Chinese Ambassador to The Bahamas - Hu Shan on China’s economic work in 2012

China’s economic work in 2012

Making progress while maintaining stability

By Hu Shan
Chinese Ambassador to The Bahamas

In recent months, many Bahamian friends have kept asking me about the future development situation of China’s economy, expecting me to introduce more of China’s economic policy through local media.  It so happened that China set the main tasks for its 2012 economic work last December, the tone of which was set as making progress while maintaining stability.  Following are some of the main contents.

China’s Central Economic Work Conference, concluded in Beijing on December 10, 2011, made an in-depth analysis on the major issues China must properly handle in 2012 and the ensuing period, and clearly pointed out the overall requirements, general guiding principles and main tasks of China’s economic work in 2012.  Concrete arrangements were laid out.

The conference holds the view that the world economy slowed down, the growth rate of international trade dropped, the international financial market intensively fluctuated, and risks of all sorts increased obviously in the past months in 2011.

Looking ahead, the overall situation of the world economy in 2012 will still be extremely complicated.  The instability and uncertainty of the world economy recovery is increasing.  China should pay more attention to both domestic and international situations, and figure out a due plan accordingly.  It should strengthen the awareness of risks and develop a full understanding of the challenges and opportunities brought by the international financial crisis.  From the perspectives of opening-up and reform as well as socialist construction of modernization, China should strengthen strategic planning and increase the capability of reaction by making best use of its advantages and bypassing its disadvantages.  It should continue to increase its comprehensive strength and international competence through exploiting favorable conditions while avoiding unfavorable ones.

China must play particularly well the basic work tone of maintaining stability while making progress when promoting its economic and social development in 2012.  ‘Stability’ means to maintain basically stable macroeconomic policies, relatively fast economic growth, stable consumer prices and social stability.  ‘Progress’ means to make new advances in transforming the economic development model, new breakthroughs in deepening reform and opening up and new achievements in improving people’s livelihood by seizing this strategically important development period for China’s development and putting it to good use.

The conference points out, under the circumstances of a complicated and rapidly changing international political and economic situation as well as the new situation and change in domestic economic development, China must continuously stick to the main theme of scientific development and the main policy direction of expediting transformation of its economic development model.  It must firmly keep the basic strategic point by expanding domestic demand, putting its emphasis on safeguarding and improving the life standards of the people, on accelerating the development of service sectors and on raising the proportion of the medium-income class.

China must firmly maintain the solid foundation of developing real economy.  The Chinese people must work hard to create an earnest and down-to-earth social atmosphere and get rich through diligent labor.  China must firmly stick to the dynamics of speeding up reform and renovation by seizing good opportunities to make some breakthroughs in leading fields and key segments.

The Chinese people should make special efforts to improve their abilities of initial innovation and continue to increase the abilities of epitomizing innovation and recreation through importing, absorbing and digesting foreign technologies.

They must firmly keep in mind the fundamental purpose of safeguarding and improving people’s livelihoods by allocating more financial budget, and earnestly carrying out some big and important livelihood-related events.  In doing so, they must lay stress on raising the inclusiveness of development.

The conference points out, 2011 was the first year of the 12th Five-Year period and the Chinese government and people implemented to the letter the 12th Five-Year Plan.  China enhanced and improved macroeconomic control and correctly handled the relations among stable and relatively fast economic development, economic structure adjustment and stagnation management.

China put more emphasis on solving prominent issues, consolidating and expanding its achievements in coping with international financial crisis.  China also made more efforts to enforce the orderly economic transformation from policy-stimulating to independent growth.  China’s national economy kept on moving towards the expected direction of macro-control, with a good momentum of relatively fast growth, stable price tendency, good returns, and improvement of people’s livelihoods.

In general, in 2011, China made new progress in socialist development in the fields of economy, politics, culture, society, conservation and party affairs, setting a favorable beginning for the 12th five-year period.

Given the extremely complicated domestic and international situations, no small effort was expended in obtaining such achievements.  That was the outcome of the dedication and hard work of the whole party and the whole nation in unity.  That was also the outcome of the unswerving efforts and tenacious striving of all the local governments and people from all walks of life.

