Although abortion is currently illegal in The Islands ...the Bahamian government stated that abortions are performed in The Bahamas on “grounds of foetal deformity and rape or incest ...as well as on health grounds

Bahamas Called Out On Abortions

By NOELLE NICOLLS
Tribune Features Write
nnicolls@tribunemedia.net

Nassau, The Bahamas



Although abortion is currently illegal in the Bahamas, the government revealed that it is aware of cases where licensed physicians perform abortions in private and public hospitals for justifiable reasons.

Such abortions are made possible because “the law is interpreted very liberally”, according to a report submitted by the government last month to the international committee of the United Nations governing discrimination against women.

During its fifth periodic report to the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW), the government stated that abortions are performed in the Bahamas on “grounds of foetal deformity and rape or incest, as well as on health grounds”. CEDAW is an international human rights treaty that focuses on women’s rights and women’s issues worldwide, ratified by the Bahamas in 1993.

“Abortions are usually performed within the first trimester, although they are often allowed up to 20 weeks of gestation. The abortion must be performed in a hospital by a licensed physician. Government hospitals bear the cost for non-paying patients,” states the government’s CEDAW report, which is available online.

Despite the report’s detailed account of the practice as it occurs in the Bahamas, the Bahamian government “avoided answering specific questions” posed by the experts on the CEDAW committee about the availability of statistics regarding state-sanctioned abortions, according to observers.

“Their fall-back position that abortions are illegal was inadequate, because the committee was not asking about illegal abortions. The committee was asking for statistics on state-sanctioned abortions, which the government, in its written report, suggested occurs,” said Donna Nicolls, civil society representative for the Bahamas, and presenter of the Bahamas Crisis Centre’s shadow report.

“The Cuban representative on the committee said she was not convinced by the government’s response. She said that normally statistics on illegal abortions are not shown; however, if the state says that abortion can be practised in a safe space, she questioned why the state doesn’t have statistics. If it is being done, certainly a register would be maintained,” said Ms Nicolls, who participated in the forum through the assistance of the International Women’s Rights Action Watch (IWRAW), Asian Pacific.

Former Minister of Health Dr Hubert Minnis said he had “no comment” on the abortion issue, because he was in “Abaco campaigning.” When asked if he was aware of any state-sanctioned abortions from his five years in government, he replied: “No comment.”

A respected medical doctor, who works in the public system, told The Tribune, there are no statistics on abortion because the market for abortions in the Bahamas is underground. The physician said the practice is governed by a “nod and a wink” culture, quietly supported by some licensed physicians.

“Don’t ask, don’t tell,” said the physician, but you can obtain an abortion in the Bahamas for around $750, although the price varies above and below depending on the physician or the location. Access to abortions, he said, is rife with class discrimination.”

“If you have the means to an abortion, it is not a big deal. You can travel, or you can have it done here safely, but if you are a poor woman, then dog eat your lunch. This becomes a massive issue, but how do you deal with this issue, when it is taboo. It is absolutely taboo,” said the physician.

“You have such a strong pseudo-Christian movement that is so hypocritical. Many people are just not prepared to deal with the backlash, despite the fact that quietly they will either perform abortions or see to it that they get done. Some of the most active abortionists who have moved away from it in the later years, you wouldn’t think they have ever performed an abortion,” the physician said.

“Ethical and less than ethical means of abortion exist in the Bahamas. The challenge is that it is not codified.”

Abortion is criminalised in the Bahamas through the Penal Code of 1924. In its “very limited” references to abortion, it allows “for abortions to be lawfully permitted under specific circumstances relating explicitly to the preservation of the mental and physical health of the woman and to save the life of the woman.”

However, the law also states that acts that lead to an abortion or are intended to cause an abortion that done “in good faith and without negligence for the purposes of medical or surgical treatment” are justifiable. According to the government report, the code does not define what constitutes medical or surgical treatment, and in practice, the law is interpreted very liberally.

The CEDAW committee reiterated its “concern” in its concluding observations, and called on the government to “broaden the conditions under which abortions can be legally available.”

Ms Nicolls said she concurred with the committee’s recommendations.

“Women should be able to access legal abortions without question in cases of rape and incest and in other circumstances where a woman’s health is at risk. The law should explicitly provide exceptions in those cases. It should not be ad hoc, or based on a ‘liberal interpretation’. Everyone should have equal access,” said Ms Nicolls.

