The Tribune

By NICOLE BURROWS

I watched bits and pieces of the Progressive Liberal Party (PLP) convention because I have to see and hear things for myself - but that was pretty much all I could stomach.

It’s no wonder why every five years we end up with guinea pigs in government posts, when our approach to politics is what it is.

The mindless chants; the loud, sometimes lewd music; the screaming and wheezing because if your “leader” isn’t re-elected you’ll just lose the rest of your mind; the laughing like wild idiots; the pre-recorded “My God” and other audio inserts ... it’s just all too much for an actual progressive person to absorb.

A political party convention is meant to discuss serious business. It’s not a carnival. It’s not road fever. When will you people realise that? You’re supposed to be joining together to make decisions that determine the fate of your country, primary to the celebratory carryings-on. But all I can see on my television are clowns on the stage and clowns in the audience.

I see people who look like they would die if they weren’t allowed to touch the hem of some deified politician’s garment, others who live to be gofers, and others who are as numb as a novocained lip not even sure what they’re doing there. You want to sit up in big time convention, being televised, then hide from the camera? I’m not saying you can’t enjoy what you think is an enjoyable occasion, but can you exercise whatever etiquette someone sensible would have once-upon-a-time instilled in you and be serious about what’s at hand?

I can’t believe an intelligent man like Michael Halkitis would let himself be dragged into the madness of the moment, giving into a chant of “Das where da VAT money gone!” When you can get an upstanding man to play the part of a stand-up fool, maybe there’s something to be said for your coercion skills.

Nevertheless, in the words of young(er) Bahamians ... ‘Y’all tink dis a game, ey?”

Clearly.

Which of you can really afford to spend your time engrossed in these shenanigans? To those two captured on news audio hyperventilating for Perry Christie not to be unseated as leader of the PLP, what in the hell has he done for you?

Look around you. How are you living? How much education have you had? How much money can you earn? How healthy are your meals? How regularly are your bills paid ... in full? How are your children doing in school?

What opportunities do you have to build a better, more respectable future in which you and your offspring can take immense pride?

If you can’t answer all of these questions favourably, why you prancing around losing your mind over people who cannot elevate you, particularly on your own merit?

In case you have political amnesia or political cataracts, Christie and whoever else you’ve sworn your misplaced allegiance to ain’t doing much for you at all, certainly nowhere as much as they should be.

But you continue to sit on the sidelines of life and rant and chant like a crazed person. You better be satisfied with the thrill of that minute because that buzz and the $200-filled t-shirt is all you getting out of the deal.

The only positive I can attribute to the PLP is that they are slightly more organised in their chaos than the Free National Movement (FNM). And if they are up to no good, they’re all up to no good together. They didn’t have a leadership meltdown because they know they best maintain the status quo if they want to continue to eat at the table of ill-gotten gains.

And while I’m discussing the ridiculousness of party politics, at convention, let me add the ridiculousness of party politics at rallies and ratifications.

The PLP is aware that the City of Gold is a funeral-type hymn, right? Specifically, it is favoured as what you sing on the way out of the church and into the graveyard. They are right about one thing; the PLP, or more aptly, “the death of the PLP” is the only way to get to that place. Maybe I shouldn’t bother to make the distinction. Maybe they’ll continue singing it right up to Election Day 2017, and it’ll be a self-fulfilling prophecy ... the last rites and the end of all things for the PLP.

But I know who isn’t trying to meet the end. I couldn’t help but notice that in the speech Christie gave at the ritual PLP convention prayer breakfast, he made reference to his might and endurance. “We have created since we came to power, notwithstanding a challenging economy, over 31 thousand jobs ...”

Power? Power, Mr Christie? A less power-hungry and more innately humble leader would have chosen the more appropriate word “office” instead of power. “Power” may make you feel mighty and accomplished and rile up your supporters, but the rest of us only hear the real you.

And there I go again, expecting the leopard to change his spots. I must really be crazy to think any leader of mine could have humility and be above reproach, mustn’t I? Whatever am I thinking? That’s not what they’re there for, is it?

They’re there to wield power over us ... and to tie another bloody anchor project to our feet, as if we already couldn’t get out of our own way as a country.

Mr Christie, that anchor project idea was the most ill-considered decision you could ever have made for the successful development of this country. And no, “successful” does not include an unfinished, unopened resort. A smarter man would have recognised early in his illustrious 40-plus years in public life that you need to diversify your income streams.

All your anchor projects have done is added an unbearable, unmanageable mental and economic weight to our country and our people, submerging them in a mindset that cuts off the circulation to their innovation and ability to see the world beyond the hotel, the tourism and the foreigner, as their main source of income. And we can’t get out from under it now because in all of your illustrious 40-plus years in public life, you have assisted in providing us with nowhere else to go to be fruitful. By focusing on this obsession of yours to put one anchor project on every island, you’ve disregarded the utility, rather, the necessity, of multiple thriving industries.

But wait. I forgot. That’s exactly how this whole Baha Mar thing started wasn’t it? Ingraham had his signature scribbled on Atlantis, so you needed your signature scribbled on something, too. Your legacy. Well congrats. Your name will forevermore be attached to the negativity people think of when they hear the words Baha Mar, whether or not it opens when you say it will. Just like your anchor projects plan hangs heavily on the ankle of your country, so too will the stigma of Baha Mar hang heavy on your ankle. And sadly, that is not all that will hang heavy there.

At this juncture, in your illustrious 40-plus years in public life, you should be begging for someone else to take the reins of leadership in the PLP and set it on a new, more promising course. But you insist on staying seated in the chair of leadership until you can’t stand up anymore. What a sad day that will be.

Every sensible Bahamian of this era will remember the chokehold you and your cohorts have put on this country, over the last 40-plus years of public life which you have convinced yourself were given to the people for their good. Hopefully, there will be enough of them with sense at the polls this year to outnumber the loud, lewd, screaming, chanting, misguided, die-hard supporters of the PLP.

On that note, I have a multipart question for Alfred Sears, who some regarded as a light at the end of the dark democracy tunnel in the Bahamas.

Mr Sears, how will you remain “a PLP” when the leadership you took effort and time to oppose still maintain the same corruptibilities and old politics you spoke out against and used as a part of your platform in your bid for leadership? How will you continue to be a part of that? How can you continue to be a part of that?

And if you stay on with the PLP, does it say more about your loyalty to that party, or your inability to part with it on the basis of what you might stand to lose in political and other opportunity, if you walked away? Is that the effect of the Christie and the PLP “power”?

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