Essays on Life moving

OK. I'm just about ready to move Essays on Life from Blogger to my own server at Blogworld:NB. In consequence, I'm shutting the ability to post comments down on this blog. You can still read all the articles that have been posted here, but all new discussions should take place on Blogworld.

Human Rights and the Intellectual

While we artists and intellectuals are fighting our own battles for recognition and respect at home, it's important to remember and recognize the central and crucial role that artists and intellectuals play and have played in the global battle for human rights. Even here in The Bahamas, several of our intellectuals and artists have been outspoken in this regard; of particular mention are poets Marion Bethel, Helen Klonaris, and Lynn Sweeting, playwright Ian Strachan, and writer-intellectual Patricia Glinton-Meicholas. Often the artist's stand has political significance -- and by that I don't mean party politics, but more fundamental politics, such as the ability or the need to provide social criticism where it's needed, regardless of personal party affiliation.

I believe If we're called to be artists, we're not only called to make a living for ourselves, but we're also called to speak out to help to make the world a better place to live in for all.

So I'm posting, for our information (and perhaps also to stir up some controversy and some thinking beyond the pocket) a petition being circulated by artists and intellectuals regarding the abuse of human rights in Guantanamo. It's not coincidental that it came from the Cuban Embassy; there are many reasons why Cuba wishes to have it circulated. But if nothing else, reading the list of signatories should make each of us think about our roles and responsibilities as artists and intellectuals to the country and the world in which we live.

---

Dear Sir/Madam

Please, see below and enclosed, a text of an international call by intellectuals from all over the world, including Nobel Laureates José Saramago, Portugal; Nadine Gordimer, Sudáfrica; Adolfo Pérez Esquivel, Argentina; Rigoberta Menchú, Guatemala; Wole Soyinka, Nigeria.

Also, it includes Danielle Mitterrand, France; Actors Harry Belafonte and Danny Glover, United States.

Should you like to join them, please, feel free to let us know or write to the following e-mail addresses: : www.derechos-humanos.com ; www.derechos-humanos.info ; www.droits-humains.info ; www.hhrr.info derechoshumanos@derechos-humanos.com

Best regards

Embassy of Cuba. The Bahamas ________________________________________________________________________________________________

Cease hypocrisy on the issue of Human Rights

The 62nd Session of the UN Commission on Human Rights will begin next March 20th in Geneva, coinciding with the broadcasting of new footage of US military torturing Iraqi prisoners.

The United States and its EU allies have successively prevented this Commission from condemning the massive and systematic violations of human rights promoted in the name of the so called war against terrorism.

The EU governments have refused to admit the testimonies and evidences submitted by citizens of their countries, who have been victims of several forms of torture at Guantánamo navy base. They have also allowed the flight of CIA aircrafts carrying prisoners to illegal detention centers in Europe and elsewhere.

We the undersigned call upon intellectuals, artists, social activists, and men and women of goodwill everywhere to join our claims: the Commission on Human Rights or the Council that will substitute it, must demand the immediate closing of the arbitrary detention centers created by the United States as well as the ceasing of all these deliberate violations of human dignity.

SIGNED BY:

