The Tribune

By NICOLE BURROWS

AT the now infamous Progressive Liberal Party outdoor branch meeting in Fox Hill, Prime Minister Perry Christie said: “On account of a lunatic who was saying I should deny I own this condominium, dis what I tell him.” Then the middle finger went up.

In the aftermath, the Prime Minister, and his pom-pom-waving cheerleaders Alfred Gray and Jerome Fitzgerald, changed the focus of the story to poor Perry who family always gettin’ talk bad about.

What on earth does the middle finger Christie pushed up in the Fox Hill air have to do with his family?

If you happen to be a person who can make that connection, I believe you need the same pharmaceutical intervention as the Prime Minister and his court-side dancers.

Seriously, was Christie drinking when he told someone with his middle finger to ‘F-off’? He did appear to be a bit unbalanced (physically and otherwise), with awkward arm gestures, bobbing from left foot to right foot like a drunkard. Or did Christie just walk by some lit-up weed-heads under the big rubber tree at the outdoor meeting, after which he too was consumed by the herb? Or, maybe the radical finger gesture was simply Christie appealing to the Fox Hill nature of the crowd in front of him, the rowdy, ill-mannered, uncouth among Progressive Liberal Party supporters ... the type of people you swear came straight out of the jungle and into the city. You see, all the ‘duttiness’ is coming out now. No holds barred. All guns are loaded. A general election is upon us. The politically rabid will do anything to keep power. And they will appeal to the nastiest traits of the nastiest people among us if that is who they believe will give them the votes they need to win the next government. You’re about to see how low and filthy they can be.

After all this time Hubert Minnis has been talking in public spaces, giving interviews that make the least educated among us cringe with embarrassment on account of his recurrent hijacking of the English language, only now Christie and Philip Davis find it important to call Minnis out on his bad English as if he just started speaking this way yesterday. So important was it that Christie and Davis made Minnis the central theme of their presentations. Their big opening play was to tear down Minnis on the basis of his bad English. That’s where these men are going to begin their campaign to remain in government? Effectively telling their supporters and potential supporters that Minnis speaks bad and that’s all you need to know to vote us back in?

Probably half the people whose votes Christie and Davis are seeking speak equally as bad English or worse English than Minnis. You expect them to make a distinction? Did Christie and Davis suddenly forget that the national average in English pretty much tells the world that the language we speak in the Bahamas isn’t even English? There are more non-native speakers in other countries who speak better English than Bahamians for whom English is a first and only language. That is what Christie and Davis should be talking about at this point, not Minnis’ bad English. But, of course, that type of discussion is not politically expedient and only showcases their failures in the realm of education.

If Christie, Davis et al were serious about the governing and leadership job at hand, shouldn’t they start off their campaign with something more meaningful, say, maybe a real action plan to battle crime? These men are a joke. They are the biggest, cruellest joke in the nation. And I’ll say that every week until Election Day 2017 if I have to keep saying it, if it gets you any closer to understanding it. They’re not interested in fixing what’s wrong in your country, because what’s wrong keeps them where they are. Don’t you get it, Bahamians?

Over the weekend, Christie went out to Jubilee Gardens to stand up and look at the dump fire, as if his presence there one Sunday afternoon could change everything or anything about the dump or the toxic fumes Bahamians in the vicinity have to breathe whenever the dump ignites. While those people who’ve been complaining for decades now have to find other places to live, Christie will go back to his Cable Beach home with clean central air, electronic and armed security ... and Flow TV. But the idiots he appeals to will want to vote for him again.

For Jesus’ sake, if you have to squat in the yard to take a crap every day, and your member of Parliament never sees to it that this is a valid health concern and that it is addressed by giving you indoor plumbing - aka, a pot to piss in (and a window to throw it out) - then you must be out of your cotton-pickin’ mind to give him and his colleagues your political support. He can’t even help you get your faeces into the most appropriate disposal hole, but you want him to run your country ... again ... for a third time? Are you truly this crazy?

Then, in the other corner, you have muttering Junkanoo hat Davis who says it’s too risky to give up on the PLP. “We are not in trouble,” he says, “because we recognise what a great work we have done.” Apart from the shameless pilfering of Bible-speak, this sentence defies comprehension and logic. Recognising your own work done as a reason for you not being in trouble is insane. It makes no sense. But Davis thinks it makes sense. Davis also thinks he speaks better than Minnis. Is Bravest Davis really talking about someone not being able to speak properly? Is he in any position to talk about anyone in this way, when we can hardly understand the words leaving his mouth as he chews and swallows them? Now there’s a pot calling a kettle black if ever I saw one.

As for Christie and his middle finger, in the same way he never actually apologised for showing it to the world, you Bahamians better not apologise for not voting for him, or any of the other ridiculous men (and slightly less ridiculous women) of his political party. That middle finger gesture goes right along with the entitlement these men have to do anything to their people while expecting no repercussions or offence to be taken. If you’re over 30, maybe you remember that old Bahamian song with lyrics “say what ya like, do what ya like, I still gat you goin’ my way.” That’s Christie and the PLP - yesterday, today, and forever. And if you want them to keep doing to you what they’ve been doing to you, middle finger madness included, then you go their way and not hold them accountable.

Alternatively, if they curse you, you don’t remain quiet, you answer back. Yes, you can actually answer back. Being quiet is what got us here, where they feel so entitled to do as they please with nothing to answer for.

Rounding off a week of absolute PLP poppy-shows, party Chairman Bradley Roberts says he expects that a minimum of $4 million will be needed for PLP campaigning leading up to the 2017 general election. All this money that is about to be spent to convince people why they should vote for people who deceive them and disrespect them. Do-nothing people to comprise another do-nothing government.

Four million dollars on campaign paraphernalia and incidentals, when the dump burns and citizens and residents - and firefighters without the necessary protective gear - are smoked out of their district.

Four million dollars when Bahamians are still owing BEC for power supply they hardly got.

Four million dollars on t-shirts, signage, rum and commercials when people still can’t live in their homes since the last hurricane.

Any sitting government that can raise millions to campaign to win authority again but can’t find ways to take care of its people’s daily, basic, health, education and safety needs; to pay down the fiscal deficit; to reduce government debt and spending, couldn’t possibly be serious about providing good leadership for the people. If the sitting government had any sense or clue, it would use $4 million plus to help pay for what the Bahamian people need most rather than flyers, banners, posters, t-shirts, liquor and radio ads in order to win the people’s approval.

The day a political party does that - literally puts its money where its mouth is - is the day everyone should vote for them to be the new government.

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