The Tribune

MARION Bethel, the attorney, human and gender rights activist, filmmaker and acclaimed writer/poet, received the Caricom award for women this week in Antigua and Barbuda. She is the first Bahamian to receive the prestigious award.

The award, which was introduced in 1983, is issued every three years to honour a Caribbean woman whose work has made a significant contribution in the arena of women’s development and the socio-economic development of the Caribbean.

Mrs Bethel expressed her profound gratitude and humility on Tuesday in accepting the honour – the eleventh time it has been awarded – and said it spoke to Caricom’s highest aspirations for women in the Caribbean.

“And, indeed, the world – that for all the violence, cruelty, inequity and injustice that women face regionally and globally, this is not our destiny,” she said. “Women’s creativity, imagination and perseverance as anchored in our social agency, political actions and work do matter for they are the foundation of our reach towards equity, social justice and peace.”

Mrs Bethel said that while the award is often given for a lifetime of excellent work, she considered herself in the middle of the journey, not the end.

“I am honoured to join a most distinguished group of Caribbean women who have preceded me. Over the years I have interacted with some of these women such as Dr Peggy Antrobus, Dr Joceylin Massiah, Dr Rhoda Reddock and Dr Eudine Barriteau in advancing the cause of women. Further, I am pleased to say that this award, not well known in The Bahamas, has now kindled the interest of many young and older Bahamian women.”

Mrs Bethel said she drew inspiration from Dr Robert Love, a Bahamian whose work as a Pan-Africanist, medical doctor, missionary and priest in the region she suggested is not fully appreciated.

“Dr Love established a significant career as a social reformer, politician and radical journalist in Jamaica in the 1890s. He founded the Jamaica Advocate, a Pan–Africanist newspaper. Dr Love later became a primary mentor and friend to Marcus Garvey, helping to foster Garvey’s consciousness of Africa and the ideas of Pan-Africanism.

“That Dr Love was proposed to be recognised as one of the national heros of Jamaica speaks of the impact of his work there. That Dr Love remains an unrecognised national hero in The Bahamas and that his name and work are not part of the vocabulary of our students speak of our collective inattention to the real business of nation building and regional engagement.”

Mrs Bethel told how the story of Dr Love and Mr Garvey related to her personally. “My father was named Marcus in honour of Garvey. My grandfather, Reuben Bethel, was one of the principal founders of the Garvey Movement and the Universal Negro Improvement Association in The Bahamas (UNIA). In November 1927 Garvey arrived in The Bahamas, visited the Universal Negro Improvement Association’s office on Lewis Street in Grant’s Town and then gave a resounding speech to hundreds of Bahamians on the Southern Recreation Ground in Grant’s Town.

“Grant’s Town was where Robert Love was born, attended St Agnes Church, spent his formative years and worked as a teacher. Grant’s Town was also the bedrock community of several lodges and other benevolent societies. Many Bahamians of Grant’s Town proudly affirm their direct ancestry to liberated Yoruba Africans. This is the same community in which I attended preparatory and primary school; spent Saturday mornings in the Southern Public Library reading with the librarian, Ms Lillian Coakley; went to the movies at the Capitol cinema with my siblings; and accompanied by my father or mother deposited my shillings and pence, mostly pence, in the People’s Penny Savings Bank, the first and only black-owned bank in The Bahamas.”

Grant’s Town was also the community in which the Bahamian Women’s Suffrage Movement was conceived and launched in 1948, she said, noting that the suffragist leaders Mary Ingraham, Mabel Walker, Althea Mortimer, Mildred Donaldson, Dame Dr Doris Johnson all lived there and in the adjacent Bain Town community of Nassau.

“Along with Georgiana Symonette and Eugenia Lockhart, two other leaders of the suffrage movement, all of these women were close friends and lodge sisters of my mother, Jane Bethel, and my grandmothers, Frances Butler and Francine Bethel, who were also actively engaged in the suffrage for women.

On my return home from school in London in 1986, I immediately set about founding a women’s feminist group called DAWN. One of its cultural objectives was the reclamation and affirmation of women’s history in The Bahamas. At this time, I read an article written by Kim Outten-Stubbs, an archivist, on the Women’s Suffrage Movement in The Bahamas. I had not encountered such a coherent summary of this political movement before. It completely changed my inner compass settings.

Later, I read an essay by Ruth Bowe-Darville, an historian, who set the Women’s Suffrage Movement squarely in the context of the Burma Road riots of 1942 and the Majority Rule Movement in The Bahamas. In these two papers, the Suffrage Movement was totally transformed from being a quaint anecdote and footnote in Bahamian history into an unassailable political landmark. I publicly thank both Kim Outten-Stubbs and Ruth Bowe-Darville along with Dr Gail Saunders, whose research on women’s history in The Bahamas is an invaluable resource.”

Mrs Bethel recognised many pressing issues for the governments and civil society in the Caribbean. “In standing resolutely and confidently on the platform of the Women’s Suffrage Movement of The Bahamas, and in the Caribbean spirit of advocacy of Robert Love, I believe that we must commit wholeheartedly to zero tolerance in regard to violence against women and girls and to the pursuit of a 50 per cent representation of women in Parliament,” she said.

“In The Bahamas, in particular, we need to address the constitutional disabilities of women. The issue of self-determination for disabled persons and the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender persons in our countries requires our serious attention and redress. I ask for social justice in regard to the statelessness of undocumented persons in our territories.”

Mrs Bethel emphasised the impact of climate change as an urgent issue for small island states where populations live in coastal areas less than five metres above sea level and pleaded that governments and civil society in the Caribbean reconsider their stance on the death penalty and abolish it.