José Saramago, Portugal; Harold Pinter, Reino Unido; Nadine Gordimer, Sudáfrica; Adolfo Pérez Esquivel, Argentina; Rigoberta Menchú, Guatemala; Wole Soyinka, Nigeria; Dario Fo, Italia; Mairead Corrigan Maguire, Irlanda del Norte; Danielle Mitterrand, Francia; Harry Belafonte, EEUU; Oscar Niemeyer, Brasil; Danny Glover, EEUU; Gerard Depardieu, Francia; Gianni Vattimo, Italia; Ignacio Ramonet, España-Francia; Alice Walker, EEUU; Manu Chao, Francia-España; Tariq Ali, Pakistán; Eduardo Galeano, Uruguay; Pierre Richard, Francia; Ettore Scola, Italia; Mario Benedetti, Uruguay; Naomi Klein, Canadá; Frei Betto, Brasil; Pablo González Casanova, México; Roberto Fernández Retamar, Cuba; Alfonso Sastre, España; Samir Amin, Egipto; Walter Salles, Brasil; Howard Zinn, EEUU; Armand Mattelart, Bélgica-Francia; Joaquín Sabina, España; Leonardo Boff, Brasil; Francois Houtart, Bélgica; José Luis Sampedro, España; Jorge Sanjinés, Bolivia; Fernando Pino Solanas, Argentina; Silvio Rodríguez, Cuba; Adolfo Sánchez Vázquez, España-México; Gianni Miná, Italia; Fernando Morais, Brasil; Ernesto Cardenal, Nicaragua; William Blum, EEUU; Blanca Chancosa Sánchez, Ecuador; Ramsey Clark, EEUU; Istvan Meszaros, Hungría; Pablo Milanés, Cuba; Rosa Regás, España; Giulio Girardi, Italia; Pedro Guerra, España; Alicia Alonso, Cuba; Almudena Grandes, España; James Petras, EEUU; Luis Eduardo Aute, España; Luis Sepúlveda, Chile; Isaac Rosa, España; Volodia Teitelboim, Chile; María Rojo, México; Daniel Viglietti, Uruguay; Atilio Borón, Argentina; Boaventura de Sousa, Portugal; Ramon Chao, España; Alan Woods, Reino Unido; Nora Cortiñas, Argentina; Saul Landau, EEUU; Martin Almada, Paraguay; Belén Gopegui, España; Laura Restrepo, Colombia; Miguel Bonasso, Argentina; James Cockcroft, EEUU; Maribel Permuy, España; Javier Couso, España; Lucius Walker, EEUU; Eva Forest, España; Keith Ellis, Jamaica-Canadá; Joao Pedro Stedile, Brasil; Roy Brown, Puerto Rico; Emir Sader, Brasil; Stella Calloni, Argentina; Rafael Cancel Miranda, Puerto Rico; Miguel Urbano, Portugal; Arturo Andrés Roig, Argentina; Michele Mattelart, Francia; Francisco de Oliveira, Brasil; Jorge Enrique Adoum, Ecuador; Víctor Flores Olea, México; Susan George, EEUU-Francia; Piero Gleijeses, Italia-EEUU; Michael Avery, EEUU; Salim Lamrani, Francia; Juan Bañuelos, México; Luis García Montero, España; Georges Labica, Francia; Hanan Awwad, Palestina; Fernando Savater, España; Michel Collon, Bélgica; Tato Pavlovsky, Argentina; Setsuko Ono, EEUU; Andrés Sorel, España; Cintio Vitier, Cuba; Edmundo Aray, Venezuela; Eric Nepomuceno, Brasil; Frank Fernández, Cuba; Carlos Piera, España; Leo Brower, Cuba; Aldo M. Etchegoyen, Argentina; Theotonio dos Santos, Brasil; Carmen Bohorquez, Venezuela; Julie Belafonte, EEUU; Noé Jitrik, Argentina; Tununa Mercado, Argentina; Jean Marie Binoche; Francia; Luisa Valenzuela, Argentina; Paul Estrade, Francia; Sergent García, Francia-España; Abelardo Castillo, Argentina; Sylvia Iparraguirre, Argentina; Jacky Henin, Francia; Luciana Castellina, Italia, Beth Carvallo, Brasil, Liliana Hecker, Argentina; Nicole Borvo; Francia; Daniel Ortega Saavedra, Nicaragua; Tomás Borge Martínez, Nicaragua; Rodrigo Borja, Ecuador; Pascual Serrano, España; Carlos Martí, Cuba; Claude Couffon, Francia; Raúl Suárez, Cuba; Mark C. Rosenzweig, EEUU; Marilia Guimaraes, Brasil; Beverly Keene, EEUU-Argentina; Gilberto López y Rivas, México; Juan Mari Brás, Puerto Rico; Francisco Fernández Buey, España; Marjorie Cohn, EEUU; Luis Antonio de Villena, España; Jordan Flaherty, EEUU; Medea Benjamín, EEUU; Ann Sparanese, EEUU; Hildebrando