed with knowledge and the eyes of a sceptic ready to cut through the fluff, the propaganda and the spin.
When the Deputy Prime Minister states that crime is decreasing, ask yourself if you have seen her without her bodyguards accompanying her, or if they are stationed at her home at night.
Or if Carl Bethel promises you that if elected he will improve how crime is fought in the Bahamas, ask yourself if the police would dare show up to his house hours after he first makes the call to inform them that (God forbid) his house was broken into.
[Editor's Note: Or, just look at Mr. Bethell's terribly corrupt record as former Attorney General and realize he is nothing but lies and promises.]
Education
For those who live in Fort Charlotte, when Minister of Education Alfred Sears comes knocking at your doors telling you that the state of education in the Bahamas is improving ask him what public schools his children went to.
When Tommy Turnquest knocks on your doors in Mount Moriah and promises to improve the school system ask him if all his children went to high school in the Bahamas and if they did, which public school did they attend.
If they say to you that this is irrelevant, do not believe them. It is very relevant. These are the men and women you will call honourable. You will be made to sit and listen to them during public events, they will be supported by the money you work so hard for.
You will pay for gas in their chauffeur-driven cars and provide them with spending money when they travel to exotic places that you may never see. So when you gnash your teeth every time the price of gas increases, ask your selves if Minister of Energy and Environment Marcus Bethel had to shell out his own $10 for two and a half gallons of gas.
Alfred Gray, or whoever does his shopping, recently had to put something back on the shelf because he was a few dollars short.
Comfort
When you dream of owning your own home, ask yourselves how many of these men and women will be cloistered in the comfort of the hallowed neighbourhoods of "out east" or "out west".
Ask the same of FNM hopeful in Blue Hills Sidney Collie or Prime Minister Perry Christie or former Prime Minister Hubert Ingraham.
In Buju Banton's song "Untold Stories", the singer cries out, "Who can afford to run will run, but what about those who can't? They will have to stay." Because you see, they will run if things get too hot and you will have to stay.
So when you ask these men or any other man or womanseeking public office these questions you are really asking, "Do you really know me? Do you understand me? I am going to elect you to a social and financial position far above my own, so are you going to serve my best interest?"
All of these are very relevant questions.
This is the first in a series of opinion pieces that will be written by myself and Tribune editor Paco Nunez, called The Critical Mass.
A critical mass is an amount or level needed for a specific result or new action to occur. Or it can be interpreted in the sense of being a critical group of people.
It is our hope that in these articles the readers will find the true freedom of thought, a freedom which is not shackled by ideologues who care only about their own ideas, and dismiss yours as not worth their consideration. Politics and politicians will change nothing in the Bahamas. But a critical mass of Bahamians can.
By RUPERT MISSICK Jr Chief Reporter
