The Tribune

EDITOR, The Tribune.

Politicians do dumb things in the name of the “party line”, and a certain level of “dumbness” can be expected from them as they go about doing what they think is best in a particular moment.

However, they should have sense enough to recognise “historical moments” and set aside their differences and not be involved in anything that would indicate that they are more concerned about getting their “pound of flesh.”

The reasons and speculations are many as to why Hubert Ingraham would react or respond the way he did, but knowing his former party members in the way that only he knows, he chose to be prudent and remove himself from the situation. Maybe we will refer to this as “Item J”, in the years ahead but it will not sound as innocuous as it does now. When someone makes an “item j” move on you, you may have forewarning in the future. This is not his first time being in such a position. I remember his former party moving a motion to prorogue the House in 1987 just as he was about to address the House of Assembly. Many feel that if he had been allowed to speak the government would have changed five years earlier. As the PLP did not want to hear him then, they do not want to hear him now.

Prime Minister Christie, House Speaker Major and Business Leader Nottage, may have been caught up in the “he said, I said” and theirs may be a legitimate excuse for what transpired, but inadvertently they have placed themselves in the historical record where judgments are made by rules and procedure and not miscommunication. Even the “tit for tat” excuse is not going to work, because if Mr Ingraham is as “boorish” and dictatorial as his enemies claim he would have good reason not to arrange what happened in the House of Assembly, when Prime Minister Pindling made his exit. Those who lead, must know that there are hard decisions that only they can make and Mr Ingraham has never had a problem making the hard decisions. The current Prime Minister, in his zeal to please everyone around him, has a penchant for letting those who follow make the decisions that are his and his alone.

I had written an earlier letter about the importance of legacy and at this rate Mr. Christie will never be numbered with Pindling and Ingraham in this nation’s historical record. The only difference between Mr Ingraham and Mr Pindling is that Mr Pindling came across as a much nicer personality, except for that time when Brian Ross and the NBC crowd got under his skin. That episode also tells us about the power of the historical record; even though there may have been complicity on the part of some Bahamians in the “drug era”, the historical record shows that the path for the drugs to flow from South America was chosen by persons in America. Media in America also published stories about the Bahamas being a “nation for sale”, when leaders in their country were responsible for the Bahamas becoming a transshipment point. Sheer complicity. History has a lot of “complicitous nuances”, that are long forgotten when all of the dust of our personal peeves, prejudices and indiscretions has settled and those among us who will become a part of that will be judged by a set of rules that are unfamiliar to us. The harshness of those rules will have some of us listed as footnotes. It will never be about what we said or how we were able to talk ourselves out of something, it will be about what we did and right now the political multitude of politicians who have set themselves up against Hubert Ingraham have a lot to say, but their collective contribution may not equal what he has done as a singular statesman. Do not get me wrong, I am not talking about what was done for “the party”, I am talking about what was done for the nation to move us forward, collectively, and out of this nations’ fearful political dark ages.

It should be clear to all and sundry by now that Mr Ingraham’s clear distinction, even in his party, is that he has put the nation before his party, the same cannot be said for his detractors. When he crossed political lines to get the best and brightest to bring this country back from the brink, the cries were loudest from his own party. He has always caught hell for making the hard choices. Say what you want, Hubert Ingraham will always be counted among “the number”, when history takes a head count of who were the men in this country. We may not see him as the “Father of the Nation”, but he is to many; some who had to step outside of their social and political comfort zones to get a fair hearing from a “fair leader”.

EDWARD HUTCHESON

Nassau,

July 26, 2012.