Pérez, Perú; Hernando Calvo Ospina, Colombia-Francia; James Early, EEUU; Manuel Cabieses, Chile; Richard Gott, Reino Unido; Héctor Díaz Polanco, Rep. Dominicana-México; Consuelo Sánchez, México; Luis Alegre Zahonero, España; Carlos Fernández Liria, España; Osvaldo Martínez, Cuba; Ana Esther Ceceña, México; Miguel d’Escoto Brockmann, Nicaragua; Carlo Frabetti, Italia-España; Manuel Talens, España; Santiago Alba Rico, España; Amaury Pérez Vidal, Cuba; Danny Rivera, Puerto Rico; Fernando Butazzoni, Uruguay; Julio Gambina, Argentina; Julia Uceda, España; Sara González, Cuba; Tunai, Brasil; Ismael Clark Arxer, Cuba; Fernando Marías, España; Ana Pellicer, España; Nancy Morejón, Cuba; David Raby, Reino Unido; Gennaro Carotenuto, Italia; Raúl Pérez Torres, Ecuador; Jorge Beinstein, Argentina; Jane Franklin, EEUU; Wim Dierckxsens, Costa Rica; Alejandro Moreano, Ecuador; Federico Álvarez, México; Boris Kagarlitsky, Rusia; José Luiz Del Roio, Brasil; Remy Herrera, Francia; Francisco Jarauta, España; Luciano Vasapollo, Italia; Irene Amador, España; Eduardo Torres Cuevas, Cuba; Jorge Riechmann, España; Alessandra Riccio, Italia; Javier Corcuera, Perú; Antonio Maira, España; Fabio Marcelli, Italia; Julio García Espinosa, Cuba; José Steinsleger, Argentina-México; Hans-Otto Dill, Alemania; Douglas Valentine, EEUU; Luciano Alzaga, Argentina; Constantino Bértolo, España; John Pateman, EEUU; Domenico Jervolino, Italia; Francisco Villa, Chile; Santiago Feliú, Cuba; Peter Bohmer, EEUU; Graziella Pogolotti, Cuba; Faride Zeran, Chile; Sergio Trabucco, Chile; Lisandro Otero, Cuba; Juan Madrid, España; Sara Rosemberg, Argentina; Carilda Oliver Labra, Cuba; Alfons Cervera, España; Arnel Medina Cuenca, Cuba; Manuel Rodríguez Rivero, España; Fina García Marruz, Cuba; Joseph E. Mulligan, EEUU; Miguel Barnet, Cuba; Jordi Gracia, España; Ricardo Antunes, Brasil; Rosario Murillo, Nicaragua; Pablo Armando Fernández, Cuba; Carlos Fazio, Argentina; Angel Augier, Cuba; Arturo Corcuera, Perú; Pilar del Río, España; César López, Cuba; Vicente Romano, España; Antón Arrufat, Cuba; Néstor Kohan, Argentina; Gloria Berrocal, España; Javier Maqua, España; Abelardo Estorino, Cuba; Aldo Díaz Lacayo, Nicaragua; Ambrosio Fornet, Cuba; Carlos Varea, España; Jaime Sarusky, Cuba; Alfredo Vera, Ecuador; Beinusz Szmukler, Argentina; Reynaldo González, Cuba; Juan Carlos Mestre, España; Senel Paz, Cuba; Miguel Alvarez Gándara, México; Roberto Fabelo, Cuba; Quintín Cabrera, Uruguay; Vicente Feliú, Cuba; Jordi Doce, España; Ana María Navales, España; Rebeca Chávez, Cuba; Andrés Neuman, España; Eduardo Roca, Cuba; Enrique Falcón, España; Vanessa Ramos, Puerto Rico; Isabel Pérez Montalbán, España; Roberto Verrier, Cuba; José Viñals, España; Martha Viñals, España; Manuel Rico, España; Harold Gratmages, Cuba; Emilio Torné, España; Leticia Spiller, Brasil; Dionisio Cañas, España; Paula Casals, María del Carmen Barcia, Cuba; Reino Unido; Andrés Gómez, Cuba; Marcela Cornejo Zamorano, Chile; Anthony Arnove, EEUU; Diana Balboa, Cuba; Edgar Queipo, Venezuela; Albert Kasanda, República del Congo; Yamandú Acosta, Uruguay; Raly Barrionuevo, Argentina; Pablo Guayasamín, Ecuador; Isabel Monal, Cuba; Verenice Guayasamín, Ecuador; Jaime Losada Badia, España; Alicia Hermida, España; Alfonso Bauer, Guatemala; Handel Guayasamín, Ecuador; Cecilia Conde, Brasil; Salvador Bueno, Cuba; Mano Melo, Brasil; Jorge Ibarra, Cuba; Al Campbell, EEUU, Juan Carlos Rodríguez, España; José Villa Soberón, Cuba; Angeles Mora, España; Eloy Arroz, México; Mario Andrés Solano, Costa Rica; Jose Luis Toledo Santander, Cuba; Jitendra Sharma, India; Cléa