The Tribune

LORD save us from politicians!

It is difficult to understand how Prime Minister Christie could have spoken the following words without a twinge of conscience.

Commenting after the passing of government’s four Constitutional (Amendment) Bills in the House of Assembly on Wednesday, Mr Christie found it “abhorrent” to The Bahamas’ fundamental values that more than 53 years since women won the right to vote, they still do not have constitutional protection against discrimination based on sex. Did he not recall that he and his party had contributed 14 of those 53 years to women being relegated to second class citizens in their own country?

In 2002, then Prime Minister Hubert Ingraham invited Mr Christie as leader of the Opposition PLP to sit down and agree the terms by which the Constitution could be amended to bring women into the fold as equal citizens. The Ingraham government dropped all the proposals to which Mr Christie and his party disagreed. The then prime minister wanted to make certain that government and opposition went to the floor of the House with a united voice. It is for this reason that today Prime Minister Christie has been anxious to secure an assurance that the FNM will not do the same about face as he did in 2002.

On the floor of the House in 2002, government proposed the agreed amendments and both sides voted that the proposal should be presented to the people in a series of town meetings. At his first town meeting, Mr Christie shocked the town when he claimed that he was led astray in parliament, was mistaken in his “yes” vote and would vote against the amendments in a referendum. He said that the matter should be left to the new government — the 2002 election was only a few months away. And so an election and the ambition of a politician whose goal was to become prime minister, got in the way of giving Bahamian women equal status to their menfolk.

Prime Minister Ingraham, who lost the election, later remarked that “Perry Christie and I agreed on behalf of our political parties that these are the amendments we were both going to support and he agreed on the list of items. And now he is saying that he was seduced.”

No, he was not seduced. He was ambitious. And although he won the 2002 election, his five years passed without a mention of Bahamian women’s rights under the Constitution. And so we agree with DNA Leader Branville McCartney that should this referendum be won — and it must be won— no credit should go to Mr Christie or his party. After all they were the ones who delayed it for another 14 years — and regardless of what retired Archbishop Drexel Gomez says, the excuse for the delay was frivolous. They have even been foot dragging during this current term— their second chance as a government to get the job done — and yet it has been delayed another four years. So, yes the delay was and is still “abhorrent”. On this we are in full agreement with Mr Christie.

However, having said that we urge that the past be forgotten – it was tragic, it was “abhorrent”, but don’t let’s muddy the waters by dragging it into the future.

In a letter on this page, a former Tribune reporter writes:

“I want to congratulate the Members on both sides who supported these measures. On the same day, I read with dismay a letter urging the public not to support a Referendum on this issue because of the manner in which the Gaming ‘referendum’ was handled.

“While I understand the hurt this has caused, my question to the writer is this:

Would you punish an entire population of Bahamian women and their families to get revenge on something that was beyond their control?

“The writer may not be aware that the anomaly in the Constitution has been used in the past to target and victimise families for various reasons. It has created utter anguish and heartache for Bahamian men, women and children and as a people, we must make sure this is never allowed to happen again.”

Athena Damianos Mabon knows first hand of these many heartaches as she has interviewed the tragedy inflicted on many families, especially during the Pindling regime. If you were targeted as having not voted for the “Chief” you were marked for destruction.

Ms Damianos – as she is known to Tribune readers — reported many interviews with emotionally battered families. On June 1, 1992, she reported a story that shocked the nation when at an FNM convention a young woman stood up and told the tragic story of how her family had been torn apart by PLP immigration discrimination. The young woman, who had lived in The Bahamas from the time she was four weeks old, told the story of her father’s forced separation from his family and her struggle for citizenship. She told how her father, a well-known doctor, was forced to leave his Bahamian family for 12 years because the PLP government would not allow him to work here. He had worked at the Princess Margaret Hospital for many years and was well know and well liked. His Long Island wife, also a doctor, was also well known, but unfortunately for the family she was an active FNM. This was her undoing. After the young woman’s heart wrenching speech, The Tribune was told that Immigration claimed that her application for citizenship had been approved a month before. Her mother is now dead, but her father now practises medicine here.

Her story opened the floodgates. An Abaco woman called to tell how she had lived a 20-year nightmare for having married a foreigner. A Bahamian man recalled how his sister-in-law who had lived here for 30 years could not get immigration status. She had married a Bahamian and had two Bahamian children. Two years after she had died of cancer, government invited her to attend an interview for either permanent residence or citizenship.

On April 24, 1997, our editorial started as follows:

“The front door flew open. A woman ran into the road and headed for the graveyard.

“Frank it’s over! It’s over! It’s finished. Frank, it is really finished,” she screamed. She laughed. She cried and she screamed some more. For her it was a joyous moment.

“Neighbours opened their doors and looked out to see what had happened.

“Mrs Drucilla Higgs of Mathew Town Inagua had gone to her husband Frank’s graveside to share her good news with him. It was March 14 and ZNS had just announced the results of the general election, The FNM had won 34 seats. Mrs Higgs did not wait to hear the PLP’s results. Instead she was off to tell her Frank the good news…”

There are too many stories to tell. We are tempted to reprint many of them during the run up to the referendum so that Bahamians will truly understand the pain and suffering of many families because women dared marry a foreigner and even worse vote for the government of their choice. In other words their future was in the hands of a tyrant and if they didn’t vote right their family was destroyed.

The publication of these stories might be an eye-opener for many families whose daughters in the future might have to face the same injustice only because they do not have equal status with their male Bahamian counterpart.

Mr Christie finds it “abhorrent” to the The Bahamas’ fundamental values. We all find it abhorrent. And so no frivolous excuse should be allowed to block the passing of this referendum.