The Tribune

YOU must have heard the story of a woman cutting off the edge of a leg of ham every time before boiling. She did it because her mother did it, who did it because her mother did it.

And so it went through the ages; it was a family tradition.

Little Mary questioned her mother, “Mummy, why do you cut off the top piece of the leg of ham before boiling, even though the whole leg of ham fits perfectly in the pot?”

The simple, yet profound question propelled the mother into research. Her research showed that three generations back there was no pot large enough to hold a leg of ham, therefore the need to cut it down to fit.

I cherish my Bahamian citizenship and the fact that our all-wise God allowed me to have been born in a special corner of this archipelago.

However, with so great a privilege I am compelled to challenge and research age-old customs and traditions and come to a rationalisation of their appropriateness for today.

Values do change; what was considered Christian in one era cannot stand up to that justification today. Persons once considered trailblazers for good in their era might very well be termed villains in this generation.

Perceived deeds of valour might be verified now as having selfish, ulterior motives as their determining factor. Also too, present conditions can all too often demand us to rethink our priorities. In all this our children must be taught to be critical thinkers, daring enough to get out of the proverbial box and strike out for new horizons that beckon us at any given moment in time.

In October of every year you hear a “back to Egypt” refrain, “you cannot or should not change history”.

No one has the power to do such a thing, it is what it is.

It’s a reorganising of priorities; something more important must supersede a traditional concept.

Our local, homegrown giants must be allowed to shine; a sacrifice had to be made. What else could have been laid on the altar of sacrifice?

The whole drama invited us to, for the first time, carefully and more closely examine this history.

We acknowledge mass genocide, rape, humiliation of our original Bahamians and the fact that a whole race of people was eliminated.

This ought to be observed, yes indeed – maybe with an annual national requiem mass or some fitting memorial service, but never with a celebration, elevated to a national holiday as we have done for a number of years.

Martin Luther King Jr rightly said, “Now is always the right time to do right.” Both government and opposition agreed, consequently we have, in law, National Heroes Day. Sister to this is our Majority Rule Day, again long overdue.

Forty-one years into independence we await national honours. What are the “back to Egypt” proponents saying now? Both leading political parties, in government, at differing times, and in recent times, have not advanced Bahamians for the enslaving, colonial honours, from an empire that only exists in the figment of one’s imagination. This is a bold statement as we try to catch up with progressive countries right in our region. At the National Heroes celebration this year, the prime minister promised that legislation to facilitate national, Bahamian honours will be brought to Parliament this November.

We wait with bated breath. So much work has and is being done on this; now it is time to bear fruit.

Independence, July 10, 1973, was not an end in itself, only a beginning. We need to lay bare all we have been doing in ages past and come forward with a new resolve that appropriately speaks to our time. Indeed, all our institutions, church included, ought to make a similar resolve in charting the way forward. We have and are discovering as indefensible many of the things we do. Many of our ceremonies, dress etc. are not appropriate to our times. We are so outdated, especially as we mimic foreign cultures and habits. Just maybe we need to set a mechanism in place to begin this mental revolution of our nation. If it is not intentional then maybe nothing will take place; we will drag on in our irrelevance and continue to needlessly cut off the edge of the ham.