The Tribune

By NICOLE BURROWS

Somewhere in the dark recesses of his mind, Fred Mitchell thought it was appropriate - all things considered - to release a voice note that specifically and blatantly advertises his bent, individual political positions, while wearing the cap of our country’s foreign affairs representative, as if being a politician in the Progressive Liberal Party (PLP) was not enough of a scar on his record.

I thought Mitchell was miles above this kind of behaviour. I’m now so very much over that notion.

In his voice note rant, Mitchell talks about the “so-called Black Friday march”, pretending to refer loosely to a column written and recently posted on the Bahamas Uncensored website. He encourages listeners of this voice note - anyone, presumably - to read Bahamas Uncensored and his “Minute by Minute” (is that a thing?) Facebook posts on a regular basis, because it “tells what he’s doing and it aligns with a lot of his thinking on political issues”. Yes. Let’s all do that now. Because it uplifts us and edifies and is the fount of all truth and knowledge. Right. I have officially decided that Mitchell is delusional, having lost the last marble in his bag.

Do any of us care anymore what Fred Mitchell is saying or doing? I mean fundamentally. Because, obviously, we may now need to be concerned that he will pop off on a whim of his own liking when he feels the fire beneath his feet or recognises just how numbered his days in a seat of power really are.

Mitchell insists that none of the concerns put forth by the ‘We March Bahamas’ organisers are “revolutionary”, or “of any special importance” and are “quite pedestrian”. He says the march’s lead organiser, Ranard Henfield, could demand all he wants of the government, implying none of it will be granted ... if even regarded. Mitchell continues that it would be far more beneficial for potential march supporters to go and register to vote than to take part in an “idle march”.

While people should be registered to vote, I think Mitchell has the wrong idea about the march and about its impact.

According to Fred Mitchell, Henfield is not speaking the truth and his efforts, being in association with John Bostwick, son of long-time supporters of the Free National Movement (FNM), Janet and Henry Bostwick, are purely FNM propaganda. Mitchell says if it walks and quacks like a duck, it must be a duck. I wonder if that also applies to when you talk and act like an ass, as he has done in this voice note.

Mitchell’s insistence that “no PLP should be caught dead” on the march is distinctly divisive and provides evidence that the PLP leadership, no less, has no intention of unifying Bahamians, and is really very concerned about keeping them divided as it is the only way the PLP will remain in power.

Using Mitchell’s logic, the march was just another FNM propaganda exercise, one in which, go figure, the DNA and PLP members of parliament and representatives also took part. Mitchell practically forbade his PLP associates to attend the march and, no surprise, they ignored him anyway - Shane Gibson (didn’t someone say he was supposed to have his hands full with hurricane relief and paternity leave?); Jerome Fitzgerald (why is he always, always defending himself whenever there is an open mic near him?); Cleola Hamilton (why did she forget to tell Fred Mitchell ‘we all Bahamians’ like she told Our News?); Leslie Miller (is there any large gathering of people he would ever miss out on being in the midst of?); and Ken Dorsett (have we figured out his political purpose yet, or, has he?).

These politicians of the governing party, dressed in black, feigned participation and solidarity, when really they were there to report back to camp just how numbered the PLP’s days really are.

I have often felt that Fred Mitchell is a lone soldier in the PLP, the party and the administration, and he has made it clear with his audio release that that is indeed the case.

Is it usual for Mitchell to send out voice note messages/updates? Are we going to get this like our daily devotions now? Who is he targeting? All PLPs? Easily brainwashed PLPs? What is the point of this voice note? Warning PLPs not to go to the march, because he thinks it’s by and for FNMs? Did he really think this would stop the people from attending the march, or was it a means to draw attention to his other personal ambitions and side job?

Why is Mitchell acting with such obvious desperation? What kind of a leader is he? This is not becoming of a man in his position. A man of his experience. A man of his intellect. All he’s doing is showing the world he doesn’t espouse free speech, free expression, free association or free assembly ... that he’s careless and reckless with regard to his duties as a respectable diplomat representing the Bahamian people when there is a possibility to advance his personal agenda.

Mr Mitchell, you are our Minister of Foreign Affairs for God’s sake! You should be conducting yourself with decorum and not falling into some ratty little display of self-aggrandisement. Should this send off an alarm for the people that, in spite of your public pandering and movements in international circles, your portfolio is to you just a vehicle for personal opportunity?

And then to go and commit this opinion to a recording to be shared with the world and last forever, revealing how the PLP does not uphold citizens’ rights while coercing them into disunity? This only makes you a madman, Mitchell. If only you would pull the plug on your career before we pull it for you.

Mitchell asserts that Bostwick’s proximity to the FNM, by way of his family, makes the whole march a farce. Has he not listened to Bostwick himself rail against the FNM? And who really cares anyway? The point of organising the protest in the way it was organised was because we can’t afford to care about individual political involvement when we’re all supposed to be fighting for the same important causes.

Mitchell presents his view as if Ranard Henfield randomly woke up in the morning, sat down and planned a protest in the afternoon, and then marched the same day to protest everything he could think of. He should give Henfield a little more credit; if he shows up in the next election as an FNM candidate and not an independent candidate, then you can say this was FNM propaganda. For all the things that people say about Mitchell, you would think he’d know how to give someone the benefit of the doubt before belittling their character.

Bahamians have lamented their concerns on all the same issues encapsulated by the protest for months now. And there are myriad issues. Some people maintain that there were/are too many issues expressed by protest organisers, but it is merely representative of a reality in The Bahamas. The countless issues, the list that’s longer than your grocery list for a month, is a reflection of our reality. We do have way too many issues. And they are the result of unsuccessful governance and leadership over decades.

Too much hole-plugging and band-aids and not enough core problem solving and sacrifice necessary to solve the smaller problems before they became rolled into one big mess.

Our leaders fell asleep at the wheel long ago, and while they were busy satisfying their own self-interests, and using tourism as a prop, the country was disintegrating beneath the prosperity facade. We couldn’t see it then the way we can now because it was in disguise, behind the easy US dollars to be made. But along the way our lack of real productivity hastened to the forefront. And our societal structure caved on a weak foundation of poor education and poor lifestyle habits, overlain with corrupt practices. The more corrupt the practice, the more frequent the corruption and the harder it is to get anything noteworthy accomplished, and so we end up with what we have today. A whole lot of nothing covered up by a peeling layer of what used to be something. That’s exactly how the band-aid lifts off over time, leaving a dirty, nasty resin behind.

The ‘diddly squat’ Mitchell thinks the Black Friday ‘We March Bahamas’ protest will result in could not be more wrong. It was the largest, most united showing of Bahamian opposition to the status quo in a very, very long time. The slate of too many issues people make jeers about makes the number of supporters that much greater, because there is at least one thing of concern to each Bahamian.

We have no shortage of things to be concerned about for our country.

But in case Mitchell and others are still unclear, the established aim of the protest march was to present issues of concern to the government, but the actual effect of the march was to:

1 show Bahamians they can each make a legitimate impact if they choose to take the time to involve themselves, and;

2 show the government of The Bahamas, elected and appointed leaders alike, what they can come up against with an irate people, and what is most likely to be the beginning of a revolt which that same government and those same leaders will meet face-to-face, as the Bahamian people continue pressing onward and finally march together.

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nburrows@tribunemedia.net.