Bahamas Students Week
Mona Campus
University of the West Indies
Sunday 18^th March 2007

It is a special honour for me to represent the Right Honourable Prime Minister at this event and I bring you greetings and best wishes from him on this occasion. This has become an annual trek for me and it dates back to the time when I was an opposition politician and served in the Senate. My whole political life has been involved in the search for those who are interested in the public affairs of the country, the development of public policy and the management of the Government.

These visits then are much much more than social visits, or a ritual appearance with due respect to electoral politics. This is about sharing the vision that we in our party and in the Government have for our country, a personal vision as well, and trying to see if we can get you to buy into a vision that will enhance and benefit the country as we move into the future.

The one thing I want to stress is that you must engage, no matter what your political choice as far as party politics is concerned, you must engage. You are part of the elite in the society by virtue of the level of education that you have attained. You are a part of a powerful minority in the country that will obtain a university education. You have a moral responsibility to share what you have learned and to lend your expertise to your country no matter where you go after you have obtained your professional qualifications.

You will also know from history that the people who pass through the doors of the university are doctors and lawyers in the main, the other disciplines have also come in later years. Doctors, lawyers and in the civic area ministers of religion have traditionally formed the leadership class in the country and I dare say that the largest single professional group represented in the House of Assembly is that of lawyers.

There is a reason for that. I have said it before and at the risk of your having heard it before, politics requires financial independence. For the black Bahamian, the quickest and fastest way to financial independence was to go into law. Doctors and dentists are able to do also as well. The other profession that draws you into politics is business. Being a politician is good for business.

What is important to know is that when majority rule came, the Government of the day headed by Sir Lynden Pindling established a professional government for the first time. It made it possible by implementing full time ministers, to have a government that was paid to do just that; govern the country, to make it possible for men and women of ordinary means to serve the country in the Government. When you become a government Minister you are prohibited from taking on any other job. One day, we may go the whole hog and require all politicians to be full time but we are not there yet but you must think about it because it is something you might want to implement.

Sometimes the students that I speak to in these kinds of structured discussions wonder why I would say to them that they will have to decide today or at least think about a particular change in public policy. I do that because it will be your turn sooner than you think. I had the opportunity to fill in for Felix Bethel, as a lecturer in politics and government at the College of The Bahamas in the spring of 1988.

In that class were two persons that you may have heard of. One is Raynard Rigby, the now Chairman of the PLP; the other is Michael Halkitis, now the Parliamentary Secretary in the Ministry of Finance and the Member of Parliament for the Adelaide constituency. These two bright and able men were students in 1988 and a mere 14 years later, Mr. Halkitis was a Parliamentary Secretary and 15 years later Mr. Rigby was the Chairman of the governing party.

Your story could be a similar one, and right now is the time to shape your ideas about what you would do if you got there.

One of the things that you should not forget is that whatever you have today did not come about overnight. Whatever you have today came about as a result of the blood sweat and tears of your mothers and fathers, grandmothers and grandfathers and beyond. You have an obligation to carry their vision forward, to continue their struggles and to build on what they did. You also have an obligation to take care of them, as they took care of you. I mean not only in the sense of carry forth their vision but ensuring that they are well into their senior years, cared for and protected.

The demographics tell us that people in The Bahamas will be living longer and the question of care for seniors will be an issue that your generation will have to face. The starting point must be an understanding that you have a moral obligation to do so.

Sir Lynden Pindling did his part in that area buy implementing National Insurance. This administration is seeking to introduce National Health Insurance. Perhaps in the next term, the Government will be able to look at national pension legislation to ensure that the necessary income is there to make sure that the senior citizen is protected into his or her old age.

You go to school here at the University of the West Indies. The policy after majority rule was to expand our contacts with the University, and it has been good for The Bahamas. Many of those who are running The Bahamas today, most certainly almost all of the doctors, many of our Judges who care for our people today have come out of this university.

There is more that we can do to make this a successful institution but it is important that you remember how you got here and what you can do to make things better when it is your turn.

