The Tribune

By PACO NUNEZ

I FEEL quite sorry for the two young men from PLP families recently hired at ZNS News.

No doubt they are entirely qualified for their new posts and will prove to be enthusiastic and committed workers.

That they happen to be who they are is not their fault. And, let’s be honest, how many people would decline a job they really wanted because it was offered under less than ideal circumstances?

Nevertheless, in the context of a shake-up at the Broadcasting Corporation of the Bahamas which commentators have panned as a clear cut jobs-for-supporters move, the addition of these two young men was bound to bring some unwanted attention.

The same could be said of Bahamas Communications and Public Officers Union (BCPOU) president Bernard Evans, who was criticised for failing to protect journalists pulled from the ZNS news team, allegedly because they were perceived to be FNMs.

In response to his explanation that he knew nothing about the developments at ZNS because he’d been on vacation, Mr Evans was derided as a sell-out.

One commentator wrote: “So now Bernard Evans doesn’t know every move and shake at ZNS? If a toilet flushed at ZNS’ building under the FNM, Evans would be on TV that night threatening to strike because of how long it flushed and how much water was used to flush it. What a difference a billet makes.”

The “billet” referred to is presumably the appointment of Mr Evans as deputy chairman of the National Insurance Board.

Again, I am sure this has no influence whatsoever on his handling of the ZNS complaints, but his image is not helped by the fact that he is one of a number of union bosses appointed to government boards by the PLP.

The others include: Public Service Union president John Pinder, who now sits on the Bahamas Mortgage Corporation board; Trade Union Congress president Obie Ferguson, who is now on the Bahamas Electricity Corporation board; Bahamas Union of Teachers president Belinda Wilson, appointed to the Educational Loan Authority Board; Jennifer Isaacs-Dotson, president of the Union of Tertiary Educators of the Bahamas, who now sits on the Bahamas Development Bank board; Sloane Smith, executive of the Bahamas Customs, Immigration and Allied Workers Union, now on the Bahamas Trade Commission; and Nicole Martin, Bahamas Hotel Catering and Allied Workers Union president, now on the Prices Commission.

As with the two new faces at ZNS, such appointments are bound to raise eyebrows, but we should be careful not to place any of the blame on the appointees themselves, reserving it all for the party operatives who chose them.

And this time around, certain senior PLPs may have a great deal more to answer for than simply politics as usual.

There has been much condemnation of the perceived culture of victimisation in the Public Service since the PLP came to office, but if we focus not only on the “who” of the staff changes, but also on the “where”, a pattern emerges which is far too convenient to be coincidence.

This pattern might lead a suspicious person to believe what is happening is far more systematic than the indiscriminate nepotism which has long been “the way the cookie crumbles” in the Bahamas. Something altogether new – or, at least, which hasn’t been seen in a very long time.

As far as we know, the two main foci of the PLPs Public Service “restaffing” exercises have been ZNS News, and the party’s signature crime fighting tool, Urban Renewal.

Meanwhile, the two groups which most benefited from board appointments under the new government have been union bosses and religious leaders.

The PLP, therefore, has targeted the two most significant influences on mass public opinion – organised labour and the church – along with what is still the largest vehicle for the distribution of news and information across the Bahamas, while at the same time seeking to control the image of the fight against crime, the number-one hot button issue in the country.

And, this is all taking place following the rise in recent years of anonymous bloggers and spin-doctors with little attachment to the truth, but a seemingly great affection for the PLP.

With this last point in mind, consider the observation by German Jewish philosopher Hannah Arendt, that “Before mass leaders seize the power to fit reality to their lives, their propaganda is marked by its extreme contempt for facts as such, for in their opinion fact depends entirely on the power of the man who can fabricate it.”

Now, there is no guarantee that just because someone accepts a position, they will be willing to do as they are told, particularly if it involves something underhanded.

But what does seem likely is that some people in the PLP hierarchy are hopeful that gratitude will become obedience. At least, it’s hard to see another explanation behind their actions.

Imagine for a moment the consequences of a political party, any political party, actually managing to gain substantial control over the factors that determine public opinion in this country; attaining the means to manipulate reality. It would, of course, be beyond exaggeration to suggest the PLP are rebuilding Nazi Germany before our very eyes.

At the same time, the party does find itself in a stronger position than at any time in the last 20 years, faced with a decidedly weakened opposition without Hubert Ingraham, and poised to take local credit for a global economic recovery which has nothing to do with them.

 One plausible outcome of a PLP bid to control reality would be a return to some of the conditions that prevailed in the Bahamas before the 1992 election.

Back then, this was a place where power was concentrated in the hands of a few men who for years stood unopposed in any meaningful sense, and where a severely under-educated population was completely at the mercy of mass opinion-making forces such as the labour, religion and party fanaticism.

Such a place is a democracy in name only. Its proper title is a tyranny of the majority – which almost always fails to benefit that majority, the spoils accruing to the same small group of men who run the show.

Bahamians of all political persuasions – as well as every active politician – should think long and hard about whether they want to go back to such a place, particularly as by the time this new reality has been consolidated, Perry Gladstone Christie is unlikely to be the leader in place to reap the spoils.

Now, there is no guarantee that just because someone accepts a position, they will be willing to do as they are told, particularly if it involves something underhanded.

But what does seem likely is that some people in the PLP hierarchy are hopeful that gratitude will become obedience. At least, its hard to see another explanation behind their actions.

Imagine for a moment the consequences of a political party, any political party, actually managing to gain substantial control over the factors that determine public opinion in this country; attaining the means to manipulate reality.

It would of course be beyond exaggeration to suggest the PLP are rebuilding Nazi Germany before our very eyes.

At the same time, the party does find itself in a stronger position than at any time in the last 20 years, faced with a decidedly weakened opposition without Hubert Ingraham, and poised to talk local credit for a global economic recovery which has nothing to do with them.

One plausible outcome of a PLP bid to control reality would be a return some of the conditions that prevailed in the Bahamas before the 1992 election.

Back then, this was a place where power was concentrated in the hands of a few men who for years stood unopposed in any meaningful sense, and where a severely under-educated population was completely at the mercy of mass opinion-making forces such as the labour, religion and party fanaticism.

Such a place is a democracy in name only. Its proper title is a tyranny of the majority – which almost almost always fails to benefit that majority, the spoils accruing to the same small group of men who run the show.

Bahamians of all political persuasions – as well as every active politician – should think long and hard about whether they want to go back to such a place, particularly as by the time this new reality has been consolidated, Perry Gladstone Christie is unlikely to be the leader in place to reap the spoils.

• What do you think? Email comments or questions to pnunez@tribunemedia.net, or join the conversation at www.tribune242.com/opinion/insight