Melanie Griffin, Minister of Social Services, could not be reached for comment and did not return calls. Barbara Burrows, Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Social Services, who was a member of the Bahamas’ delegation, said she would seek answers to written questions provided by The Tribune.

August 14, 2012

Tribune242

Bahamas Blog International

Venezuela leads the world in increasing internet usage ...according to a study by internet marketing research firm Comscore

New Study Claims Venezuela a World Leader in Increasing Internet Usage

By Ewan Robertson


Mérida, 13^th August 2012 (Venezuelanalysis.com) – Venezuela leads the world in increasing internet usage, according to a study by internet marketing research firm Comscore.

The study revealed that between April 2011 and April 2012 the number of people using the internet in Venezuela increased by 62%, ahead of India (34%) and Indonesia (29%).

The findings contrast with Venezuela’s own national telecommunications body CONATEL, which reports that internet access here has increased by 7% in the past year.

According to CONATEL 40.27% of Venezuelan’s have access to the internet, up from only 3.4% in 2000, and there is a higher level of access than all countries in South America apart from Chile (58%), Argentina (57%) and Colombia (50%).

However, by using a new methodology focused on measuring the number of internet users rather than the number of connections, for example in households with a wireless router, Comscore claims that the increase in internet usage in Venezuela is actually much greater.

“Our sources are experts in Venezuela who tell us how internet use is evolving. We also take a census measurement, we take the CONATEL measurements into account, and other media contribute their [internet] traffic data to us,” Comscore director for Venezuela and Colombia, Alex Castro, explained to BBC World recently.

Factors

According to digital market research firms Comscore and Digital Trends (TD), increased access to previously marginalised communities has been an important factor in explaining the sharp rise of internet usage in Venezuela.

“What has grown most in [internet] penetration is access by poor; you don’t even need to get the exact number. The poor are connecting to the internet more,” claimed Carlos Jimenez, president of TD.
The government of President Hugo Chavez has introduced a number of policies over the previous twelve years aimed at increasing internet access in Venezuela.

A key initiative has been the Infocentros; free to use internet cafes that now boast a network of 700 centres in low income and rural communities throughout the country. In January the Infocentro Foundation was awarded a prize by UNESCO in recognition for their role in providing access to information technology for traditionally excluded sectors of the population.

Since 2009, the government has also provided almost 2 million Canaima laptops to primary school children in order to incorporate technology use in the education system.

The public telecommunications company CANTV, nationalised in 2007, offers credits and loans to allow lower-income users who solicit an internet connection to buy computers, an initiative that has “born fruit” in increasing internet access, according to Jimenez.

Private television companies offering combined internet and television packages, and a sharp rise in the number of users of cell phones with internet capabilities have also contributed.

Alex Castro further commented that Venezuela’s index of a more equal distribution of wealth has likely been a factor in increasing internet usage among Venezuela’s poorer communities. “When I passed through the poor neighbourhoods of Caracas, it really surprised me that many had Direct TV, and I asked myself “What’s this?” In Colombia for example, we see that the marginal sectors really are just that”.

Challenges

However, Venezuela is also considered to have one of the slowest internet connections in the world, and is currently ranked on speedtest.net as 157 (at 1,7Mbph) of 176 countries measured by internet speed. Internet connectivity is also still largely limited to cities.

The government is currently constructing 5.796 km of fibre optic cable, with continuing to increase internet access part of Chavez’s Socialist Plan of the Nation 2013 – 2019.

Venezuelanalysis

Bahamas Blog International

The 1911 'battle' for Islam in British Guiana

By Raymond Chickrie and Shabnam Alli:


And yes, we won the “battle,” more than 174 years ago when British missionaries in then British Guiana tried their hardest to convert as many East Indian-Muslims to Christianity in the colony, despite the fact that they failed to do so during their reign in Hindustan.

The Muslims in Guyana ought to celebrate this year’s Eid (and every day for that matter) with much exuberance as they stood their ground in the face of much cruelty, hardship and many adversities at the hands of their plantation owners.

Had it not been for the adherence to the five pillars of Islam -- Tawheed (belief in one god), Namaz (prayers), Zakat (charity), Rozah (fasting during Ramadhan) and the Hajj (pilgrimage to Mecca), Islam may have also suffered a slow ‘death’ in the same manner it was systematically eradicated amongst the enslaved African Muslims during the period of slavery.