The conference emphasizes that it must be consciously seen that, while the achievements were fully affirmed, currently the conflicts of interests and problems in China’s economic development remain prominent, say imbalanced, uncoordinated unharmonized development.

Moreover, there co-exists the heavy pressure of the decline in economic growth and the rising of commodity prices.  Some enterprises have difficulties in their production and management; the situation of energy conservation and emission reduction is still very severe; and there are potential risks that allow no negligence in the financial sector.

So the Chinese people must be sober-minded.  They should strengthen risk assessment, make contingency plans and take timely measures to effectively defuse all kinds of risks.

The conference clearly set the main tasks of China’s economic work for 2012. China should:

1. Continue to strengthen and improve macroeconomic adjustment and control, and promote the economy to gain stable and relatively fast growth.

2. Be unremittingly committed to the work of agriculture, rural areas and farmers, and secure the supply of agricultural products.

3. Accelerate economic structural adjustment, and promote independent and coordinated economic development.  First, it should make great efforts to expand domestic demand.  Second, it should forcefully push forward the optimization and upgrading of industrial structure.  Third, it should put more efforts on energy conservation and emission reduction.  Fourth, it should spare no efforts to promote regional coordinated development.

4. Deepen reform in major areas and key segments, and uplift the level of opening to the outside world.

5. Make full efforts to safeguard and improve people’s livelihoods, strengthen and innovate social management.

The conference points out, in order to do a good job in the economic work in 2012, China must stick to the concept of overall planning and all-round considerations, and earnestly keep a good balance between objectives and tasks to achieve the overall objective of making progress while maintaining stability.

The Chinese government should better combine stable growth, price control, structure adjustment, livelihood improvement, reform implementation and harmony promotion.

‘Stable growth’ means to boost domestic demand while stabilizing foreign demand, to exert itself to overcome the impact brought about by all sorts of unstable and uncertain factors, promptly solve trendy and tendentious problems, and to keep stable economic growth.

‘Price control’ means to continue taking comprehensive measures to keep the general price level basically stable and prevent the price tendency from rebounding.

‘Structure adjustment’ means to bring the main theme into bold relief, permeate the main policy into the whole work, combine support and control accordingly, increase both quality and quantity of economic growth, and to strengthen economic coordination and sustainability.

‘Livelihood improvement’ means to place safeguarding and improving of livelihoods on a more outstanding position, concentrate efforts to solve urgent issues, and to do some tangible things that can be seen by the people and can benefit the people.

‘Reform implementation’ means to push forward reform with greater commitment and efforts, concentrate all efforts to solve systematic and structural contradictory problems that directly impact the long-term healthy economic development, obtain new breakthroughs in major areas and key links, and promote reform, development and harmony through opening-up.

‘Harmony promotion’ means to correctly handle the relations among reform, development and stability, actively and efficiently defuse all kinds of potential conflicts and risks, and promote social harmony and stability.

Jan 19, 2012

thenassauguardian

Bahamas Blog International

Bishop Neil Ellis and his 'message' from God

The Bishop and his 'message' from God

tribune242 editorial

Nassau, The Bahamas



WE KNOW times are tough and that today managers have to think "outside the box" to raise revenue, but no one can match the genius of a bishop who Monday night filled his church and collection plate by promising to reveal the antics of "three demons" who threatened our country with destruction.

Of course, it had to be so, didn't God join Bishop Neil Ellis on a lonely walk and whisper the horror in his ear, instructing him to take the news back to save his people from the fires of hell? Like Moses coming down from the mountain with his tablet of ten commandments, Bishop Ellis couldn't wait to get back to the Bahamas to share with Bahamians God's warning. However, unlike Moses, The Tribune's reporter could not find a glow of holy light around the bishop's head.

Of course, The Tribune always wanting to be first with the news, pestered the bishop to reveal the demon's names -- the time he planned to do so in his church was rather late for our deadline. He refused.