Carpi da Rocha, Brasil; João Luiz Duboc Pinaud, Brasil; Daniel Cirera, Francia, Gilson Cantarino, Brasil, Francisco Pérez Guzmán, Cuba; Chiara Varese, Perú; Gloria la Riva, EEUU; José Loyola Fernández, Cuba; Richard Becker, EEUU; Brian Becker, EEUU; Carlos Alberto Cremata, Cuba; Claudia Korol, Argentina; Gilberto Maringoni, Brasil; Elizabeth A. Bowman, EEUU; Bob Stone, EEUU; Vicente Battista, Argentina; Carles Furriols i Solà, España; Isabel-Clara Simó, España; Yaki Yaskvloski, Argentina; José Ramón Artigas, Cuba; José Paulo Gascão, Portugal; Fernando Key Domínguez, Venezuela; Simone Contiero, Italia; Carlos Martínez, España; Antonia García Bueno, España; Zoila Lapique, Cuba; Tom Twiss, EEUU; Paloma Valverde, España; María Ángeles Maeso, España; Estrella Rey, Cuba; Luis Felipe Comendador, España; Julio Fernández Bulté, Cuba; Luciano Feria Hurtado, España; Paco Puche, España; Matías Bosch, República Dominicana; Pablo Escribano Ibáñez, España; Miguel Veyrat, España; Olga Miranda Bravo, Cuba; Virgilio Tortosa, España; Jesús Aguado, España; Rodolfo Dávalos Fernández, Cuba; Manuel Moya, España; Emilio Pedro Gómez, España; Lara Gallut, España; José Corredor Matheos, España; José Giménez, España; Abraham Toro, Venezuela; Luzmila Marcano, Venezuela, Carlos Padrón, Cuba; Judith Valencia, Venezuela; Mario Sáenz, EEUU; Ligia Machado, Colombia; Raúl Fornet-Betancourt, Alemania; Gustavo Fernández Colón, Venezuela; Hector Arenas, Colombia; Antonio Scocozza, Italia; Elsa Liliana Tovar, Venezuela; Vladimir Lazo García, Venezuela; Pierre Mouterde, Canadá; Estela Fernández Nadal, Argentina; Fernando Asián, Venezuela; Justo Soto Castellanos, Colombia; Francisco Berdichevsky Linares, Argentina; Mauricio Langon, Uruguay; César de Vicente Hernando, España; Roberto Loya, España; Rafael José Díaz, España; Rosa Lentini, España; Ricardo Cano Gaviria, España; Salustiano Martín, España; Francisco Gálvez, España; Oscar Carpintero, España; Alberto R. Torices, España; Giovanni Parapini, Italia; José Luis Sagüés, España; Concepción Martínez, España; Olga Lucas, España; Antonio Orihuela, España; Clara Sanchos, España; Iván Zaldua, España; Jordi Dauder, España; David Méndez, España; Enrique Gracia, España; Ramón Souto, España; Blanca Viñas, España; José María Parreño, España; Armando Fernández Steinko, España; José Luis Pacheco, Venezuela; Belén Artuñedo, España; Nacho Fernández, España; Rosa Grau, España; Consuelo Triviño, España; David Ortiz-Alburquerque, República Dominicana; Nilo Batista, Brasil; Carmen Vargas, Brasil; Carlos Henrique Botkay, Brasil; Clarissa Matheus, Brasil; Ulisses Guimarães, Brasil; Vivaldo Franco, Brasil; Clarissa Mantuano, Brasil; Heloisa Branca, Brasil; Eduardo Ebendinger, Brasil; Marcello Guimaraes, Brasil; Célia Ravero, Brasil; Lavinia Borges, Brasil; Teodoro Buarque de Holanda, Brasil; Felinto Procopio Minerin, Brasil; José Ibraim, Brasil; Ecatherina Brasileiro, Brasil; Silvio Tendler, Brasil; Ana Rosa Tendler, Brasil; Teo Lima, Brasil; José Braga, Brasil; Fábio Basilone, Brasil; Denise Fraga, Brasil; Carlos Eduardo Ibraim, Brasil; Michelle Victer, Brasil; Violeta Cabello, España; Alejandro Moreno, España; Claufe Rodrigues, Brasil; Ledo Ivo, Brasil; Monica Montone, Brasil; Terezinha Lameira, Brasil; Jesus Chediak, Brasil; Pedro Amaral, Brasil; Maria Laura Laskshim, Brasil; Waldir Leite, Brasil; Walter Guiadazo, Brasil; Marcellus Franco, Brasil; João Grilo, Brasil; Sérgio Saboya, Brasil; Geraldo Moreira, Brasil; Ivair Itagiba, Brasil; Emilio Mira y Lopez, Brasil; José Luis Rodríguez García, España; Daniel Salgado, España; Olga Matara Peñarrocha, España

