The Tribune

EDITOR, The Tribune.

I watched as the blogs exploded over comments from the educated attorney cum political henchman Wayne Munroe, clothed now in silk.

As the old people say, I had to “check myself” lest I drift into the delusion that with education comes learning. Mr. Munroe is an educated man but he has a lot to learn. He was admitted to practice law in England and Wales and subsequently called to the Bahamas Bar. He is a past president of the Bar Association. And this year some in the PLP political clique thought enough of him to confer on him the lofty title of Queen’s Counsel.

So from such a man one ought not to expect the brutal nonsense and medieval thinking of corporal punishment and the selective enforcement of this cruel, inhumane and barbaric section of the criminal code.

But just who could have been his audience? Is he primping and posturing to gain visibility and traction for an upcoming run at political office? Demagoguery is in vogue this year in places like the United States where Presidential contender Donald Trump can say any manner of insulting things and get away with it. Why not Mr Munroe?

Sadly, it seems that not one member of the PLP has thrown shade at Mr Munroe and none have condemned his rant. Not the Prime Minister, nor the Attorney General nor the Party Chairman have called him out on it. Our church brethren say where yuh put muh.

Mr Munroe reserves his vitriol for offenders of our immigration laws – a dog whistle for bashing Haitians. His prescription for our ills is a return to flogging. It should certainly help Minister of Tourism Obie Wilchombe attract millions of visitors to the Bahamas when said visitors see news stories splashed across their television of torture and whippings in paradise.

Not to mention how floggings here will help Minister of Foreign Affairs Fred “Supersonic” Mitchell when he makes another run at trying to get on the United Nations Human Rights Commission. (You just know Freddie is going to try again, right?).

The most prosperous little (mostly black) rainbow nation in the western hemisphere metes out street justice to poor migrants from the oldest black republic in the world, not to mention a fellow Caricom country. He’s heavy and he ain’t MY brother.

It is curious to know just how fairly Mr Munroe’s whippings will be carried out. If one is black and (presumably or at least visibly Haitian) you get the cat. But what if one is an American, European or say, a Cuban who runs afoul of immigration laws? Do you think the US Embassy would take kindly to the systemic torturing of one of its citizens? What will be the reprisals? Did Mr Munroe think about that? Probably not. In his world, Americans and any first world citizen (i.e. white) lawbreakers would be exempt from flogging.

I understand that a few thousand of our fellow Bahamians have violated the immigration laws of the United States. Some of them are in American prisons. Would it be okay if they were flogged by the Americans in reciprocity?

And why stop with immigration offences. Should adulterers be flogged? What about wife beaters, drunk drivers or vagrants? If the aim is to deter criminal behaviour let’s have at it.

Then there is the small matter of what to do with women and girls since the flogging statute says only men and boys can get the cat-o-nine-tails.

Citizens under 30 probably wouldn’t know that the Bar Association, distinguished intellectuals and others breathed a sigh of relief in 1984 when the Pindling Government had corporal punishment taken off the books, vestiges of our colonial past. That’s right. This progressive little nation was way out in front on this important human rights wrong.

But then the political winds blew against Pindling and in 1991 he dramatically changed tack and had corporal punishment reinstated into the criminal code and all because he wanted to appear tough on crime.

The PLP wasn’t too much interested in arresting the crime situation. What they wanted to do was make the people think that floggings would make us feel safe from crime. And making the electorate feel good was part of Pindling’s strategy to win a 6th consecutive term in office.

If crime was the only issue the PLP probably would have won again in 1992. But in the end the economy and Pindling fatigue swept the PLP from office and ushered the FNM into power for the first time.

Wayne Munroe’s shameful pandering ought to backfire just as spectacularly. But it is chilling to listen to ordinary Bahamians – young and old, rich and poor, of every religious stripe – call for the reinstatement of flogging and other forms of cruel and unusual punishment.

We wince when we hear of barbarism in the Middle East, Africa and Asia but applaud and say “it’s about time” when Wayne Munroe or his fellow demagogue Leslie Miller call for a return to torture.

I have seen Bahamians in distress, some even in tears (and rightfully so) after watching the Academy Award winning film “12 Years A Slave”. They poignantly recall the flogging meted out to the slave girl Patsey (played by the brilliant actress Lupita Nyong’o) for the crime of straying off the plantation without permission.

Fast forward 170 years and the egotistic Mr Munroe, robed in silk for less than one year, wants us to flog Haitians for transgressing our borders.

Has this man no shame? We don’t need to solve 21st century problems with 19th century punishment. Surely we are better than this.

THE GRADUATE

Nassau,

December 8, 2015.