Bishop Ellis maintained it would be dangerous to do so. God had told him it had to be done in church will all the congregation present. This would be their only opportunity to hear God's words from the mouth of his messenger. The words were to be spoken only once, in other words no repeat performance, no radio, no TV, no web, and, possibly if he could help it, no Tribune. But The Tribune was so curious and so anxious to let our readers know what demons had been assigned to wreak havoc in their lives, that we extended our deadlines and waited.

Mission accomplished: By 7:30pm the church was not only full; it was overflowing. And as the bishop had anticipated, his "demons" had brought in enough of the gullible to justify the setting up of special monitors in the parking lot so that those who could not find a seat could still watch the circus. The Bishop certainly got the crowds for the once-in-a lifetime show, but the only secret that he kept to himself was how much was left behind in the collection plates. After all men -- even a bishop -- must find ways to outwit hard time.

We soon learned that the three demons were well known to all of us - sexual immorality, financial instability and witchcraft. So what's new? Surely, the bishop knew that these demons entered the human race the day Adam and Eve got the heave-ho from the Garden of Eden. Ever since then mankind has struggled -- and often lost the battle in the garden of Good and Evil.

Would you believe that this is the same bishop who during the May, 2002 election told his congregation from the pulpit that anyone among them who did not support the PLP at the polls should "haul hip."

"Get lost," he shouted from the pulpit, "I don't want to see you any more." According to him then Opposition leader Perry Christie was the anointed one who he was holding "close to his breast." This man of God, anointed to tend the flock regardless of political affiliation, boasted that he received nothing from the PLP, but it was no secret he gave much to them. In other words, they were very much indebted to him. He boasted that they travelled on his plane, he paid all their bills, covered their hotel costs, fed them, but "never took a dime from them" -- no wonder his poor congregation have to keep his coffers filled.

Declaring that he was a humble little bishop who wanted nothing in return, he just could not contain another boast:

"Do you know what could happen in this country if the Bishop who has the largest congregation has the prime minister of the country hooked up to him? Imagine what could happen if the church had a say in the prime minister's office." No wonder he ordered his congregation who would not vote for Mr Christie to "haul hip." The "humble" little bishop, although unelected, had visions of presiding over all of us from the centre of power.

And then there was the Singing Bishop with his miracle water who created quite a stir -- didn't we just hear Bishop Ellis warn about witchcraft?

Well, on a hot day in August 2005 Bishop Lawrence Rolle -- known as the "Singing Bishop" -- packed thousands in to attend his miracle water service. He had hoodwinked another Baptist Bishop into believing in his new beverage. It was this bishop who announced that through the water the singing bishop had raised a man from the dead. At the service several woman testified to miracle healings of their aches and pains.

Of course, The Tribune, always the miserable sceptic, wanted to know more about this modern Lazarus. We pestered the "Singing Bishop" so much that eventually he admitted that the "dead" man never died, nor did his body ever go to the mortuary. It appears that the sight of the hearse "shivered" him into life.

The hoax seemed to lose its savour when The Tribune published a little experiment we had in our newsroom. Gathered around the TV set to watch our Golden Girls run the 4x100 relay race, the news editor decided to test the miracle water. He sprinkled some of it on top of the TV set just as Tamika Clarke, the starter, approached Chandra Sturrup to pass the baton. Suddenly Chandra collapse in a heap and Tamika had to jump over her. The reporters blamed their editor for jinxing the race with the prophet's "cursed" water.

We just hope God has a sense of humour as He looks down on his foolish creatures. If He does He must be having a good belly laugh at some of these false prophets and their gullible followers.

