{"id":30198,"date":"2013-01-14T07:52:45","date_gmt":"2013-01-14T12:52:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/?p=30198"},"modified":"2013-01-14T07:52:45","modified_gmt":"2013-01-14T12:52:45","slug":"cob-mounts-historic-majority-rule-day-exhibition","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/2013\/01\/cob-mounts-historic-majority-rule-day-exhibition","title":{"rendered":"COB Mounts Historic Majority Rule Day Exhibition"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>An exhibition detailing the struggle towards Majority Rule was unveiled at the Harry C Moore Library of the College of The Bahamas on the 46th Anniversary of Majority Rule, which came about on January 10, 1967.<\/p>\n

Minister of Foreign Affairs and Immigration Fred Mitchell represented Perry Christie, Prime Minister by delivering the opening remarks at the ceremony held Thursday, January 10, 2013.
\n\u201cOn behalf of the Prime Minister, I wish to pay tribute to all who are responsible for this exhibition this evening and are helping to continue the narrative and to tell the old, old story of how we have overcome,\u201d Mr. Mitchell said.<\/p>\n

The Prime Minister has committed to establishing Majority Rule Day as a public holiday.<\/p>\n

Mr. Mitchell also attended a Majority Rule Day service on Wednesday, January 9, 2013 in the Bain Town community hosted by Rev C. B Moss.<\/p>\n

\u201cI am really pleased at all of the attention that these observances are getting this year; it looks like we are finally getting it right.\u201d<\/p>\n

At that service, Sir Arthur Foulkes, the Governor General gave an impassioned plea for people to understand that none of this could have come about if it were not for the untidy business of politics.<\/p>\n

\u201cPoliticians are bashed, vilified.\u00a0 Politics they say is dirty.\u00a0 Yet it is politics that has produced much of the story which we come here to celebrate and to mark,\u201d Sir Arthur said.<\/p>\n

Supporting those words, Mitchell said those who know him, know that he is very strong on the adversarial nature of the country\u2019s political system.<\/p>\n

\u201cOut of that adversarial game comes the dynamic history and the public policy which we have today,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

This exhibition depicts the story of the march from the Emancipation of slavery, to Burma Road, to Majority Rule and to Independence.<\/p>\n

\u201cI hope next year January 10th is a public holiday.\u00a0 It now has bi-partisan support.\u00a0 I hope that next year, Burma Road, now called Blake Road is completely repaved with cobblestones, an idea given to me by one of the assistant clerks of the House of Assembly.<\/p>\n

“So that when we ride over it, everyone will ask: what do these stones mean? And we will reply, \u201cWe are Going down Burma Road. Don\u2019t lick nobody\u201d, Mr. Mitchell said.
\nThe Majority Rule Day observances are very much a part of his decision to have a public life, he said.<\/p>\n

In 1977, he got the opportunity at the convention of the Progressive Liberal Party, directed by Sir Lynden Pindling to write a series of pieces delivered by members of a group known as the National Alliance, which included amongst others the late Brenville Hanna, and his friends Sean McWeeney and Michael Symonette.<\/p>\n

The essays were delivered at the start of the convention, and later his friend Paul Drake put those essays into a book, which he called Great Moments In PLP History.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt began in my mind as a simple construct: that the political history of the modern Bahamas should be seen as beginning with the Burma Road riots of 1942 and ending with Independence in 1973.\u00a0 In between was Majority Rule Day 1967. The narrative was extended recently to include the Emancipation of the slaves in 1834,\u201d Mr. Mitchell said.
\nHe said he listened to the other speakers at the Bain Town service, namely the Prime Minister; and Loretta Butler-Turner, Deputy Leader of the Free National Movement.<\/p>\n

\u201cI thought to myself: \u201cYes! By Jove I think they\u2019ve got it! Each of the principals I named had the narrative just about right.\u201d<\/p>\n

What is interesting though is the FNM\u2019s version of the narrative.\u00a0 It is a parallel narrative but a compelling one all the same, and one which admits to the common history, he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat allows them now to embrace the event, is the fact that the founders of their party, the \u201cDissident Eight\u201d, were amongst the progenitors of the movement to Majority Rule.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt appears that having realised that fact, they are able to embrace Majority Rule as the seminal event that it was and is,\u201d Mr. Mitchell said.<\/p>\n

The narrative is further broadened by the legal reality that in 1967 there was the vote with full, universal adult suffrage without property qualifications for the first time in Bahamian history.\u00a0 The result then literally was majority rule.\u00a0 It embraced both black and white; in that the will of the majority was expressed and done.<\/p>\n

\u201cFurther, as the Governor General read his statement, a statement which was read in all the schools throughout the country this morning, I thought that we have finally gotten to the point where officialdom can say the words \u201cBlack\u201d and \u201cAfrican descent\u201d without sounding like they are apologising.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat to me is a major achievement.\u00a0 There was a time in the 1990s and up to recent times, when you had to say those words as if you were whispering a secret,\u201d Mr. Mitchell said.<\/p>\n

By Lindsay Thompson<\/span><\/em>
\nBahamas Information Services<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

An exhibition detailing the struggle towards Majority Rule was unveiled at the Harry C Moore Library of the College of The Bahamas on the 46th Anniversary of Majority Rule, which came about on January 10, 1967.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rop_custom_images_group":[],"rop_custom_messages_group":[],"rop_publish_now":"initial","rop_publish_now_accounts":{"facebook_10223285771444175_51037792744":""},"rop_publish_now_history":[],"rop_publish_now_status":"pending","footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[1008,985],"class_list":["post-30198","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-lifestyle","tag-college-of-the-bahamas","tag-majority-rule-day"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30198","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=30198"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30198\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30198"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30198"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30198"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}