Your very education since the time you were in preschool is a privilege which your mothers and fathers, certainly your grandmothers and fathers did not have. After majority rule, that was a deliberate policy to make education up to secondary level free for all, and open for all. The present administration made it possible for there to be expanded access to preschools to be sure that each child has the best start that public monies can buy. There is a programme of providing food in the schools for those who cannot feed themselves and it is done in dignity, not demeaning to the person.

I cannot stress enough how very important it is that you know your history otherwise you put yourself in danger of repeating it. You must know who your mothers and fathers are, your grandmothers and grandfathers were, who their parents were if you can find out, and you must know what they did to get you here. Doctors would appreciate this in particular because you know that increasingly the disposition toward diseases and how you treat the diseases is determined in part by the genetic heritage passed on to you from your parents and grandparents. In the same way then, your cultural and social heritage has been passed down to you from your mothers and fathers, grandmothers and grandfathers.

Did you know that in The Bahamas, prior to 1925 there were no high schools for people like you and me? This was in the lifetime of your grandmothers and fathers, great grandmothers and fathers. The first public high school in The Bahamas came in 1925 the Government High School and it was not free. Up to 1967, you had to pay to go to the only government secondary school and it could only take 20 pupils each year.

Dr. Gail Saunders writes that in 1925 when the school was started for every one high school place available in The Bahamas there were 67 primary school children waiting to get that place. That remained the case until 1967 when the Government changed and created a situation where secondary education was made available for all and free of charge. Presumably those who ran the Government would have continued with that practice if the PLP had not won in 1967. Must we forget? My predecessor as the Member of Parliament in Fox Hill George Mackey had to leave Government High because he could not afford to pay the ten pounds that was required to stay in school.

Before majority rule, the basketball parks that you have become accustomed to in the neighbourhoods in The Bahamas did not exist. Within the life times of your parents and grandparents that came into being. Before that, no one thought that the people over the hill deserved it. So when you see what we have today, do not take it for granted; take care of it that did not just drop out of the sky.

We talk about our freedoms: freedom of expression, conscience and worship. Do you know that before 1967 that the only churches that could be heard on ZNS radio on the 11 a.m. Sunday morning religious broadcast were the Anglicans, the Roman Catholics, the Methodists and the Presbyterians and some times Zion Baptist Church? It rotated amongst them. From 1967 onwards, any church could have their religious services aired on radio and today on television. Do not take what you have today for granted.

On 31^st March 2007, we in Fox Hill and around The Bahamas will mark African Heritage Day, observing the 200th anniversary of the abolition of the transatlantic slave trade in the old British Empire. The day will be marked on the actual anniversary here in Jamaica as well. If you are here or in The Bahamas, you ought to participate in the observances and learn as much as you can about it.

Abolition came about not because the English suddenly got a conscience; abolition came about because ordinary men and women, young men and women just like you resisted slavery and forced the moral rightness of the case against slavery. Please mark it on your calendars. I make the point that we will not be celebrating this anniversary; we are observing or marking the occasion.

The fact is that slavery was wrong, morally wrong.  There is a requirement for an apology by all those who were officially involved in slavery even centuries after the fact, that is a form of reparation for a great wrong, a crime against humanity, and amends must be made by all responsible in the same way that the German government has had to make amends for their conduct during the Second World War toward Jews.

Millions of African peoples perished in the middle passage; the numbers exceed those who died in the Holocaust.  Their names are not known and never will be.  Even though they are nameless, they must not be forgotten.

I made the point about observances because there are many who want to pretend that this never happened. Some want to act as if it did not exist.  We cannot do that.  Our history is our history; and we ought to be sure that the young know their history.  We must also tell them, though, that history should not be used as an excuse for their failings but rather as a source of inspiration for their success.

On 25^th March 1807, the British Parliament passed an Act that would forbid the transportation of slaves from Africa to the new world.  It came into effect in 1808 and once it did, the British Navy had the responsibility of enforcing it.  This meant that vessels of countries that still carried slaves were subject to seizure and forfeiture by the navy on the high seas.