January 18, 2012

- Bishop Neil Ellis of Mount Tabor Full Gospel Baptist Church warned that there are three demons that are holding The Bahamas hostage... and can only be exorcised with prayer... ... The demons are sexual immorality, financial instability and witchcraft -


- Bishop Neil Ellis is right... there are more than three demons destroying The Bahamas... but the main ones are the ones he decided to drag across the coals Monday night -- sexual immorality, financial instability and witchcraft -

tribune242 editorial

Bahamas Blog International

Bishop Neil Ellis of Mount Tabor Full Gospel Baptist Church warned that there are three demons that are holding The Bahamas hostage... and can only be exorcised with prayer... ... The demons are sexual immorality, financial instability and witchcraft

Bishop: Demons loose in country



By LAMECH JOHNSON and SANCHESKA BROWN
Tribune Staff Reporters
sbrown@tribunemedia.net

Nassau, The Bahamas



THREE demons are holding the Bahamas hostage and can only be exorcised with prayer, Bishop Neil Ellis, of Mount Tabor Full Gospel Baptist Church, warned last night. The demons were sexual immorality, financial instability and witchcraft.

He insisted this information was a revelation from God and nothing to do with him.

The controversial Bishop held Bahamians in suspense yesterday, refusing to reveal the three evils until his church was full. Around 7:30pm, a crowded church accommodated the overflow congregation in its parking lot. There, they watched the action on monitors set up for the occasion.

Bishop Ellis had earlier told The Tribune how the Lord had "appeared" to him and told him the Bahamas is possessed by three demons, who are the cause for the rising crime levels and immorality.

Bishop Ellis said: "In late November, I went on a sabbatical that lasted 10 days. It was just me and the Lord. It was a great refreshing period for me to get closer to Him.

"The Lord appeared to me and said a number of things. Since then I have implemented a few of these initiatives in the church that are working great. But there was one thing in particular the Lord showed me that was quite troubling.

"He said three demonic spirits have been assigned to the Bahamian people.

"God showed me who they were, what they were, where they came from, how they got here and what their assignments are. He also gave me a prayer of release and told me to call a service to deal with the demonic spirits.

"The Lord also told me to have the people present to pray the prayer of release."
Bishop Ellis said the only way to rid the Bahamas, and "our people", of these demons was for everyone to say the prayer.

"You have to be present to say the prayer," he said. "I was told for this assignment not to stream it over the Internet and not to put it on my telecast. I am also not going to broadcast it. I will also only do this once. There is no charge for the service and all are welcome."

"Sexual immorality," he told the large crowd, "is the oldest of the three. It's been assigned (to The Bahamas) since the early 1800s. "It has taken root in the lives and psyche of Bahamians."

The demon's task - sexual immorality - he said was designed to "keep God's plan for you, from you, destabilise the Bahamian family" and "replace God with himself (the demon)".

He said that the demon of sexual immorality was evident in our society when one saw the high level of "promiscuity going on".

Fornication and adultery, he said, are "literally glamorised". Speaking of the "sweetheart syndrome" - one of the three sub-assignments under the main assignment of the sexual immorality demon - "has striven and now become accepted as our normal way of life".

As for homosexuality and incest, it was "rampant and ragged in the Bahamas", he said.
Calling up the second demon --financial instability -- Bishop Ellis said it was a demon "sent directly from hell primarily to enslave the people of the Bahamas.

"It was designed," he said, "to keep you working, but keep you broke."

"The majority of the people in The Bahamas are one pay cheque away from poverty", he said, adding that there is an agreement between the first two demons. Poverty, caused by demon no 2, "allows demon no 1 to driver persons in poverty to sexual immorality".

The last demon, he said, is widespread throughout the Bahamas, as many are operating in "obeah and voodoo. It has been full blown in our country and it has been for some time."

The demon of witchcraft, he said, is designed to "manipulate, intimidate, separate, segregate and control", he said. "It is not assigned to kill you. It is designed and assigned to terrorising until it drives you insane."

Bishop Ellis said this "demon" uses confusion as one of its major weapons. "This spirit will try to bring confusion to the home, the marriage and the family. There are divorced and separated people who love each other, but can't live together. Witchcraft!"

"It enjoys separating people from their friends, their families, their loved ones all in an effort to drive you crazy."

The Bishop contended that the spirit from hell was not originally released to target the Bahamas, but it had been imported sometime around the bootlegging era, and has since been "embedded into the belly our of society".

