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Last Updated: Feb 6, 2017 - 2:32:04 PM |
"We have a population problem. It’s not a problem of overpopulation; far from it. It’s a problem of population distribution"
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TheBahamasWeekly.com
has once again selected Bahamians to canvas their opinions on highlights
of The Bahamas over the year 2013, as well as ask about the direction
of the country. Their comments will be shared over the coming weeks.
Through this exchange we hope to also highlight Bahamians in our
community, and share their personal triumphs, that may or may not have
made the news.
Here is the opinion of
Nicolette Bethel, Assistant Professor of Sociology and Head of the Department of Psychology, Sociology and Social Work at the College of The Bahamas:
1) What event do you feel was the most important for The Bahamas in 2013?
If it is instituted, the constitutional reform recommended by the Constitutional Commission. The report is far too conservative and but the fact that we have had the exercise is significant. If nothing is done about the report, though, it will have been a waste of time and energy—and democratic hope.
2) Who passed away this year that you feel will be 'most missed' and why?
P. Anthony White. Writers are precious and he was especially so. HE WILL BE MISSED.
3) Who was the 'most inspirational / influential Bahamian' in 2013 and why?
I cannot answer this one in any way other than personally. I would pick Kishan Munroe because he did what no one else in this fortieth anniversary celebratory year did: he remembered a very significant, very hidden moment in our history and made it his obsession. The sinking of the HMBS Flamingo in 1980 has all but been forgotten for everyone outside of the artistic or defence communities (the artistic, because of Cleophas Adderley’s opera, the defence community, because it is their memorial), but Kishan’s exhibition Swan Song of the Flamingo does much more than try to commemorate it; the exhibition is an exercise in healing, involving both The Bahamas and Cuba in it. Remarkable. Inspirational. And runs up until March 2014.
4) 2013 was the country's 40th anniversary of Independence. What stood out for you in way of commemorating this event?
For me, it was the revival of my father’s folk opera,
The Legend of Sammie Swain, which, despite all the right noises from governmental and political quarters, still remains an almost exclusively private endeavour, initiated by
Shakespeare in Paradise and supported by appreciative audiences, some corporate citizens, and private individuals. And this helps to answer the last question too. For me personally, the most inspirational Bahamian is my husband, Philip Burrows, but I never know how to judge that as he is my husband and my creative partner, and so there is considerable bias there. But his production of
Sammie Swain, supported by the team that he pulled around him—Adrian Archer and Robert Bain in particular—was the best that we have ever produced. Ever. And it did what we wanted it to do: reminded young Bahamians who never knew that Bahamians can do great things too. I hope it was transformative for them in a way that many other activities were not (too many others simply reinforced the status quo). I want us all to dream big and achieve big, not just try to make ends meet. We weren’t put on earth just to exist; we were put here to live and make things better. For my brother and me, Sammie Swain did that for us this year.
5) 2013 may have been one of the worst years ever for crime in The Bahamas. What are your thoughts and suggestions?
I’m not sure I buy the popular semi-hysteria about crime. As a social scientist I tend to stand back and look at local situations as objectively as possible. Here are the facts that strike me about The Bahamas in 2013.
1) We have a population problem. It’s not a problem of overpopulation; far from it. It’s a problem of population distribution. Almost a quarter of a million people live in eighty square miles of land. The population density that results—3,125 people per square mile—places intolerable pressure on all of us. But it’s unnecessary pressure, because the whole territory of The Bahamas totals approximately 5400 square miles, and our whole population totals 354,000; the population density of our whole nation is a mere 66 people per square mile. To me, it’s a no-brainer; we HAVE to create and encourage the development of centres of population around our archipelago and establish means of encouraging Nassauvians to move there. End of story. But:
2) We have an economic problem. For the last twenty years if not more, our governments have placed more emphasis on the attraction of foreign direct investment in various forms than on any single local developmental initiative. The result is that we all today confuse the construction of huge resorts with actual development, and we castigate our leaders for spending pretty well any money on Bahamians at all, put by the fact that such spending is an investment in the Bahamian nation. The landscape that has been produced is a landscape in which the fabulously wealthy of the world live behind illegally high walls in gated communities five driving minutes away from areas of high population density and virtually no amenities. We have allowed our educational services to stagnate, so that we are still providing the majority of our citizens with the kind of education that was appropriate for the first ten years of our independence, but with a deterioration in its quality.
We quibble about whether we can “afford” a university but have no problems in assigning more money from our national budget to “assist” the latest multimillion dollar resort complex in its development than we assign to the College of The Bahamas. In other words, our country, which is still the wealthiest in CARICOM, has real economic problems when it comes to how it spends its money, and on what. Rather than investing in the means to develop the whole of this large, land-rich, stunningly beautiful, strategically significant nation, we waste far too much on projects that harm the general population without generating any return.
In this scenario, crime is inevitable, and the violent crime that we have come to fear this year is depressingly predictable. I have been convinced for most of my adult life, from the moment I set foot in a classroom to teach the younger brothers of young men who had struck it rich working for major and minor drug lords, that some of the best minds in The Bahamas go into crime. The young men who are killing themselves and others in the process are part of our national resource, and we have worked hard to discard them like paper. They are turning their minds to making space for themselves because no one has made any room for them. We want them to work as construction workers at the bottom of a hierarchy that still places whiteness and riches at its top, and we expect them to be grateful. At the same time, we live in a society with open borders and a general resistance to spending the kind of money and time needed to police those borders adequately, and we also live on the edge of the most schizophrenic society that ever lived—a society that says that all men are equal of one side of its mouth, and out of the other side says that all people are equally good targets for bullets. The absurd American Arm the Good Guy scenario does not work, because which individual really believes he’s the bad guy? And so:
violent crime, criminals with automatic weapons, and sensational headlines that sell newspapers but really do very little to present the problem sensibly.
To sum up: I don’t buy the “worst year” idea in terms of crime. I’m not sure that 2013 was the worst year; I tend to divide what I read in Bahamian discourse on these sorts of things by four and digest the result. We have the crime that we should expect for the population size and density that we have on New Providence. It is not at all surprising. It’s frightening, yes, but that’s because our city is too small to absorb it. The solutions are there. It’s a mathematical problem whose solution can be simple. We need to act to make it happen.
6) Is there an 'unsung hero' you feel should be recognized from 2013 or prior? If so, who and why?
I am totally biased here. For me, it’s Philip A. Burrows. He is a consummate professional and one of the best directors alive—and I don’t just mean in The Bahamas. I’ve lived and worked in theatre for thirty years and have never come across someone as intuitive and as talented as he is, who can make almost anyone with almost any experience look good on stage, who can cut through the details to the heart of a production, who understands the movements and the purpose of a piece of drama, and who can make it all work together. He is multi-talented and can mount a production single-handedly, doing everything from direction to sets to lighting to make-up to costumes if he has to. And he is certainly “unsung”; no one yet has seen fit to give him a permanent job that showcases his talents, so he works for himself.
7) Do you have a Personal Highlight for 2013?
No question; Shakespeare in Paradise 2013, and particularly
The Legend of Sammie Swain.
Nicolette Bethel was born in Nassau in 1963, which makes her 10 years older than the Bahamian nation. She is an anthropologist, poet and playwright who has been Director of Cultural Affairs for the Bahamas Government and who is now Assistant Professor of Sociology at the College of The Bahamas. She is the founding director of the annual Shakespeare in Paradise theatre festival. She blogs at http://nicobethel.net/blogworld and can be reached at nico@nicobethel.net.
© Copyright 2014 by thebahamasweekly.com
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