The Tribune

EDITOR, The Tribune.

Bahamians everywhere are getting ready to celebrate 42 years of independence. At this juncture in our nation’s history we really need to reflect on where we have come from and where we are headed as a nation. What concerns me is that after the festivities are over, this nation and her peoples will return to the routines that have us in the quagmire we are presently in.

One has to wonder if this nation should not be much further ahead since Majority Rule and Independence.

I often wonder if we would not have been better off at the hands of our colonial masters. Since independence we have simply traded a foreign oppressor for domestic ones, and how this nation has suffered at the hands of the domestics.

We have observed a consolidation of wealth and power in the hands of a few privileged families while the masses suffer. We encouraged our children to get a good education and then come home to make something of themselves.

Now, after attaining that education, job seekers are either overqualified, under qualified or forced to take jobs outside of the scope of their training. Many others, refusing to jump through bureaucratic hoops simply fail to return home, while those socially and politically connected easily find employment above their pay grade. Many other Bahamians are unemployed in a country where there is no shortage of non-Bahamians holding jobs that can easily be done by any number of Bahamians.

Immigration has continued to have a stranglehold on this nation and its progress while politicians continue use it as a political football to the national detriment. Many are now asking: “Who is a Bahamian?”

After 42 years, we have a more highly educated population and significantly improved infrastructural development, but we have failed to improve our people. Bahamian politics and the antics of political leaders have transformed a once proud, principled, honest, hardworking, humble and decent people into a self absorbed, pleasure seeking bunch with an overwhelming sense of entitlement.

A people whose survival is dependent on allegiances to political parties with fear of victimisation to dissenters. The House of Assembly is devoid of men and filled with sycophants.

Additionally, our people, to a large extent, are now morally and ethically bankrupt, a people who put personal financial gain above country and appearances above character. Corruption is now the national past time. We speak of living in a democracy, but the minority with money have far more power with government than the majority who voted the government in.

Leaders elected as public servants serve their own interests and Bahamian nationalism, while alluded to in speeches, is in reality non existent. These same leaders, unable to think beyond getting re-elected and bankrupt of ideas for real national development, are hindrances to national progress and have great difficulty letting go of the reins of power. It is as though the office of the Prime Minister defines who they are as men. They seem incapable of serving their time and moving on.

Successive governments have borrowed (and wasted) multiplied billions of dollars compromising our national sovereignty. The present government has borrowed in excess of a half of a billion dollars for every year they have been in term, and for what? After 42 years of independence, we are equally, if not more dependent on foreign countries for food, clothing, electricity (oil), education, transport, labour, etc.  In fact, it seems as though whenever we have a problem we hire foreign consultants to micro-manage our affairs.

This country is likened to a grown man still living at home with his parents, borrowing from Peter to pay Paul and getting into bed with the monied to continue to project the image of success. It is in reality quite depressing.

Of course, the speeches that we will hear shortly will speak in glowing terms of how far we have come and how much more glorious is the future ahead.

Those who live in the reality of a post independence Bahamas know better. While there is much to be proud of, I hang my head in shame as I continue to see our nation’s leaders squandering opportunities to make this nation great, exchanging it for short-term political gain. Happy Independence Bahamas?

JB

Nassau,

July 3, 2015.