January 17, 2012

- Bishop Neil Ellis and his 'message' from God -


- Bishop Neil Ellis is right... there are more than three demons destroying The Bahamas... but the main ones are the ones he decided to drag across the coals Monday night -- sexual immorality, financial instability and witchcraft -

tribune242

Bahamas Blog International

The great porn debate in The Islands: ...The Bahamas Christian Council (BCC) and all of its like-minded allies need to stop preaching spiritual values and start living them...

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Even with the present upsurge of the dancehall beat, authentic reggae remains a dominant force and continues to be such even up to the present day... The importance of the reggae phenomenon has led music administrators to designate July 1 as international reggae day each year

The Emergence Of Reggae

jamaica-gleaner

Jamaica, W.I.

The name reggae has come to be accepted by many as the generic name for all Jamaican popular music since about 1960. But to those of us who lived with the music and understand the changes it went through will know that reggae is only one of several types of Jamaican music.

It is different from ska, rocksteady and dancehall, and occupies a specific period which began in late 1967. Jamaican popular music, since 1960, can therefore be roughly divided into four eras, each of which had its particular beat: ska (1962-1966), rocksteady (1966-1967/68), and reggae (1968-1983). From 1983, the prevalent beat was reggae’s offspring, dancehall.

However, there is one period of Jamaican music that has consistently been overlooked by musicologists. It is a period I would choose to call the pre-ska era, the earlier part of which was dominated by Jamaican mento music (approximately 1951-1956) – a type of calypso-flavoured music said to be rooted in the Jamaican slave plantation system and which was indigenous to Jamaica.

Forced to get creative

Between 1957 and 1960, Jamaican music was dominated by rhythm and blues and boogie recordings patterned off the American blues, which was very popular in Jamaican dance halls in the mid to late 1950s.

When the American blues records began ‘drying up’ and disappeared from American record shelves, Jamaican producers, promoters and sound system operators had no alternative but to make and produce their own recordings with the same flavour as the American ones in order to keep their business alive. Recordings like Oh Mannie Oh, and How Can I Be Sure by Higgs and Wilson,Boogie In My Bones and Little Sheila by Laurel Aitken, Muriel by Alton and Eddy andLolipop Girl by The Jiving Juniors were examples of popular recordings during that period, which also marked the birth of the Jamaican recording industry.

The first shift in the Jamaican music beat away from the mento rhythms was observed when Bunny and Skully recorded a cut entitled Another Chance, which Skully himself claimed was done between 1953 and 1954. On the heels of this came the Jamaican rhythm and blues and boogies, which evolved into what became known as the ska beat.

Jamaican popular music then went through several changes, culminating with reggae and dancehall beats. These metamorphoses have impacted reggae music to the extent that it has become an international phenomenon
Bob Marley, Jimmy Cliff, Dennis Brown and Peter Tosh have played more than ordinary roles in establishing this phenomenon. As early as 1968, Marley’s Trench Town Rock and Brown’s No Man Is An Island a year later, signalled the direction in which the music was going. Cliff’s The Harder They Come helped to put Jamaica on the international music map when it appeared in a movie of the same name.

Possessing a sense of conviction, a lack of pretence and a natural intensity in the beat, reggae music grew by leaps and bounds across several continents during the 1970s, bolstered by more than half a dozen top-class albums by the reggae king Bob Marley for producer Chris Blackwell.

Many masters

At home, the initial impact was felt through recordings like The Cables’s Baby Why, The Heptones I Shall Be Released and Alton Ellis’s Breaking Up, among others.

What is most interesting is the many artistes and producers who lay claim to doing the first reggae recording and creating the reggae beat. For all intents and purposes, Toots Hibbert of the Maytals vocal group seemed to be the first to mention the name reggae in a song, although he never ever claimed to be the inventor.

Most musicologists, however, accept Larry and Alvin’s Nanny Goat, done for producer Clement Dodd in 1968, as the first recording with a true reggae feel. It was like the guitar on the delay meshed with an organ shuffle, one source claimed.

