The Tribune

Sir Arthur Foulkes, the former Governor General, addressed the launch of Citizens for Constitutional Equality on Thursday night at Holy Cross Parish Hall, and urged the government to right a wrong.

“In the United States of America this year and this month the 50th anniversary of the historic marches from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama, are being celebrated.

As you know, the marches were intended to exert pressure on President Lyndon Johnson and the United States Congress to pass a Voting Rights Act which would put an end to the disenfranchisement of millions of black Americans across the Southern States.

President Johnson’s administration had being working on a Voting Rights Act but there was fierce resistance from many Americans including many in the Congress.

So before the final successful march Dr Martin Luther King Jr is reported to have told some of his colleagues, “Let us empower the President.”

President Johnson, a master politician, knew that such external pressure would help him to convince more of white America of the need for a Voting Rights Act, and to push recalcitrant senators and congressmen to vote for the historic legislation.

That march ended at the Alabama State Capitol on March 25th, 1965. The Congress passed the Voting Rights Act and it was signed into law by President Johnson on August 6th that year.

America was at that time a democracy, albeit a very flawed democracy in which millions of its citizens were not allowed to participate because of the colour of their skin.

The march did, in fact, empower the President. It strengthened his will to do the right thing. It also weakened the will and changed the minds of some who were resisting the expansion of democracy, and political and social progress.

The President called the Selma march “a turning point in man’s unending search for freedom” and he described the achievement of the Voting Rights Act as “a triumph for freedom as huge as any victory that has ever been won on any battlefield”.

The lesson is clear. There are times, even in a supposedly liberal democracy, when citizens seeking equality and progress must raise their consciousness, and their individual and collective voices to effect change.

There are times when they must organise, and even demonstrate, in order to bring pressure to bear on their elected representatives.

They must empower those who want to do the right thing, and they must convince the hesitant and the resistant of the justice of their cause.

It seems to me that this is exactly what this organisation is about. In fact, it says so clearly in the name you have chosen: Citizens for Constitutional Equality.

I am happy to participate in this launch and I thank you for your kind invitation. I congratulate you and I commend you.

I also wish you success as you join with others in this campaign to abolish from our Constitution and our laws all discrimination against women - and men too: in fact, all discrimination based on sex.

You have asked me about what happened in December 1972 at the Independence Constitution Conference in London and why we ended up with a Constitution that did not do away with discrimination based on sex.

There were three delegations to the Conference at Marlborough House; one from the British Government, one from the Bahamas Government comprised of 11 persons, and one from the Official Opposition comprised of four persons.

The Government delegation was supported by a number of public officials, and the Opposition was supported by two constitutional experts: the Hon Eugene Dupuch and Sir Arthur Grattan-Bellew. Also in London and available for consultation were J Henry Bostwick and Noel Roberts.

Sir Alex Douglas-Home, Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, was Chairman of the Conference, but the working sessions were presided over by Lord Balniel, Minister of State.

There was general agreement among all parties about the shape and form of our Constitution, that we would continue to be a parliamentary democracy with three distinct branches of the state: Parliament, the Executive and the Judiciary, presided over by the Queen as Head of State, represented in the Bahamas by a Governor General.

Nevertheless, we were divided on a few issues. In those instances where the Bahamas Government and Opposition disagreed, the British Government came down on one side or the other and that was the end of the matter.

There was one important issue where the Bahamas Government and the Opposition were united in resisting a proposal by the British Government. That was about a certain category of persons from other Commonwealth states who had British citizenship and who had registered in the Bahamas but were not necessarily resident in the Bahamas.

The British wanted us to accept them as Bahamian citizens and we said no. There was protracted debate over this but the Bahamian delegates - Government and Opposition - were adamant and in the end the British Government relented.

The failure to make discrimination based on sex unconstitutional in Article 26 - along with race, place of origin, political opinions, colour and creed - was primarily about citizenship.

It should be noted that in Article 15, which entitles every Bahamian to certain fundamental rights and freedoms including freedom of conscience, expression and association, in this Article sex is included along with the other categories like race, place of origin and so on.

The Opposition argued that all forms of discrimination against women should be made unconstitutional. The Bahamas Government delegation argued that in matters of citizenship it was international practice that, as one delegate put it, the “woman follows the man”.