Another Brief Update

Things are progressing on the new site faster than I thought. I'll keep posting to this blog for another week or two, and then, say at the end of April, I'll make the switch. I'm just putting the final touches on the other one.

For your information, the new blog will be called "Blogworld" and will incorporate more than just Essays on Life. In addition to Essays (which will be available by clicking on a link) there'll be other stuff too, some of it not so well thought out and polished as Essays.

This site will remain in place for some time to come, but it's unlikely that it will be updated. I'll probably turn the comments off as well, once the new blog gets going, so as not to muddle things up. You can use this one as an archive, even though all the articles have been imported into the new blog.

Cheers.

On Being Rich

There was a time, a couple of decades ago, when young Bahamians used to talk about Development and Progress and all kinds of things that were easy to say and hard to lift off the ground if you really thought about them. The world was different then. There were choices you thought you could make – choices such as whether to build a democratic nation that relied on capital and free enterprise to drive its economic engine, or whether to work for the good of the common man and create a communist state. Dictators were all around us. Most of the Latin American continent was ruled by people who had not been elected in any fashion that democratic countries recognized. Cuba of course had Castro; and Haiti was ruled by the Duvalier dynasty.

There was a joke that was told at that time. It really wasn’t a very funny joke. It was the kind of joke that had so much truth it made you laugh because if you didn’t you might cry or shoot someone. It went something like this.

An aspiring politician sat down with three veteran leaders and asked them for the secrets of their success.

The first one said, “Ah, my son. The secret of my success is this. I keep my followers poor and stupid, and then they must rely upon me for their every need. In this way I keep them loyal to me.”

The second one said, “Ah, my son. The secret of my success is this. I educate my followers properly, and teach them to understand my way is the only way. Then it doesn’t matter if they are poor. In this way I keep them loyal to me.”

The third one said, “Ah, my son. My two colleagues are brilliant men, but they miss the point entirely. Poverty makes human beings dream of better lives, and education teaches people to think. No. Better to make your followers wealthy, and teach them never to think at all. My people are loyal because they don’t know any other way to be.”

The joke would always be followed by peals of laughter. It was funny because we recognized the styles of leadership all too well. The first one we associated with countries like Haiti and other dictatorships that relied on fear and oppression to stay alive. The second one we associated with places like Cuba, where ideology met every need and people were taught that sacrifice in the name of revolution was all that mattered. The third one?

The third one we associated with home.

The joke is no longer current these days. It’s lost most of its meaning – largely because, I think, it’s no longer a joke. Back in the 1970s, being rich was still a dream that many of us could hold onto. We were newly independent, most of us were attending high schools and colleges for the first time in our families, and those of us who chose to return home to Nassau had the pick of the professions – there was no glut of lawyers, no lack of a need for doctors or accountants. And so the people who were coming up at that time forgot the joke and concentrated in taking their positions in society, on building the economy, on earning the salaries that would make us wealthy.