But in a sense, reggae combines all the previous forms of Jamaican popular music – the ska riff on top of a slowed down rocksteady bass line, with a touch of mento. Dodd, the producer of Nanny Goat, claims that he returned from England just before the reggae beat started with a few gadgets, like a delay, which influenced that Nanny Goat beat. Singer Stranger Cole, on the other hand, claims that his recording ofBangarang, done for producer Bunny Lee, was the first reggae song. Another record producer, Clancy Eccles, claims he started the beat.

Unsung legend

In the midst of all of this, there was a 1965 recording titled Heavenless by a Studio One aggregation that possessed a distinct reggae beat, yet no mention was ever made of this recording as being the first reggae song.

Many musicologists agree that the birth of reggae was a spontaneous act born out of experimentation with the existing rocksteady beat. Others claim it was a deliberate attempt by some musicians to change the beat from rocksteady to something that was more lively and exciting. The theory has also been advanced that new producers like Eccles, Lee Scratch Perry and Bunny Lee, couldn’t always get the regular musicians, who almost invariably worked for Dodd and Duke Reid, so they resorted to less-experienced musicians who tried something different and unwittingly created a completely new rhythm.

Even with the present upsurge of the dancehall beat, authentic reggae remains a dominant force and continues to be such even up to the present day. The importance of the reggae phenomenon has led music administrators to designate July 1 as international reggae day each year.

January 15, 2012

jamaica-gleaner

Bahamas Blog International

Bond rating agency Standard & Poor's (S&P) downgrades France, Austria in mass euro zone rating cut

S&P downgrades France, Austria in mass euro zone rating cut

Bond rating agency Standard & Poor's has downgraded the credit ratings of nine euro zone countries, stripping France and Austria of their top ranking, a move that may complicate the currency union’s efforts to endure a worsening debt crisis.

The triple-A ratings of France and Austria have been cut by one notch to AA+, the agency said in a press release.

Malta, Slovakia and Slovenia also suffered a one-notch downgrade, while the ratings of Italy, Spain, Portugal and Cyprus have been cut by two levels.

"Today's rating actions are primarily driven by our assessment that the policy initiatives that have been taken by European policymakers in recent weeks may be insufficient to fully address ongoing systemic stresses in the eurozone," the agency said on its website.

Germany, by far the strongest economy in Europe and main contributor to Europe’s bailout fund for troubled economies, as well as Finland, the Netherlands and Luxembourg maintained their triple-A ratings.

A deal reached by the EU countries during the Decemebr 9 summit in Brussels, which provides for the creation of a fiscal union to deepen the integration of national budgets, "has not produced a breakthrough of sufficient size and scope to fully address the eurozone's financial problems," the agency said.

"In our opinion, the political agreement does not supply sufficient additional resources or operational flexibility to bolster European rescue operations, or extend enough support for those eurozone sovereigns subjected to heightened market pressures," the statement reads.

MOSCOW, January 14 (RIA Novosti)

rian.ru

Bahamas Blog International

Thanks to the foresight of our Bahamian constitutional fathers who adeptly negotiated with the British, The Bahamas is now a modern, stable, successful parliamentary democracy

Understanding Bahamian parliamentary democracy

Front Porch

Today, 45 years to the day of the attainment of majority rule, there is chronic and widespread ignorance of our system of government and national constitution.  Sadly, no longer surprisingly, so-called “informed” people in civil society, academia, business and “the press corps” are among the woefully uninformed.

Many of them regurgitate effluvia on the supposed problems of our parliamentary democracy on matters ranging from “checks and balances” to collective responsibility and the constitutional powers of the prime minister.

Mesmerized by American politics including the theatrics that substitute for news on U.S. cable news, some local commentators cannot utter “checks” without mindlessly adding “balances”, with seemingly limited appreciation for either term.

The supposed corrective measures to repair our supposedly broken democracy are, to paraphrase attorney Andrew Allen in the context of shallow arguments for term limits, superficial non-solutions to imaginary problems.

One recent and egregious example is an opinion piece entitled, “The Bahamas: A Constitutional Dictatorship?”  The commentary is callow.  It lacks depth and breadth.  One wonders how conversant the columnist is with the Bahamian constitution, our constitutional history and the rudimentary history and philosophy of parliamentary democracy.

