The Tribune

By RIEL MAJOR

Tribune Staff Reporter

rmajor@tribunemedia.net

PROGRESSIVE Liberal Party chairman Fred Mitchell and Englerston MP Glenys Hanna Martin paid tribute to Felix Bethel, a former professor at the University of The Bahamas and a public servant, who died last week.

In an interview with The Tribune, Mr Mitchell said Mr Bethel was a brilliant man who he thought had never reached his full potential.

“He was an incisive intellectual and a man with a very sharp wit. My association, of course, dates back to the year 1974 when we were both juniors of the public service. I was at Bahamas Information Services and he worked at the Ministry of Transport,” Mr Mitchell said.“It’s very unfortunate that he didn’t get - as a result of some missteps by the administration at that time - he didn’t get the opportunity to be promoted into the upper ranks of the public service.

“The loss to the public service was the benefit of the academy and I think he did an excellent job in training generations of Bahamians in the thousands…about the Bahamas, about his political life and public policy. I think we lost a good citizen of the Bahamas.”

When contacted, Mrs Hanna Martin said she knew Mr Bethel for many years and remembered him as a commentator on the political and social economic circumstances in the country.

“He has mentored and touched a lot of people at the University of the Bahamas. What I liked about him in particular is the fact that he did not put himself in a box in terms of his perception or conceptualisation of his external reality of the world,” she said.

“A lot of times his views, his opinion, his expressions made people uncomfortable which I thought was good because the only way there is progress if there is a chasing on the status quo and he did that a lot. He chased the status quo. He was very committed to concept of social justice and I believe he imparted those concepts through his academic involvement and in his other commentaries at large.”

Mrs Hanna Martin added: “He could be deemed to be eccentric by many, but everyone is different and unique. He was not afraid to express that. I think he brought something different, interesting and valuable to the national dialogue.”

Mr Bethel taught at UB, formerly the College of the Bahamas, for about 45 years. He was terminated in January and said he was denied a chance to clear out his office. He threatened to file a wrongful termination lawsuit over the issue, but it is unclear if this ever materialised.

The 70-year-old died “peacefully” Thursday night, after fighting several illnesses, according to his daughter Xan-Xi Bethel-Sweeting.

Mrs Bethel-Sweeting said: “He had been dealing with a number of ailments for quite a while but personally I’m pretty sure it was also tiredness and fatigue. The time came and I will say is that he did have a pretty sharp decline after they insulted him at the university earlier this year. That’s what we noticed.

“My dad would not have wanted all the details of the circumstances of his death published. He was a nation builder and committed to the empowerment and uplifting of Bahamian people.”