But we didn’t invest that wealth back into our country to make the joke remain a joke. And so it’s become reality.

We Bahamians have succeeded remarkably in so far as material wealth is concerned. But we really haven’t done so well in the intellectual department. We’ve made money, true, so much of it that our GDP places us proudly in the top three national economies of the western hemisphere. But we haven’t made much impression in the department of deep thought.

Now this has nothing to do with our capacity to think deeply as a people. No; drop by the Fish Fry or any bar or dominoes table at any place in the city and listen to the conversation you hear there. Today, as ever, ordinary Bahamians in ordinary places are as philosophical as any professor in any university. The problem is that that philosophy isn’t being propagated in such a way that the whole country can benefit from the discussions, and it hardly ever reaches the level of public discussion.

And the public as a whole seems not to miss it. Those people who think deeply and argue logically and discuss big issues with good sense seem to be found in pockets whose discussions don’t reach the wider society, because we haven’t invested in channels to allow for that level of discussion. And the problem isn’t just the fault of the politicians. One of the side effects of achieving the get-rich-quick dream is the belief that money is all we need, that money, and material goods – cars and phones and flatscreen TVs and the latest footwear and Tommy fashions and so on – can replace the ability to think deeply as a nation.

The result?

Well, the politician in the joke isn’t so far wrong. The best secret to success as a leader – if by “success” you mean being a Man of the People, a Hero for the Masses, the Godfather From Whom All Good Things Come, and all-round demigod – is exactly as he said. The leader who keeps his people wealthy and ignorant has no need of being a dictator, no need for a secret police, no need for anything sinister at all. The population that is wealthy and ignorant is the easiest one to lead; it can buy what it thinks it wants, and it has no concept of what it actually needs.

A Brief Update

First of all, I'd like to say thanks to those people who check out this blog, regularly or not. I've been going through my old posts (I'm contemplating moving this blog from Blogger altogether for various reasons. None of them have anything to do with any dissatisfaction with the service offered by Blogger, which has made me a blog addict over the past several months; rather, they have to do with the fact that I'm thinking that I have a server and my own blogging tool and might as well use them.

Over the weekend I've been importing the posts here over to the new blogging tool. I'm not sure how it's going to work yet, and so this will remain for some time to come the main site for Essays on Life. However, expect for this blog to be transferred over the next few months to a new site where I can do more things -- sort the posts according to category, for instance, to enable people to search for topics more readily, and an easier way of creating links than Blogger currently offers. Don't expect my Blogger presence to disappear, though; I maintain four blogs here at the moment, and don't have any intention of moving those in the short term. But Essays is a major undertaking, and I'd like to exercise some more editorial and other control over it.

For those of you who took the time and trawled through old posts -- and even read them and took the time to comment! -- many thanks. I've gone through and read your comments at last -- some of them are over seven months old, my apologies. Q, many thanks especially to you, with your great comment on Junkanoo, and others. I've seen them, and will be replying over time.

In the meantime, watch this space. When I'm ready to move to the new blog, you'll know. And till then, keep the faith.

On Impossible Dreams

This week, I want to write about dreams. It seems to me that we’re a country that has given up on dreaming. Oh, we talk a good game. Our favourite pastime is talking – whether it be talking to God, talking to our pastors, talking to our congregations or constituencies or followers. But when we finish talking we sit back and wait for our pastors or our God or whomever isn’t us to turn that talk into action.

But our country wasn’t always like this. In the lifetimes of many of us, we have moved from being a backwater colony of Britain, governed by a minority of businessmen, to a wealthy and independent nation, governed by people who represent us all. Many of us still remember days when being black was synonymous with being poor – too poor to afford new clothes more than once a year, or to own more than one pair of shoes, two if you’re lucky – things that many young Bahamians can’t imagine.

And we got here because some people dared to dream impossible dreams.

