The Tribune

Sociologically and biologically, humans are tribal by nature. Being a member of a familial or tribal group is seen as essential for development. But like all human instincts, tribalism can lead to violent conflict, war and genocide.

Tribalism can become poisonous and excessive. Still, politics and political groupings are an advancement in how human societies are organised, a means of taming our baser instincts and penchant for violence and unchecked group- and self-interests.

Democratic and parliamentary politics is necessarily adversarial. It is a civilised alternative to settling differences through violence on a battlefield or in the streets. It descends into tribalism when we revert to victimisation, spite and societal exclusion as political weapons.

“Man's capacity for justice makes democracy possible, but man's inclination to injustice makes democracy necessary,” stated the late Reinhold Niebuhr, a pastor and one of the preeminent theologians and political commentators of the 20th Century.

Niebuhr observed that democratic political systems are naturally confrontational, partisan and given to conflict. Democratic politics is an advancement for human groups that throughout history were prone to settle many conflict without the rules of democracy, which are designed to check group interests and the lust for power.

Human beings are naturally competitive. The contesting of values and viewpoints are designed to produce better outcomes, though given human fallibility and corruption, the best outcomes often do not come to fruition.

Our court system is based on contestation, with prosecution and defence teams vigorously promoting their cases to be adjudicated by judges and juries. There are safeguards like rules of evidence, precedence, judicial reviews and appellate courts.

Likewise, in a party-based democracy there are institutions, principally parliament, and rules, conventions and traditions where the final adjudicators in a democracy, the people, elect representatives to debate and to decide on matters affecting the common good.

It is in the political arena that humans contest values, ideas, beliefs – and balance group and individual interests. The lifeblood of parliamentary democracy is a party system based on competition and contest, which are necessary for democratic flourishing. Any citizen may join or support a party to promote their ideas and interests.

Democracy partially evolved in reaction to monarchical or autocratic forms of government. As messy and dysfunctional as it sometimes seems, a competitive party-based system is an advancement in how a society is organized and governed.

Our pluralist constitutional cum parliamentary democracy is designed to ensure a contest for power as a check against one-party rule and dictatorship. Partisans debate their views in a parliament where there are well-established rules to guide its proceedings.

In a presentation to the House of Assembly in 1973 entitled, “The Role of the Opposition”, the late Sir Kendal GL Isaacs noted: “While the majority rules, the opposition must criticise. It has both the power and the duty to keep public opinion on the alert and to try to build up a following so that it may in its turn become the majority.

“There are thus two distinct and necessarily unequal elements in the Constitution – the government and the opposition – each representing different points of view. National policies are arrived at by means of a compromise between the two.”

Lawmakers and politicians are also guided and bound by the constitution and the courts. And they are checked also by voters and their parties. Our system has even more checks on the political power of the executive than the US system of government.

Some time spent at the National Archives or reading the clippings in the well-kept archives of The Tribune may provide younger reporters as well as older reporters and editors with greater perspective and insight as they write stories and offer commentary on contemporary politics and parliamentary debates.

The ferocious debates in the House of Assembly from the 1960s to the 1990s and 2000s, joined by politicians like Sir Lynden Pindling, Sir Cecil Wallace Whitfield, Sir Arthur Foulkes, Hubert Ingraham and other parliamentarians, make contemporary parliamentary contests appear like much tamer affairs.

Many of today’s debates in Parliament are boring and at times insipid, lacking the quality of intellectual rigor, genuine cleverness, and repartee of debaters like Keith Duncombe, Carlton Francis, and others.

Those too young to remember might ask some older heads about when Sir Lynden and then MP Michael Lightbourne almost came to blows. With folk wisdom, tenacity and creative showmanship, Edmund Moxey often patched hell on Sir Lynden.

Some will recall the heated arguments on the floor of the House of Assembly during the debate on the Public Disclosure Bill, the contemptuous treatment by Sir Lynden of the late Speaker Sir Arlington Butler and Sir Arlington’s masterful response.

A quick world tour, which can be done by any smart device, will quickly reveal how much tamer and less tribal are Bahamian politics and parliamentary debate.

From South and Central America to Africa to Europe to the Middle East to Asia, Bahamians will discover parliaments decidedly more rambunctious and divided than The Bahamas.

The goings-on in the South Korean National Assembly were often so tumultuous that lawmakers had to bring in stricter regulations to stop fights from breaking out. Some parliaments have had to fine members who broke rules and engaged in fighting within the parliamentary chambers.

Our democracy is not threatened by the sometimes overheated rhetoric and sometimes unnecessary tribalism in politics, though we must constantly and vigorously work to uphold rules and conventions.

The greater threat is the ignorance about our system and political history by politicians, parliamentarians, journalists, and commentators, who continue to fail to offer their fellow-citizens greater perspective and understanding of national affairs.

In a presentation in the House of Assembly in 1973 entitled, “The Role of the Opposition”, the late Sir Kendal GL Isaacs, who was Leader of the Opposition at the time, observed: “Professor Andre Mathiot, viewing the British system as it were from the outside, also makes the observation that the strength of the system lies in the entrenchment of the Opposition.

“In his book, The British Political System, Professor Mathiot says, ‘If asked to give a single criterion of free democratic government, I should say that it depends on the status of the Opposition'.”

Sir Kendal noted: "Professor Mathiot, as other modern scholars of political science, starts with the basic premise that power belongs initially to the people and it is presumed that the people actively participate in the conduct of their affairs.

“Therefore, in practice, government must be by the majority. That is to say, that on any issue where there is an irreconcilable division of opinion, the will of the majority must ultimately prevail.

“Nevertheless, it is essential to the working of the system that genuine efforts be made to accommodate the opinions of the minority and to ensure at least that at all times the Opposition is free to voice their opinions and to have them exposed before the nation with the same facility as the Government’s views are projected.”

Sir Kendal described Professor Mathiot’s view of a democratic system: “A liberal regime on the other hand, admits that the majority is not always right and that others should be at liberty to point out where it is in the wrong, the views of the majority being only an imperfect and transitory reflection of the will of the people.

“Not only is it considered wrong to suppress or disregard opposition, but it is recognised that the opposition, no less than the government, has its own distinctive part to play.”

We have a vibrant and tested system of government. It works best when the institutions of government are populated by leaders who respect democratic values and their fellow citizens who afford them the privilege of serving in high office.