The Second Missionary Conference, “On Behalf of the Mohammedan World,” was held on January 23- 28, 1911 in Lucknow, India. The Conference was called for two main reasons to: (a) address the growing fear of the colonialists that the total Muslim population had surpassed the Christians by more than 5 million in the British Empire; and (b) review the progress made, if any, and if not why not, to convert the East Indians to Christianity by the missionaries in the various colonies of the Empire. Among the reports presented during the Conference was a section on British Guiana, Dutch Guiana and the West Indies, detailing (i) the ‘rebirth’ of Islam in the region with the introduction of East Indian indentured servants following the abolition of slavery; and (ii) the impact Islam had on the freed Africans in the region, but especially in British Guiana.

At the Conference, evangelists expressed their deep concern regarding the spread of Islam, claiming that a century’s worth of missionary work in British Guiana will be wasted if drastic steps were not taken to stop the East Indian Muslims in their conversion of the Africans. They recognized the fact that the learned Muslims (like Gool Mohammed Khan) in British Guiana were “skillful debaters” who were well-versed in the Bible and were able to “shake the faith of the uneducated Christians.”

The Conference concluded that the struggle for the future in British Guiana will be a “battle between Christ and Mohammed.” The evangelists regarded the Muslims as a threat and a bad influence on “their people,” in referring to the freed Africans. They noted that in several cases African Christians had “forsaken Christ for the prophet of Mecca”, without any pressure from the East Indians, as the Africans felt a greater affinity to Islam as many of them realized it was once their religion as well.

The evangelists ‘discovered’ that Muslims on the whole resisted conversion to Christianity. Hence, in their annual assessment of Muslims in British Guiana, they labeled them as aggressive, stubborn and organized and that they were a hindrance in their (evangelical) crusade to change the religious demographic of the West Indies.

The greatest shock for the missionaries in British Guiana was the realization, as expressed by Rev. J. B. Hill, of the aggressiveness of the “docile coolie Mohammedans” in their new ‘homeland.’ Case in point, two Muslim jahagis from Bihar who came on the Hesperus in 1838 -- Jumun (age 27) and Phultun (age 28) -- were the first to rebel against the ‘slave-like’ conditions and ran away from Gladstone Estate just days after they were transplanted on the plantation.

While there were other instances of rebellion amongst the Indians, the one that many historians failed to acknowledge was the 1872 Devonshire Castle riots, where about 300 sugar workers (Muslims and Hindus alike) downed tools and confronted their white masters demanding better working conditions and wages. In the ensuing ‘battle,’ five workers were gunned down by the colonial police – two of them were Muslims – Ackloo and Maxid Ally. Then in 1913, there was the Rosehall uprising, where most of the protestors in the forefront ‘battling’ imperialism were Muslims -- Moula Bux, Jahangir Khan, Dildar Khan, Chotey Khan, Aladi, and Amirbaksh – they all stood up against the injustices they were subjected to on the plantation.

Fast forward to the 1940s, when there was an increased demand by the Muslim leadership in British Guiana for funding of Islamic and Urdu Schools. These propositions and requests were articulated in several correspondences by the president of the Sadr Anjuman, Mr R. B. Gajraj and Moulvi M. A Nasir to the British government but with little or no success, they were basically ignored. Christian schools, on the other hand, were heavily funded by the British, whereas the British government consistently “paid” only lip service to the concerns of the Muslims in British Guiana.

On August 21, 1941, the British Guiana Islamic Association (BGIA) called a Special Conference on Education to discuss a uniform system of Muslim religious education in accordance with the requirements of the Education Code of British Guiana. The main speakers on the subject were: Messrs M. A. Nasir (president) and Ayube M. Edun; also, present were K. Ali, S. Shabratee, M.L.R Naboo, and S. M. Shakoor, the Urdu secretary.

Sadly, the recommendations and resolutions that emanated from that conference and subsequent conferences fell on deaf ears – it was the British way of getting back at the “aggressive” Muslims – which ultimately contributed to the demise of the Urdu language, as the Muslims did not have the human or financial resources to fund the teaching of the language.

Muslims ‘fought’ hard to hold on to their religion and culture, despite the fact that a number of them converted to Christianity (including many Hindus). Those who converted were regarded as ‘civilized’ and rewarded with better and higher paying jobs in the public service. Many of them were also given scholarships to study in England as a bonus, while their children were admitted to the Christian schools.