My title is taken from a song that comes from the musical Man of La Mancha, which in turn is taken from Cervantes’ novel about Don Quixote, the Spanish nobleman who went off on impossible quests, always tilting at windmills. The thing about Don Quixote is that he seems mad when you look at him, always trying to do the impossible. The thing is, he always hopes he’ll succeed. But even if he doesn’t, at least he tried. As the last verse of the song says:

And the world will be better for this
That one man, scorned and covered with scars,
Still strove with his last ounce of courage
To reach the unreachable star.

We’ve got a few Don Quixotes of our own. I want to write about one of them today – Kayla Lockhart Edwards, who has lived her life dreaming so-called impossible dreams about Bahamian culture. For all her adult life, Kayla has been an inspiration for Bahamians involved in the performing and folk arts. This is because she believes – rather, she knows – that Bahamian culture is rich and full and so valuable that every citizen should be steeped in it. And so she’s dreamed impossible dreams to prove it.

Not all of her dreams came true. When she dreamed of the school of the arts, her Institute of the Arts, established in the late 1970s after she left the Cultural Affairs Division of the then Ministry of Education and Culture, her plans for the country and its artists were great. They may have been premature – the Institute didn’t grow as planned, and eventually closed its doors – but the dream continues, so much so that a school for the performing arts made its way into the PLP’s Our Plan in 2002, and may even now be on the verge of becoming a reality.

On the other hand, at the end of the 1980s, when she realized that we were raising children who didn’t know traditional Bahamian stories, songs, proverbs and ringplay, she brainstormed with Derek Burrows and came up with Dis We Tings – a theatrical revue that took audiences on a journey down memory lane, introducing the younger members to traditional Bahamian culture, and reminding older ones what it was like. The show was such a success it played to packed houses during its two-week run, and had to be revived six months later. She followed it up with two sequels – Dis We Tings II, and Dis We Tings III: Contract Voices, which dealt specifically with that period on Bahamian national history known as the Contract years.

Kayla’s dreams came in all shapes and sizes. Some of them were big dreams, like the Institute and the Dis We Tings series. Some of them had big consequences. Dis We Tings brought Bahamian traditional culture back into people’s consciousness, and it’s possible to trace the nostalgic writings of Bahamian musicians back to that series of productions. The early 1990s were also a time when Bahamian artists and performers blossomed; some of that may have had to do with the energy that resulted from the change of government in 1992, but some of it was definitely the result of Kayla’s shows. In this category can also be placed her work with Bahamas Faith Ministries, her integration of culture and cultural activity into Christian ministry, which has changed the face of Bahamian worship irrevocably.

But some of her dreams were small dreams, with results that won’t be measured for some time to come. These included all of her CDs, which are collections of traditional and original music, and poetry; her books and her television shows and plans for television shows. Many of her dreams have apparently gone nowhere.

But the world has been better for them. We didn’t even know how much better until recently, when Kayla’s illness prompted a gathering of all her friends and colleagues in an outpouring of love and gratitude for all that she’s done through a lifetime of dreaming. This weekend’s concert, featuring the Kayla Edwards Chamber Singers and friends, is a testament to the miracles wrought by Kayla’s dreaming.

All too often these days we react to dreamers of Kayla’s calibre the way that the Spanish countryside reacted to Don Quixote’s quests: by laughing, or ridiculing, or saying that the dreams they dream are impossible. But let us take a lesson from this great woman, who never let the impossibility of anything stop her not only from dreaming, but acting to make her dreams happen.

And so we salute Kayla – our impossible dreamer. We know that her greatest dreams will come true; those of us she has inspired will all see to that. And the world will be better for them. It’s a promise. We will all strive to reach the unreachable stars.

On Blacks in Uniform

Just recently I had the privilege to spend considerable time visiting Paradise Island. In part, this was because I had several friends and acquaintances in town, and one of the sightseeing must-dos is to show them around Atlantis, as far as possible. In part, it was because of meetings that took place there over an extended period of time.

I have to say that I travelled there without much of a second thought. This occurred to the wonder of some of my friends, who asked me whether I needed my passport to go there. I told them I didn’t need anything except to toss one dollar of my money into the till at the tollgate. (Ministry of Tourism officials, I learned, are provided with passes, which probably means that the government puts its money directly into the tollgate. I don’t know where that money goes. Perhaps it goes back to the government, which would defeat the purpose of my putting the dollar in – but never mind that.)

