The Tribune

IN THE 1970 movie Five Easy Pieces that catapulted Jack Nicholson from character actor to rising star capable of portraying emotions from tenderness to fury with equal and absolute perfection, the most famous scene depicts the full range of feelings. Nicholson and friends are seated in a restaurant where he places an order for an omelet and whole wheat toast, hold the potatoes, tomatoes instead. The waitress whose every move shouts she has no interest in what any customer wants, especially one who wants to vary the numbered offerings, says no substitutions. Nicholson, patient, calm and trying his best, still wants the toast. He orders a chicken salad sandwich, hold the mayo, lettuce, and chicken salad, bring the toast, he will pay for the chicken salad sandwich.

All Nicholson wanted was a few pieces of bread, toasted. No matter how hard he tried, all he got was attitude. And in the end, he exploded. With one angry swipe, he knocked everything off the table, sending plates, cups, silver and shards of glass crashing to the floor before storming out.

The Bahamian public is in much the same mood as Nicholson was when he first walked into that restaurant, calm, hopeful, anticipating, looking forward to what lies ahead.

But, like Nicholson, the public will turn when it has had enough. And when they do, the pent up anger will be unleashed just as it was on May 10 when the chicken salad sandwich moment came in Bahamian politics and voters threw the reigning PLP government out with the same powerful swipe as Nicholson did the dishes and flatware in Five Easy Pieces.

The swipe was a message: we’ve had enough and we’re not going to take it anymore.

The Bahamian public is still in the waiting, hopeful mood, but there is a sense that the calm is beginning to chafe. Rightly or wrongly, they want to see heads roll. They want to know that someone or some people whose faces they can point to can explain “where the VAT money gone.” They want to know that someone or some group is going to pay the price of the Bahamas being downgraded four times by Moody’s. They want to know why there are so few jobs but everything costs so much, why their children are going to schools where it is easier to buy drugs and junk food than to find a clean bathroom. They want to know why their girls are growing up too fast and their boys not fast enough.

We urge continuing patience, but also offer a few words of counsel.

First, this government must do what previous governments have failed to do, let the public know what it is doing. No government in The Bahamas has ever had a good, or even reasonable, public relations programme. Prime Minister Dr. Hubert Minnis was smart enough to appoint a press secretary, Anthony Newbold, a veteran journalist. We need to hear more from Mr. Newbold. The government’s PR machine, Bahamas Information Services (BIS) has done a much better job of late keeping the media informed of the movements of Cabinet ministers, funerals, road closures, sports events, but what we are getting is improved reports of speeches rather than information about policy. The public is crying out for politics with purpose, meaningful change with measurable and visible results.

This is a hungry public and it wants substance, not speeches.

Second, the government has the opportunity while the public is still in the anticipatory mood to make its intentions clear and to show that it hears the concerns of everyone who lives or does business in this country. It is not as tall an order as it sounds. There are many ways to determine what people want the most, what really matters. Online survey tools like SurveyMonkey open a world of discovery that was not available a decade ago. Once priorities are established, ticking off steps toward meeting those goals becomes news and the public feels as though the government is listening and what they want matters. We believe that every government in the past has gone into office with the best of intentions. But their priorities were not the public’s priorities. Far too much was behind closed doors, a chasm that separated public from private.

Third, investigations into what happened before are like an appetizer. The main course will be four immediate actions: anti-corruption measures, Freedom of Information legislation with strong teeth, campaign finance laws limiting the amount that can be contributed and barring foreign governments or their representatives to donate to local campaigns, and a comprehensive Environmental Protection Act that includes severe penalties for destruction of the Bahamian environment and resources so no amount of payoff behind the scenes can allow such wanton behaviour.

Fourth, Employ KYC (know your customer) to build a bond rather than fostering a chasm. On July 22, two police officers responded to an alarm on a busy street. They were extremely polite but totally surprised and most impressed. They had passed the building a million times yet had no idea what was inside. That should be a clue to the Minister of National Security. Familiarity breeds trust, but it can only occur when officers or Members of Parliament take the time to go door to door getting to know people and the businesses, schools, plants, and operations in their community. Another example, Mosseff House, part of the Bahamas Feeding Network is located on Fox Hill Road next door to the Fox Hill Police Station. While the Network feeds hundreds of people every Sunday through Mosseff House, none of the volunteers has ever seen a police officer walk in, less than 50 feet away.

Fifth, DNA leader Bran McCartney was right when he said sweat the small stuff. If every jitney, truck or car that ran the red light heading north by Government House heading downhill onto Cumberland Street were caught on camera and ticketed, or every vehicle on East Bay Street approaching Montagu that crossed the double line to barge its way on to Eastern Road were ticketed a reasonable amount, $75 or $100, people would quickly stop running the light and barging in. Respect for the law begins with the small stuff.

Five easy pieces. In the movie, the title refers to five pieces of great classical music by composers like Chopin and Bach, representing the cultured life Nicholson had abandoned to become a dropout, treading a fine line between love and hostility as he tried to find himself.

Let us hope that the new government with its ambitious, well-meaning team tread the fine lines carefully, openly and with respect for the order the public has placed so the chicken salad scene with everything shattered on the floor never plays out and the growing hunger for what is right and just is satisfied.