The Tribune

EDITOR, The Tribune.

Few things have come to symbolise the morning ritual better than a hot cup of coffee or tea and a roaring laugh over the political cartoon in the newspaper.

Editorial cartoons have been published continuously since 1721 when the first one appeared in a British paper.

It’s a feature of all of our local newspapers and its popularity can be credited to one man, Eddie Minnis, creator of “Potluck” and father of the loveable characters “Granny B” and “Fleabs”, aka Fleabag.

Through the creative mind of this most apolitical of artists we kept our cool and our sanity during most of the excesses of the Pindling government. Potluck ridiculed the powerful and made us see that our emperors were as naked as jaybirds.

A part of Minnis’ appeal was that he was fearless and owed allegiance to no political party or ideology. We respected his deeply held personal faith and were comfortable with him because he never preached at us.

The modern day Potluck is of course, Sideburns, an understandable acolyte of Junkanoo who seems to recoil from satire when the political heat is turned to full blast and the PLP is the target. Sideburns is entitled to his political beliefs and we must accept that his editorial opinions are exclusively his to make.

But he does a great disservice to us all when he fails to grasp the controversies of the day, presumably because they are unflattering to the current governing party.

There could be no better grist for the satirist’s mill than the current fire engulfing Jerome Fitzgerald and Shane Gibson. Or the shame the Prime Minister has brought on himself by his vulgar sign language.

Years from now if historians studying The Bahamas used only the Sideburns cartoons to get a glimpse of what was happening in the Bahamas in 2017, they would hardly know of the Fitzgerald hustle or the Gibson bamboozle.

Sideburns didn’t notice any of this because all he could see are road signs put up by all of the parties. Really!

We are not asking Sideburns to do anything edgy like the cartoonists at Charlie Hebdo in Paris, although as proponents of free speech everywhere we must stand up for their right to say and draw what they wish.

But it would be more compelling if Sideburn’s creative juices could imagine poking fun at the PLP when it is warranted. What better fodder for an editorial cartoonist than the Perry Christie minstrel show?

This wouldn’t preclude his poking fun at the FNM. Sideburns should be able to walk and chew gum at the same time. And besides, Hubert Minnis is a big man and he will continue to take his licks, I am sure.

But surely there is some pun to be drawn from Christie sleeping on the job; or from Fitzgerald begging for jobs for his family; or from Gibson pulling a snow job on Peter Nygard while the three of them were on the clock and being paid by the people.

Maybe Sideburns got some of the same dropsy that licking Christie so hard.

THE GRADUATE

Nassau,

May 1, 2017.