The ‘battle’, however, has not ended; much of the region still needs to embrace this multicultural history. Muslims must not be seen as alien to the West Indies, nor should they be ashamed of their Islamic heritage given present day hysteria towards followers of the religion. More can be done to educate and accept the long presence of the Muslims and their role in helping to shape the socio-economic and political policies affecting the work/lives of the peoples in the region.

Today, the younger generation needs to be educated on our history in Guyana, and appreciate the [righteous] path that their ancestors blazed for them to follow. We share an Islamic history that is rich in many spheres of math, astronomy, physics, literature, architecture and culinary. In fact, many scholars agree that Islamic science and reason led to the revival of the European Renaissance, following the decline of the Roman Empire.

A blessed Eid Mubarak to all our Muslim brothers and sisters in Islam.

August 09, 2012

Caribbeannewsnow.com

Bahamas Blog International

The next 50 years of Jamaica Independence

The next 50 years of Independence


By Michael Burke

SO Jamaica's 50th anniversary celebrations are now behind us. We now journey as a nation towards the 100th anniversary milestone via the 60th, 70th, 75th, 80th and 90th anniversary milestones. The joy and happiness at our 50th anniversary celebrations were great. Of course, the naysayers were there but such people exist in every country.

I would have liked to have had even more historical reflections. It is my hope that at future anniversaries there should be more such reflections. I would like to commend the planners of the Jubilee Village and those of the Grand Gala, which were really as next to perfect as possible where only the directors would see the mistakes, if any.

But had I been in the planning committee of the Jubilee Village, I would have suggested an imposing sign that stated that 90 per cent of the displays were showing things that did not exist at the time of political Independence in 1962.

It is also a pity that we have not been able to shake some of the indiscipline that we have inherited. As the crowds filtered out of the stadium after such a wonderful Grand Gala on Independence Day, some technician or other decided that after all the recorded festival music developed since 1962, it was time to play lewd music. They could not even endure 24 hours without slackness!

It should be noted that the joy and happiness is due to the fact that most people like a party, even if they do not exactly understand what is being celebrated or even believe that there should be a celebration. As I mentioned last week, I hope that the older ones will get over their unwarranted shame so that they can truly educate the youth into an appreciation of what life was like in Jamaica in 1962.

But perhaps at the 75th or 100th anniversary, fewer of us will be alive to feel ashamed and the history can be looked at in a more dispassionate manner. Students of history will dig more into the material that exists and will be able to draw their own conclusions. I probably will not live to see the 100th anniversary of Independence (unless I live to at least 108).

But it is still my hope that by then Jamaica will be a republic based on co-operatives that spring from a nation of family units that we are yet to have. And I hope it happens before our 60th anniversary in 10 years' time. After all, we have been talking about this for decades.

Two things I have suggested before, and I suggest again. First, there should be an emancipendence meal similar to the Jewish Agape meal at their annual Passover celebration. Second, churches should have an Octave of Emancipendence or eight days of reflective prayer on Emancipation and Independence, as I have been privately doing for the last three years.

The octave that I developed runs the eight days from July 31 to August 7. It is my hope that others will join me next year. I hope that the octave will become a tradition by the time we reach our 60th anniversary in 10 years' time.

I have also suggested in the past that Jamaica should have an international negotiations conference as part of Independence celebrations. I envisioned having a major conference and staging it somewhere like the various conference centres, auditoriums and conference halls at hotels. We would also go through the negotiations from the days of self-government (half-Independence) to after political Independence when we did several negotiations. This should be not only about borrowing but also about trade.

It seems that if this is to take place it will have to be organised by a few people with vision. Indeed, if I could have done it by myself it would have been done already. I would include all former ambassadors and politicians involved in such negotiations. It would also include those who represented agricultural organisations on negotiation teams in the days when agricultural trade was the economic mainstay of Jamaica. While we should plan for a day when we stop borrowing, negotiation is a skill that we can make money from by teaching it to others.

I also hope that educational programmes will be in place to stop mental slavery. It takes many forms; one is the belittling of the self, especially the black skin of the majority of Jamaicans. It also takes the form of belittling all things Jamaican, although that is not so much a problem as our athletes currently win gold medals. But it also takes the form of erroneously believing that we would be better off as a Bristish colony and that our gains would have come anyway. We need as a nation to unlearn that.

