The Tribune

By AVA TURNQUEST

Tribune Chief Reporter

aturnquest@tribunemedia.net

In the 1969 agitprop film Inextinguishable Fire, German media artist Harun Farocki delivers sterile yet pregnant commentary on the Vietnam War through the lens of one of its most devastating consequences: the use of napalm.

The film’s opening sequence is among the most cited of his work as it guilelessly attacks society’s preferential de-sensitivity to the horrors of chemical warfare.

Translated into English from the opening sequence, Farocki posits: “How can we show you napalm in action, and how can we show you the injuries caused by napalm? If we show you pictures of napalm burns, you’ll close your eyes.

“First you’ll close your eyes to the pictures, then you’ll close your eyes to the memory, then you’ll close your eyes to the facts, then you’ll close your eyes to the entire context. If we show you a person with napalm burns, we will hurt your feelings.

“If we hurt your feelings, you’ll feel as if we’d tried napalm out on you at your expense. We can give you only a hint of an idea of how napalm works.”

Farocki’s flat observation of socio-behavioural patterns that encourages resistance to traumatic exposure as perceived victimhood is chilling when set to our national backdrop. With each unanswered, unaddressed, unresolved, undisputed, unprecendented quandary, it seems as though our collective tolerance towards exploring certain themes as a matter of national discourse retracts.

Last night, a 62-year-old grandmother remarked: “I don’t know what is happening with the law. You’re just gonna make some of these children criminals. Find out what is the children’s problem, try to understand them more clearly.

“I’m trying hard because, in my church, being a deaconess I cannot be up and down behind these children, and the church is praying. They are trying to turn [my grandson] into a criminal; I don’t know what else to do. Right now I have to take time off tomorrow from my job just to go with him [to court]. I’m so sorry for these corrupt police, and what they are doing.”

The grandmother spoke to The Tribune following the arrest of her 16-year-old grandson, who - it is alleged - was abused by a senior-ranking police officer during an interrogation.

The minor was seen by a doctor at Princess Margaret Hospital; however, the grandmother said she was unable to file a complaint last week because the boy was still in custody and would have to give a direct statement.

The matriarch did not gloss over her grandson’s indiscretions that has seen him hauled before the courts numerous times but never convicted, and it was an impressive, undoubtedly maternal, mental feat given that she also did not weigh his harrowed experience as a measurable consequence for past transgressions.

She instead pointed to the gruesome murder of the boy’s mother and stepfather, and how he witnessed his mother’s mutilated body when he was only nine. His struggle to stay out of trouble and in school was pigmented by the territorial gang violence and resultant profiling that inner-city dwellers inherit. She expressed fears that police pressure on inner-city minors as informants in exchange for reprieve from petty crimes put the country’s youth at irreparable risk.

In this instance, it is claimed that her son was beaten with a stick by an senior officer in the presence of three other officers and another boy. The boy claims that the senior officer attempted to put a plastic Super Value bag over his head several times.

How can we, the Fourth Estate, show you napalm in action?

From the floor of the House of Assembly last week, Deputy Prime Minister Philip ‘Brave’ Davis opined “bad habits, bad practices, they die hard”.

The comment came as the Cat Island MP shouldered accusations that he misled parliamentarians when he previously explained that the insurance policy for the fire-damaged dormitory at the Bahamas Agriculture and Marine Science Institute (BAMSI) in North Andros had lapsed, and amid calls for a police investigation into the procurement process.

Interspersed with self-contradictory statements from the contractor, the BAMSI debacle eclipsed debate over amendments to the Immigration Act, which passed with little fanfare or scrutiny.

Not that politicians are minded to present any real challenge to a policy that feeds our ravenous appetite for responsive governance and cultural separation. Just as we relinquish all culpability for our societal role in the rise of a police state, we close our eyes to the surrender of personal freedoms in the face of emotive trigger words like: ‘invasion’, ‘onslaught’, and ‘war’.

Against BAMSI detractors, Mr Davis reflexively employed another bad habit: deflect and distract. He accused the opposition of raising “red herrings” and cautioned former Minister of Works Neko Grant from speaking further.

“But for the act of an arsonist,” he said, “that’s all I say, the issue of this insurance would never (have) arisen. But I also say Mr Speaker, the member (Mr Grant) ought to check to see what was occurring under his watch ... all I am saying (is) bad habits, bad practices, they die hard.”

How can we show you the injuries caused by napalm?

The weekend’s massive power outages across New Providence were a cataclysmic interlude to the Ministry of Works’ $2.6m gaffe that allowed the male dormitory at BAMSI to be constructed with no insurance.

The outage was caused by “fire in the trenches” at the Blue Hills power station on Friday, and customers were warned that disruption in supply should be expected until Sunday.

Last night, Bahamas Electricity Corporation (BEC) Chairman Leslie Miller confirmed that power systems had been restored and that load shedding would be discontinued.

Mr Miller said: “There was oil in the trench that should not have been there. We’ve been begging them to clean out the trenches where they have the wires and we had a fire there before and yet they never rectified the situation. Lack of proper maintenance is what’s killing BEC,” he said.

In October last year, it was reported that oil had been allowed to gather in pockets above ground undisturbed at BEC’s Clifton plant. Despite published photos depicting what former State Minister for Environment Phenton Neymour alleged to be pools of waste oil surrounding tanks and contaminated cooling wells, there was been no explanation given by BEC.

In 2002, Mr Neymour said: “Allowing this petroleum product to be left open to the environment exposes the Clifton area and the island to an extreme risk of a large-scale explosion.”

If we show you pictures of napalm burns, you’ll close your eyes.

The annual deadline for parliamentarians to disclose their financial information in accordance with the law draws near. In a survey of government officials last year, only 11 out of 38 MPs confirmed to The Tribune that their financial disclosures were up to date.

The request for any information on this topic is widely considered to be a futile exercise in muckraking. But everything is interconnected. Everything is important. But what are you doing about it?

To critique without action is perhaps our best bad habit, one that is second only to our innate scepticism that widespread reform - the benign dwarf star of revolution - can be socially driven rather than a notch on the belt of our political system’s bloated gut.

Farocki continues: “When napalm is burning, it is too late to extinguish it. You have to fight napalm where it is produced: in the factories.”

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