There was the fact that in some places in the hotel my husband and I were asked for our room key or fat wads of our cash. As far as that goes, that’s fair enough; it’s the people hotel after all, and they have the right to charge for certain privileges. What you don’t pay for on the swings you’ll spend on the merry-go-round. No; within the confines of the four hundred walls of Atlantis, that’s fair enough.

I didn’t need a passport. Most of the time I wasn’t going to Atlantis, or to Kerzner land at all. But what interested me was what I saw in the open air. Other people, especially those who worked there, needed a passport of sorts.

Before I elaborate, let me explain a little about Paradise Island, which was the site of my recreation when I was a child. I grew up in the east of the island, and after the weather got warm my friends and I spent our free time on Cabbage Beach and wandering around Paradise like bands of bush urchins in our various brownnesses. When I was growing up, P.I. was mostly pine forest and mysterious trails leading off towards beaches and revelation (or, if you like, towards the beach facing Athol Island or towards the Holiday Inn). Now it’s a bustling city-unto-itself.

Oh, people live there. It’s not all Atlantis. There are apartments and luxury homes all along the roads and side roads to the east. Kerzner has not got hold of every acre yet. But what struck me about most of the faces that I saw there, on Kerzner land and off, was this: either they were white, or they were black – and uniformed.

I can hear you now. “That’s not unusual,” you’re protesting. “They work for people over there, and they have to wear uniforms as part of their work.” Or you’re saying, “Most service industries require their staff to wear uniforms or identifying clothing.” And you’re right, of course. Uniforms are both necessary and helpful; they instil pride in one’s position, they instil confidence among the clientele, and they may even be aesthetically pleasing overall.

It’s not the fact that people are required to wear uniforms on Paradise Island that piqued my interest enough to write an article about it. I get the concept of uniforms, and I even like it in certain times and places. No; what arrested me was the fact that virtually the only black people I saw loose on Paradise Island – not driving cars, or sitting eating in the Hurricane Hole plaza, or behind the counters in Marina Village – were uniformed. Almost all the other faces were white.

I can only presume that there’s something very comforting about black people in uniform. Uniforms make black faces look as though they fit in. They allow for categorization, and for control; each uniform tells you where this person is supposed to be, and who’s responsible for this person. All very comforting indeed.

And all very odd, to my mind, in a country which gained majority rule without bloodshed, under the leadership of a party who stood for the achievement of equality for all Bahamians, regardless of the colours of their faces. Because the relegating to the black face to its appearance above a uniform smacks to me of a structure of class and race that Majority Rule was supposed to dismantle. It makes me think of slavery, of course; but to make that comparison is too facile and too expected for my main point. What it really suggests to me is that we have moved from an era where black faces were confined to uniforms because they were considered inferior to an era where black faces are confined to uniforms because it’s better for the bottom line.

And it seems supremely odd that we appear to have no collective discomfort about this fact. Rather, we seem to be embracing it, welcoming investors who will replicate the “success” of Kerzner and Paradise Island, and spreading it all around this archipelago of ours. It seems crucially odd to me that we have had no true discussion of the implications of what I noticed on Paradise Island – implications that suggest that it’s all right for us Bahamians, particularly (but not exclusively) Black Bahamians, to be considered so out of place in our own country that we are expected to be uniformed to move freely around it.

And it seems entirely odd that our governments – black, educated, wealthy, and stuffed with people of good conscience – have no problem with the concept at all.

Perhaps we are all, fundamentally, prostitutes. If what it takes to provide jobs and “development” and a better performance on the tourist charts and money and children in private schools, then so be it.

But I’m left very uneasy. History shows very clearly what the love of profit can breed. So I wonder. Is the phenomenon of blacks in uniform all that different from the past we thought that January 10, 1967 was supposed to erase? And by acknowledging the profit inherent in the practice, are we all that very different from the West African coastal businessmen who sold their people to slavers in exchange for guns and rum and cold, hard cash?