We need to invite nationalistic Caymanians here to express their anger when hearing Jamaicans say that Cayman's economic success is due to their colonial status. The Cayman Islands have had self-government (half-Independence) for more than two decades. Some Caymanians say that the only thing Britain does for them is to pay the governor's salary.

ekrubm765@yahoo.com

August 09, 2012

Jamaica Observer

Bahamas Blog International

Jamaica, our identity

By Richard Ho Lung, diary of a ghetto priest


We already have an identity, but we do not know it. We're like a wild orchid with graceful lengths of flowers in the rainforest that simply are what we are: beautiful, but without self-consciousness.

What we don't know is easily lost or given away cheaply because we take it for granted. Jamaica and the pearl of great price; Jamaica and its exotic flowers in the mountains, Jamaica, our music and drumming; Jamaica and its strange orchid people - growing naturally, freely, beautifully - only to be seized by strangers.

We don't know who we are; we don't know what's inside of ourselves. We will lose our souls - if we do not grasp our own inner riches and own up to our God-given inner being.

I was curious as a boy born in the countryside of Richmond, St Mary. Who are these lovely people swathed in smiles, chatty and friendly, on the move but never in a hurry. What are those bamboo trees doing gently waving in the sky and wind? Why are the African tulips just blossoming - for what purpose? And the mango trees full of fruit in the wild with no one to eat them?

Rivers, rain and sea - everything glistering gleaming studded with diamonds from the sunlight.
Everybody, everything in the Jamaican countryside pronouncing, 'God! God! God!'

At age 12, I discerned Christ. Everybody was talking about Christ - the higglers, the farmers, the teachers, the children, the mamas and the papas.

When we bathed in the aluminium pan, our nannies were humming softly, "What a friend we have in Jesus." When we misbehaved, we were chastised in Jesus' name. When we skipped rope, it was done to rhymes about the Lord.

Then the telling of the stories of the feeding of the 5,000, the walking on the water, the miracles of Christ's love for the sick and the poor, then His terrible crucifixion, and His forbearance.

I was hurt deeply by His pain and suffering, this Son of the Creator, this Jesus who loves me so deeply and gave me everything.

Christ's value

My inner soul responded to Christ, and now I seek only to serve Him. He is the depth of Jamaica's music and kindness. He is the foundation of our identity, our humour, our optimism and our dynamic drive for meaning, purpose and evangelisation. He is our gentleness, our sternness, our confidence, our strength in suffering, our struggles on our way to grace and dignity as a people.

We must not lose Him. Not for the highways, foreign clothes, foreign music and technology, and advanced but godless education and values.

We don't know it. But the dynamic element in the Jamaican personality - in our athletes, our music and culture, in the best of our political leaders and intellectuals - are rooted in Christ.

Our self-assertion and confidence come from Him. Our God and Saviour who has given us so much has also sustained us all these years.

I have one fear: That we will sell out to foreign gods. I pray that we will know who we are, where we come from, and where we are going, carrying at all times Jesus at the depth of our souls.

Father Richard Ho Lung is founder and superior general of the Missionaries of the Poor. Email feedback to columns@gleanerjm.com and mopfathergeneral@missionariesofthepoor.org.

August 08, 2012

Jamaica Gleaner

Bahamas Blog International

Why it's bad if Caribbean people don't accept evolution

By Jonathan Bellot




“If I could give a prize to anyone for the single greatest idea,” American philosopher Daniel Dennett said in Darwin’s Dangerous Idea, his study of the significance of Darwin’s theory of natural selection and human evolution, “I would give it to Darwin.”

These are not idle words. While the idea of organisms undergoing gradual changes over thousands or millions of years was not entirely new -- the French naturalist Jean Baptiste Lamarck had championed it decades before Darwin, and shadows of the idea can be seen even in the work of the ancient Roman poet Lucretius and in the ninth-century Islamic writer Al-Jahith’s Book of Animals -- Darwin went further than anyone before him by showing the mechanism by which evolution could occur: natural selection. He showed that organisms adapt to their environments gradually and that all life on Earth -- including humans -- shares a common ancestor.

Think of it like a tree. All life shares a common root, despite having branched off in many directions, and many branches themselves have branches, and while some branches are still functioning, many others have died off. Although evolutionary biology has evolved -- as it were -- a lot since Darwin’s day, particularly with the development of genetics, Darwin himself remains one of the most important and controversial figures in western history.