Noise

It is important to have a diversity of opinion on the issues of the day.  But opinion devoid of or sloppy with facts, by personalities helping to form the opinions of others through talk radio, television, the Internet and in the print media, is just more noise.  Public dialogue is impoverished not enriched when opinions are divorced from critical thinking and fact-finding.

The column in question descended into unthinking rhetoric and a cavalcade of contradictions partly because it was based on and began with false premises, so nauseatingly repeated that they have become accepted as fact:

“We have an anachronistic, colonial governance system that is no longer suitable for the needs of our developing nation in this 21st century.  We inherited this Westminster system of governance from the British.”

It is difficult to take seriously opinions that get basic facts wrong.  To discuss the issue of governance we need to get our language and concepts in order.  The appellation Westminster system of governance is not quite precise and misses some critical differences between Bahamian and British parliamentary democracy.

For instance, at Westminster the British parliament is sovereign.  There is no supreme law or written constitution in Britain.  By a simple majority of parliament in Britain fundamental rights can be altered and the monarchy itself can be abolished.

The Bahamas has a written constitution with clearly defined checks on power.  Before certain fundamental provisions of the constitution (entrenched and specially entrenched) can be changed, a two-thirds or three-quarters majority vote of both Houses of Parliament is required.

Furthermore, the proposed changes must be approved by the electorate in a referendum before they can become law.  This process is an innovation that is not enjoyed by all parliamentary democracies, including some in the Caribbean.

It gives the Bahamian people direct control over the fundamental provisions of the Constitution, including provisions relating to citizenship, fundamental rights and freedoms, and the establishment of our national governmental institutions.

There are frameworks, templates and provisions utilized by most countries, including former British colonies, in the drafting of national constitutions.  Still, The Bahamas does not have a cookie cutter constitution.  Any suggestion to that effect is misleading and does not fully acknowledge or appreciate the role played by our constitutional fathers in the framing of the independence constitution.

Larger

A number of the customs and traditions used in the much larger British parliamentary system are not germane to and would be unworkable in our context.  With a 650-member House of Commons compared to our much smaller House of Assembly, our practice of parliamentary democracy is necessarily different.

The assertion that we have a colonial system of governance in itself is patently not true.  Furthermore, it contradicts the assertion, made in the same breath, that we have a Westminster model of governance.

Under the colonial system of governance the Colony of the Bahama Islands had a parliament that was, in the words of the late Bahamian constitutional expert the Hon. Eugene Dupuch, “representative but not responsible”.

There was no Cabinet, but there was an Executive Council, presided over by the British governor, who enjoyed enormous power.  There was also a system of boards, forerunners to government ministries, with the governor enjoying ultimate control over major decisions by the boards.

The dismantling of that colonial system began with the 1964 Constitution that was negotiated in London the previous year.  That Constitution ushered in a large measure of internal self-rule with the British governor still retaining some powers including defense, security and foreign affairs.  That process continued with the 1969 Constitution, when more power devolved to the Cabinet, and was completed with the Independence Constitution of 1973.

Thanks to the foresight of our Bahamian constitutional fathers who adeptly negotiated with the British, The Bahamas is now a modern, stable, successful parliamentary democracy.  While there were differences between the Bahamian political parties at the Independence Conference on a few matters relating to rights, there was general agreement on matters of governance.

We no more have a colonial system of governance than India, Australia, Jamaica, Barbados or Canada, fellow parliamentary democracies in the Commonwealth of Nations.  Anything but anachronistic, this system has proven to be durable, flexible and workable across cultures, countries and centuries.

Unfortunately, many who should know better believe that parliamentary democracy itself is antiquated, and that the United States has a better system of government, and one that is inherently more advisable or workable.  This is a fallacy to which we will have to return.

There are many non-Commonwealth nations which have opted for parliamentary democracy.  They have similarly discovered a certain genius within the system, the rudiments of which are hundreds of years old having evolved into one of the more effective systems of government in human history.

frontporchguardian@gmail.com

www.bahamapundit.com

Jan 10, 2012

thenassauguardian

caribbean Blog International