The Tribune

GORGING on US cable television news, quite a number of Bahamians mindlessly regurgitate the analysis of many of the babbling and bobbling talking heads on American television, breezily transposing much of the American political drama and insipid commentary to Bahamian politics.

It is enough to make our Founders, most of whom have passed, awake from their resting places, aghast that today’s political leaders in the sovereign nation they helped to birth, often do not understand the most basic elements of our Constitution and our parliamentary democracy.

Sir Lynden Pindling and his colleagues would be mortified at the poorer intellectual and political quality of quite a number of those who populate the cabinet and who have been chosen as Speaker of the House of Assembly in recent years.

While we should refrain from nostalgic imaginings of a purported golden era, many of those who previously served in parliament were more capable and better informed of world events than the vast majority of recent parliamentarians.

The fierce arguments, vigorous political debates and sustained political action leading to majority rule and independence make today’s parliamentary debates seem like the sometimes heated conversations family members from opposing political parties might have around some drinks.

Many in the media/commentary/pundit tribe, in typical herd mentality, often promote the notion that today’s politics are too frighteningly tribal.

Sometimes this notion has been promoted by jilted freshman members of parliament who rode into office under a party banner but who, after failing to secure a cabinet appointment, mask their anger and disappointment by ranting about partisanship.

This chant and incantation of tribalism, which supposedly should summon a better time that never existed, is not new here at home or abroad.

It is a falsehood and a complaint based on a noxious concoction; a misconception and widespread ignorance about the genesis and nature of our political system, together with an ahistorical mindset.

This lack of historical knowledge and context appears to have taken up permanent residence in those who stubbornly refuse to educate themselves about history and politics beyond the latest squabble in parliament, which is sometimes blown dramatically out of proportion.

Some seem to want to usher in a new age of kumbaya cum anodyne nonpartisanship to address the supposed extreme partisanship in the country.

Notably, despite the fierce and sometimes petulant debates in parliament, most of the legislation proposed by the government of the day, including financial bills, are supported by the opposition.

TRIBALISM

Sociologically and biologically humans are tribal. Membership in a familial or tribal group is essential for human development. Like all human instincts, tribalism can lead to violent conflict, war and genocide.

Tribalism can become poisonous and excessive as we often witness in virulent immigrant loathing and bashing including, in The Bahamas, of Haitians.

Still, politics and political groupings are an advancement in how human societies are organised, a means of taming our baser instincts and penchant for violence and unchecked group - and self-interests.

Democratic and parliamentary politics is necessarily adversarial. It is a civilised alternative to settling differences through violence on a battlefield or in the streets. It descends into tribalism when we revert to victimisation, spite and societal exclusion as political weapons.

“Man’s capacity for justice makes democracy possible, but man’s inclination to injustice makes democracy necessary,” wrote the late Reinhold Niebuhr, a pastor and one of the pre-eminent theologians and political commentators of the 20th Century.

Niebuhr observed that democratic political systems are naturally confrontational, partisan and given to conflict. Democratic politics is an advancement for human groups that throughout history were prone to settle many conflicts without the rules of democracy, which are designed to check group interests and the lust for power.

Human beings are naturally competitive. The contesting of values and viewpoints are designed to produce better outcomes, though given human fallibility and corruption, the best outcomes often do not come to fruition.

Indeed, as observed by political scientist Dr Brian Klaas in his book, Corruptible: Who Gets Power and How It Changes Us, political systems must always contend with those who are prone to seek power, including politicians driven by Machiavellianism, narcissism and various psychopathologies.

Our court system is also based on contestation, with prosecution and defence teams vigorously promoting their cases to be adjudicated by judges and juries. There are safeguards like rules of evidence, precedence, judicial reviews and appellate courts.

COMMON GOOD

Likewise, in a party-based democracy there are institutions, principally parliament, and rules, conventions and traditions where the final adjudicators in a democracy, the people, elect representatives to debate and to decide on matters affecting the common good.

It is in the political arena that humans contest values, ideas, beliefs – and balance group and individual interests. The lifeblood of parliamentary democracy is a party system based on competition and contest, which are necessary for democratic flourishing.

Another shopworn canard is about the lack of ideological choice between the political parties. Any citizen may launch, join or support a party to promote their ideas, interests and ideological views. Many third parties have arisen.

Fortunately, The Bahamas is not politically riven by ideological extremes or ethnic divides such as in Guyana and Trinidad and Tobago.

Our two major national parties seem to offer adequate accommodation for the fairly narrow range of Bahamian political and economic philosophy which is generally right or left of centre depending on the issue.

The exception to this rule was the short-lived far-left Vanguard Nationalist Socialist Party headed by the late Dr John McCartney, which never gained traction.

Moreover, though many Bahamians are libertine in their personal lives, both major parties are centrist in economics, and are generally careful not to offend the social conservatism of the country, which sometimes makes certain changes glacial.

Still, we have made progress on some fronts such as the legislative removal by the PLP of colonial laws criminalising gay sex. Just two days ago – 30 years later – Barbados’ top court struck down similar laws.

As the UK Guardian reported: “A case in St Lucia is pending. Earlier this year, Caribbean courts have found such laws in Antigua & Barbuda and St Kitts and Nevis unconstitutional.”

Democracy partially evolved in reaction to monarchical or autocratic forms of government. As messy and dysfunctional as it sometimes seems, a competitive party-based system is an advancement in how a society is organised and governed.

Our pluralist constitutional cum parliamentary democracy is designed to ensure a contest for power as a check against one-party rule and dictatorship. Partisans debate their views in a parliament where there are well-established rules to guide its proceedings.

CONSTITUTION

Lawmakers and politicians are also guided and bound by the constitution and the courts. And they are checked also by voters and their parties. Our system arguably has more checks on the political power of the executive than the US system of government.

Some time spent at the National Archives or reading the clippings in the well-kept archives of The Tribune may provide younger reporters as well as older editors with greater perspective and insight as they write stories and offer commentary on contemporary politics and parliamentary debates.

The often ferocious debates from earlier years make contemporary parliamentary debates appear like much tamer affairs.

Those too young to remember might ask some older heads about when Sir Lynden and then MP Michael Lightbourne almost came to blows as chronicled on the Bahamianology website.

With folk wisdom, tenacity and creative showmanship, the late Edmund Moxey sometimes patched hell on his political opponents.

Some will recall the heated arguments on the floor of the House of Assembly during the debate on the Public Disclosure Bill, the contemptuous treatment by Sir Lynden of the late Speaker Sir Arlington Butler and Sir Arlington’s masterful response.

A quick world tour will quickly reveal how much tamer and less tribal are Bahamian politics and parliamentary debate.

Bahamians will discover parliaments decidedly more rambunctious and divided than The Bahamas. Some parliaments have had to fine members who broke rules and engaged in fighting within the parliamentary chambers.

Our democracy is not existentially threatened by the sometimes overheated rhetoric and sometimes unnecessary tribalism in politics, though we must constantly and vigorously work to uphold rules, conventions and standards.

The greater threat is the ignorance about our system and political history by politicians, parliamentarians, journalists and commentators, who continue to fail to offer their fellow-citizens greater perspective and understanding of national affairs.

And, the perennial task is to improve the quality of politicians, remembering that the political class rise from us, the Bahamian people, with our myriad strengths and deficits.