But evolution appears to remain little-understood or accepted by the general public in many islands in the Caribbean. Bring up the idea of evolution to the average person on the street, and it is quite possible you will receive either a blank stare or hear the idea condemned as anti-religious nonsense.

Some -- and I have seen this a number of times before -- will even tell you the idea of evolution is nothing less than a worldwide conspiracy perpetrated by satanic scientists (the same people who will likely believe, without any clear evidence, that the world is run by a secret organization like the Illuminati or that the 1969 moon landing was a hoax).

Some will even say the whole idea is too silly to be believed, as though the overwhelming number of biologists who support the theory are less conspiratorial than simply foolish.

“If we came from monkeys,” they might say, “why it still have monkeys?” (Of course, this objection is based on a misunderstanding; we are primates ourselves, but we share an ancestor with other monkeys, rather than them simply turning into humans. Think of the tree branch image -- we go back to the same tree limb, but chimpanzees, gorillas, bonobos, and homo sapiens -- we humans -- have branched off in different directions.)

Accepting that all the evidence we currently have supports the theory of evolution (and I must clarify here that the word “theory” here does not mean “unproved”; gravity and electromagnetism are also “theories”) is important. It is one step towards becoming more scientifically literate in a world in which scientific literacy is ever more important, almost regardless of what field you may be engaged in. It will show that we in the Caribbean are not closed-minded or anti-science.

To reject an idea as important and well-accounted-for as evolution is to suggest that you do not trust scientific discoveries and that you are not willing to critically examine the world around you, as well as the history of ideas. Modern-day biology and medicine are often inseparable from evolutionary theory.

Now, even people who study the idea and come to almost accept it may still stop short because they think it conflicts with their religious beliefs. To accept evolution, after all, is to accept that humans were not specially created, but rather simply one product of a long line of blind natural processes. But many religious people have made peace with this.

Some have even refashioned evolution to be “guided” by God rather than altogether natural and blind, such that God intervened at a critical point in the process -- just as God might have, they say, set off the Big Bang (an idea unrelated to evolution). Still others put God as the spark that set evolution going -- since evolutionary theory is only about the process of organisms changing, not an explanation of how life itself first appeared from non-life. (That process is known as abiogenesis.)

Whatever the case, the fact is that many well-educated people of faith do not see evolution as their enemy -- and they should not, since it is well-supported by scientific evidence.

In the Caribbean, very often, we don’t really stop and think about things like this. Or we may start and then stop once we get into tricky territory. At other times, some of us are simply so focused on other things that we do not give adequate -- if any -- time to critically examining the world around us. Instead, we just accept simple answers we may have heard as children.

This isn’t the way a strong society of well-equipped individuals should operate. We should have the courage to boldly question every idea we hold -- including, of course, evolution itself. We must not be afraid to ask questions, to probe into dark tunnels -- and, more importantly, to find answers we may not like on the other end.

This may seem like a minor issue to some of you. But I do not think it necessarily is. Being scientifically literate (as well as literate in many other ways) is important -- and I mean on an individual, as well as a national, level. Those of us who have not considered the issue before, I encourage you to go out and look it up -- and, while you’re at it, to examine every other idea you hold dear, be that idea big or small. What justifies your beliefs? Why do you think the way you do? Are you thinking rationally? Can you really explain how something works that you believe in? To reject an idea, you must at very least first understand it.

Therefore, check out the wealth of information on evolution out there: Jerry Coyne’s Why Evolution Is True, Michael Ruse’s The Philosophy of Human Evolution, Richard Dawkins’ The Greatest Show on Earth, and many, many more, from websites to videos. Search, question.

You may find universes in grains of sand, to paraphrase William Blake.

Jonathan Bellot is pursuing a PhD in Creative Writing at Florida State University, from where he also holds an MFA in Fiction. His work has appeared in a variety of publications, including The New Humanism, Transnational Literature, BIM: Arts for the 21st Century, Belletrist Coterie, Black Lantern Publishing, and on Dominica News Online. He was born in 1987 in Cincinnati, Ohio to Dominican parents and has lived in Dominica since he turned nine.

August 08, 2012

Caribbeannewsnow

Bahamas Blog International

It’s time we emancipate ourselves from mental slavery... ...None but ourselves can free our minds...