Amongst those countries where slavery had not yet been abolished was the United States of America who did not abolish slavery until 1865 and in Brazil where slavery continued until 1888.  Slavery itself was not abolished in the British Empire of which The Bahamas was a part until the year 1834.

Fox Hill owes its beginnings to some extent to the settlement of freed Africans who were set down by the British in what was then called New Guinea or the Creek Village, later named Fox Hill and then Sandilands Village.

Here is what Michael Craton writes in his History of The Bahamas:

Dr. Gail Saunders writes in her book Slavery In The Bahamas:

When I attended the celebrations for the 136^th anniversary of St. Paul’s Baptist Church in Fox Hill, the history there says that their congregation formed out of Mt. Carey Baptist Church and arose in part because of differences between the Congos and Yorubas.

The Yorubas came from West Africa and the Congos came from the Congo.  Most British slaves came from West Africa and the Portuguese took their slaves from what is now the Congo and were transporting them to Brazil.

It is said that after the abolition of the slave trade a slaver carrying Congo slaves was captured by the British and set down in Fox Hill.  They were looked down on by the Yorubas because the Congos could not speak proper English, having come later to The Bahamas and the English language.  When the split took place over some doctrinal matters, the Congos moved to found St. Paul’s.

Dr. Nicollette Bethel speaking at the New Covenant Church some three Sundays ago told us that Junkanoo as we know it today was shaped by the freed African slaves set down after the abolition of the slave trade in 1807. When Junkanoo first started, they used to use the English military and their snare drums for the rhythm but the freed Africans introduced the goatskin drum to Junkanoo and changed it into what it is today.

Language is very interesting because as you know we have all been stripped of our African languages.  I recall how the people of Barbados who migrated to Panama at the turn of the 20th century and stayed in Panama, even though they were born and raised in Panama and have not been to Barbados in their lives still speak English with a Barbadian accent, 100 years or more after the fact.

You can tell then that language is a difficult thing to erase and yet you see how slavery was so dehumanizing that it wiped out all traces of the original languages that came with our forefathers.

So I hope you see how the modern history of The Bahamas is influenced by what happened 200 years ago.  We are still struggling with the meaning of this for our people, their self esteem, and their right to exist as human beings within their own skin and not suffer because of it.  It is important that our children continue to know the story and continue to tell the story.

This year on 5^th March, Ghana celebrated the 50th anniversary of its Independence gained in 1957. That started a march to independence throughout Africa and ultimately here to the Caribbean where Jamaica was the first to gain independence in 1962. We gained our independence in 1973.

But all of us in this hemisphere who are of African descent owe a debt of gratitude to Haiti that struck a blow for the humanity of Africans in the Diaspora when it overthrew the French colonial government in 1804 establishing the first free African led republic in the world. Haiti was made to pay a huge economic and political price for their victory, a price which broke the country and from which they have never recovered economically.

In 1969, two years after majority rule in the life time of your mothers and fathers, 18 year olds got the vote for the first time. Our fore parents fought hard for all those who are 18 years or older to vote.

There is a saying if you don’t use it, you will lose it. Use it, don’t lose it.

That applies to your right to vote for which there was so much done to get it for you. I hope you have registered to vote. Elections are to be called on or before the 2^nd May of this year. I hope that you have a chance to come back home and vote. I hope that you will participate in the wider political process by going to the rallies, canvassing for a candidates or a party, and then working the polls. It is great training for the future.

This afternoon then I the reaffirm the values of freedom for which your mother and fathers fought.

Let us all pledge this afternoon as you begin your week of celebrations to remember all those patriots who went before us. Let us remember: dare to struggle, dare to win. Do not be discouraged that it all does not work out like you thought it would. Life is full of and will always be full of challenges. Remember with your God given talents, you can see yourself through any storm.

In the words of Patrice Lumumba: Forward ever! Backward never!

Thank you and God bless you all!