The British Government supported this view and that, together with our failure to correct it in 2002, is why we have this defect in our Constitution today; and make no mistake, it is a defect, and, in my opinion, a serious defect.

The Bills now before Parliament, and which are also being debated throughout the country, seek to correct two instances where the Constitution discriminates against women in matters of citizenship, and one instance where it discriminates against men, also in a matter of citizenship.

I do not propose to comment further on these three Bills - all of which are very important - but permit me to say a few words about what I regard as the most important one, and that is Bill no.4, the one that seeks to amend Article 26, the one that is causing the most concern in some quarters.

Bill no.4 would amend Article 26 so that no law shall make any provision which is discriminatory either of itself or in its effect on the basis of sex. Bill no.4 would also make it unconstitutional for any person acting under such law or in the performance of any public office to discriminate on the basis of sex.

In other words, it would eliminate all discrimination based on sex in our laws, and it would prohibit the possibility of Parliament passing in the future any law discriminating on the basis of sex.

I believe I share with you the firm conclusion that, despite all the talk - some of it bordering on hysterical - there is really not one good reason why all four of these Bills should not be passed by Parliament and approved by the people in a referendum.

One argument I have heard against at least one of the Bills is that abuses are likely to occur. Well, of course, abuses are likely to occur. What constitutional right or freedom or privilege do we enjoy that is not subject to abuse by someone?

For instance, because our freedom of expression may be abused every day and every hour by people spreading false information or slandering fellow citizens does not mean that our freedom of expression should be abolished.

Throughout history, those who have opposed progress have predicted dire consequences: the abolition of slavery would bring about the economic ruin of Britain; the abolition of racial discrimination in our hotels would cause the collapse of tourism; if women got the vote that would be the end of chivalry; if women got into politics they would become corrupted, would not marry and the human race would die out; etc, etc, etc!

I’m sure you all remember the story of Chicken Little who, because an acorn fell on his head, was convinced that the sky was falling.

Well, with every progressive step taken by humankind there have been accompanying challenges, and it has not been beyond the ingenuity of progressive leadership to deal effectively with these challenges.

It would be a great shame if we allowed all the red herrings, all the excuses, all the misinterpretations and all the predictions of calamity to prevent us from extending full constitutional equality to all Bahamians, including women.

Incidentally, women constitute more than half of our population and, I might add, are fast becoming the most educated half of our population.

To accord all citizens of a democracy equality regardless of sex is - plainly, simply and clearly - the right thing to do.

You know that in our democracy representatives are elected generally to do the will of the people. But I believe that the relationship between the people and their representatives is, or should be, more complex, more dynamic than that.

In western politics in recent decades a tendency has developed towards what I call governing by poll. Politicians find out what people are thinking about a particular matter at a particular time and then they adopt the position indicated by the poll.

But there are times, I suggest, when political leaders must represent with conviction rather than by poll.

When they know that something is patently the right thing to do, then they must take the political risk and do it, despite prevailing opinion to the contrary.

They must not just listen to the result of polls. They must sometimes provide leadership by convincing people of the rightness of a certain course of action.

That is what Nelson Mandela did when violence broke out between ANC and Inkatha supporters as the apartheid state of South Africa was being dismantled.

Nelson Mandela faced a hostile crowd of his own people and told them to give up their arms. It was not what many of them wanted to hear but it was the right thing to tell them.

I have heard no convincing argument as to why the entire political directorate of the Bahamas should not be unanimous on the issue of equality for women.

If some are hearing contrary noises from some of the people they represent, then they should go their people and explain why it is the right thing to do.

If we fail in this enterprise, the Bahamas would be listed among those backward peoples of the world who still believe that accidents of birth like colour and sex should forever assign some people to inferiority status.

Both the call of history and the demands of justice require an end to this discrimination, and for the granting of access to the full fruits of freedom and equality for all.

Never forget how a creative minority of citizens can help the majority eventually to do the right thing. Indeed, this is more often than not the only way that meaningful change has come about. Your work is therefore timely and necessary and noble and, for the sake of our country, I wish you success.”

Sir Arthur Foulkes was Governor General of the Bahamas from 2010 to 2014. He was elected to the House of Assembly in 1967 and served in the government of Lynden Pindling as Minister of Communications and Minister of Tourism.