Rethinking Freedom in The Bahamas

By Nicolette Bethel

In 1833, the British Parliament passed an Act to abolish slavery in the British Empire.  As of August 1, 1834, all slaves throughout the empire were to become free to some degree — if they were under the age of six, they would become free immediately, but if they were over six, they were to be apprenticed to their former masters.  Apprenticeship was finally abolished on August 1, 1838.

It is partly for this reason that Emancipation Day is a holiday in The Bahamas.  It is a holiday throughout the former British slave colonies of the Caribbean as well — and the reason that Jamaica, for example, chose it as its Independence Day.  We don’t celebrate our holiday on August 1, although we remember the date; rather, we have chosen to make the nearest Monday the holiday.

Here, then, together with hot weather, rain, and hurricanes, the summer months bring the twin holidays that commemorate our freedom.  As a nation, we have the opportunity of remembering how far we have come, of honouring our ancestors who — slave and master alike — were dehumanized by the institution of slavery and indentureship.

So far, though, we have not made the most of this opportunity.  Oh, we celebrate all right.  We have a Junkanoo parade on Independence Day, and two Junkanoo parades on the August Holiday weekend.  We have cook-outs (what better way to party than eating?)  But that’s about as far as it goes. Indeed, considering the amount of time we spend speaking of such things, it’s possible to imagine that if a Bahamian child didn’t grow up watching American television, they might be surprised to learn that Bahamians were once ever slaves.

And yet.

As I’ve written before, slavery is not over in the Caribbean.  I’m not talking about the kind of “slavery” that people like to raise when making these kinds of statements — a “slavery” that assumes that every Black Bahamian is subordinate to and poorer than every White Bahamian, that assumes that all Whites were slave owners and all Blacks slaves, that believes that Black Bahamian slaves were captured in African jungles and transported to The Bahamas on slave ships — an image of slavery that has more to do with history as outlined in the ABC miniseries Roots than our own story, which is far more complicated and interesting.

No.  I’m talking about the kind of slavery Bob Marley recognized in his own people when he wrote and performed his “Redemption Song” — the mental slavery that continues to dominate our society.

What do I mean by mental slavery?  It manifests itself in a number of different ways.  There are the obvious — the concept that Bahamians aren’t able to do things very well, and the resultant habit of looking elsewhere for models and expertise; the preference for hiring consultants from abroad to give advice that Bahamian experts have already considered and rejected; the willingness to privilege outside plans for development over local ones; the general contempt for anything home-grown, and the overconsumption of anything from across the sea.

But as common as these tendencies are, I’m thinking of other, smaller, more insidious actions and habits that show the residue of slavery in our everyday lives.

The biggest one is the apparent reluctance of the ordinary employee ever to make a decision.  Decisions, you see, require that one take responsibility for those decisions, and if one is wrong, one gets in trouble.  The result — particularly in the civil service, but not only there — is that for too many people, there is only one way of doing something.

How many of us have found ourselves in a situation where we make a request that is unusual, that takes a salesperson out of her comfort zone, that surprises her, forces her to think?

The result: roadblock.

Another one, though, that I get to see often in my line of work, is the tendency of many people who are possessed with a good idea to seek first and foremost the kingdom of Government Money.  Despite the fact that we live in a society which welcomes millions of tourists every year, in which money flows like water, in which Bahamians as well as visitors are willing to spend good cash on things they enjoy, we seem to believe that our enterprise must first and foremost be supported by handouts from the public treasury.

A third is the paralysis that I also witness, as a manager of a department and as a teacher of students, among people who seem to be waiting for someone to tell them What To Do.  They can’t — or won’t — act unless they get an order or a clearance from above.

All of these are examples of the mental slavery from which we continue to need emancipation.

Emancipation, you see, only begins with the awarding of political freedom.  It is true that on August 1, 1834, slaves were given the gift of themselves; they were able, for the first time since their enslavement, to own their bodies, their loved ones, their offspring, and their possessions.

But the residue of slavery lingers still.  The political and physical emancipation of the slaves didn’t mean that there was a corresponding psychic and mental freedom that came with it.  That has to be worked on.

So it’s that time of the year again; it’s our freedom time.  Massa’s long gone.  It’s time for us to realize that every West Indian who refuses to make a decision, every Bahamian who seeks a handout, every West Indian who looks outside our region for validation, every Bahamian who believes that what we do isn’t good enough, is in need of emancipation still.

It’s time we emancipate ourselves from mental slavery.  None but ourselves can free our minds.

thenewblackmagazine.com