The Tribune

EDITOR, The Tribune.

IT seems to me that we have bred a country of sell-outs. It seems that while in opposition everyone speaks up for the Bahamian people. It seems like while outside of government everyone and has the Bahamian people’s business as priority number one. Sadly, once elected and they enter the House of Assembly, they become ‘itches’ and ‘snitches’. They leave their bravery in their civilian jacket pocket, or way in the back of their closet, and they promptly fall in line and goose-step right into the political status quo.

I personally worked along many others to help remove the last government, a government that wasted the people’s finances on a foreign culture, a treasonous government that sold out their own to bring forth a foreign agenda; trying to change our culture and spending millions of our dollars to do it!

I don’t know why these people chose to support others over their own, maybe it’s a lack of belief in themselves and wanting to be like others abroad. Maybe they are influenced by years of colonization which motivates them to throw away their Bahamian identity. Whatever the cause, we cannot deny that discarding or not promoting our own Bahamian Culture is fueling the degrading state in which we find our country in today.

We no longer hold to the Bahamian values and principles we grew up on. The widespread acceptance of foreign cultures has diluted our own; and the worst of our vices on display. We’ve increased our drinking, stealing, gambling, shooting, displaying nakedness more than ever. As if it’s something to be proud of, we are promoting promiscuity while misleading our children, while trying to please a few sexual deviants in our midst, we are turning this beautiful and blessed land into an island version of Sodom and Gomorrah because of this so-called Carnival.

I agreed with the Minister of Youth, Sports and Culture Michael Pintard when he said he cannot stop a private festival from continuing, but he and the government can stop the people’s monies from being invested in this foreign event called ‘Carnival’. It’s one thing to promote an authentic Bahamian festival influenced by our Bahamian culture, it is an entirely different thing however for foreign artists to be paid out of the Bahamian people’s treasury. For the past three years, we the people have been misled, fooled and robbed in the name of Carnival and that is wrong. Rather than use taxpayer monies, such events should be funded by private entities.

If the current Minister of Youth, Sports and Culture, decides to follow the direction of his predecessors by investing our monies into another country’s culture, then let the chips fall where they may for him and his colleagues. We need to be supporting what is ours. Unlike some others, I am not a sell-out and I cannot say this enough, I will not rest until ‘Bahamians are truly first in our land’ and ‘The People’s Time’ is not just a catch phrase to be bantered about.

Musician/Entertainer/Activist/Proud Bahamian.

KIRKLAND H BODIE

Nassau,

December 20, 2017