The Tribune

ON Sunday morning, a twin engine vessel with at least 40 passengers capsized near Blackbeard’s Cay. Twenty-five people were rescued and 17 bodies were recovered. Two Bahamian men survived and are in police custody along with a third Bahamian man who was arrested on Monday. Minister of National Security Wayne Munroe said the two Bahamian men, if found to be the captains of the vessel, “would be charged with the appropriate human smuggling offences” and authorities would “consider” a homicide charge.

Haitian lives were lost. There is certainly a human smuggling ring, and it is not new. Haitian lives were lost. They spent thousands of dollars to go somewhere else in the middle of the night. We have not spent enough time counting the cost. Not the money, but the lives. Not just the cost of this incident, but the crisis. It is not new. Haitian lives were lost. Lives of value, mourned by loved ones in other places who were probably hoping, just this once, that irregular transit at an odd hour would lead to something better. But Haitian lives were lost.

PECULIAR CIRCUMSTANCES?

At a press conference after the tragedy the Prime Minister said: “The world is suggesting that we should absorb all of those who leave Haiti... They wanted me to sign onto an irregular migration declaration but we have our own peculiar circumstances.” He added that we have limited resources, and if we open our borders to assist people, the Bahamian people have to pay the bill.

At the Summit of the Americas IX, focus was on five areas — health, climate change, clean energy digital transformation and democratic governance. The Los Angeles Declaration on Migration and Protection was a side agreement negotiated by the Biden Administration and agreed by 20 other countries including Barbados, Belize, Guyana, Haiti, and Jamaica — not The Bahamas. Signatories committed to engage financial institutions to provide financial support for “countries hosting migrant populations and facing other migration challenges”, improve regional cooperation, strengthen temporary labour pathways, improve access to public services, and expand access to regular pathways including family reunification. It is not clear how our circumstances prevented the Prime Minister from signing this agreement.

CONDITION IS NOT CHARACTER

The response from the government on the tragedy has, thus far, been predictable. Unfortunately, in the worst possible way, the response of the Bahamian public has been what we have come to expect from one another. Some people have been empathetic, recognising the loss of life as a tragedy. As is often the case, the loudest voices are from the most hateful among us.

On a popular morning talk show on Monday morning, someone sent a vile text message, promoting a very specific form of violence against Haitian people and, in particular, the people who survived the tragic incident. The host wondered aloud if the person who sent the message would like to see the same kind of public violence inflicted upon Bahamians who travelled to other countries and overstayed with the intent to live in them.

I wonder if they want to inflict violence upon the survivors as punishment for coming here, for trying to leave, or for surviving. The answers to these questions, of course, matter very little. What we know is we are surrounded by angry, hateful people who do not even have the ability to control their own speech, but want to control the lives of other people who they deem, in comparison with themselves, to be subhuman. This does not bode well for any us, Haitian, Bahamian, or any other nationality.

That Haitian people are people should not be a debate. That Haitian people have human rights should not be new information and should not need to be explained. Bahamians have, for so long, seen and treated Haitian people as disposable and replaceable that many now believe this and allow it to dictate their behaviour.

Being from another country does not make any person better or worse than an other. Conditions are different, yes, but conditions do not define character. Conditions in a country can limit people’s opportunities. Conditions can be and can create barriers and challenges. Because of this, people try to change their conditions. We all do it. We clean our homes, we tidy our desks, we dispose of garbage, we charge our battery-powered devices, we keep up with the maintenance of vehicles. We complain about potholes and malfunctioning traffic lights in the attempt to get them fixed. We take second and third jobs and start side hustles. Some of us donate to organizations focused on specific causes. We send our children to school. We hang photos of our smiling family members. We understand conditions matter, that conditions can change and that we have the power to change our conditions.

I know someone who lives in her mother’s house in order to provide care, and when conditions change, she will move to a house she prefers. I know someone who moved to Canada because he went to university there and feels free to be fully himself away from here. I know someone who went to university for several years to get the qualifications necessary for her dream job, and now works in another field because what she is passionate about does not pay as well as the work she is doing right now, and she needs that money to pay off debt.

We make moves, we shift, and we do what we need to do to improve our conditions and improve our lives. Governments know this. Political parties know this. They use our conditions and our dreams of better conditions in their public campaigns and backroom deals to get votes, and we see the effects of conditional relationships and bargaining when they appoint their people to various positions. Everyone wants better conditions, and many are ready to make a deal.

WHO GETS TO BE HUMAN?

Humanity is not dependent on nationality, race, class, gender, or any other identity marker. We are all people. Human beings. We all have human rights, whether or not we are able to access them. Human rights are inherent. They are not earned. We all have dreams and desires. We all want to change our circumstances when we are uncomfortable and when we are suffering. When we are struggling, we seek a better way of life. We cannot be expected to just accept anything, whether or not we are seen as “deserving”.

We, in The Bahamas, are plagued by a blatant and intentional disregard for human rights. Far too many people among us think they can pick and choose the people who are and are not deserving of the right to “life, liberty, and security of person” as set out in Article 3 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. They want to get away with torture, cruelty, and degrading treatment inflicted upon people they consider less than themselves.

Haitians are not the only people whose humanity is stripped away from them by hateful, violent people. Who else is denied their human rights?

Women are regularly denied bodily autonomy. We live in a country where marital rape is still not criminalised, and no draft amendment bill has been shared with the public to date. Children are frequently mistreated and rarely taught about their human rights or the Convention on the Rights of a Child. Instead, they are preyed upon, scolded for asking questions and expressing themselves, and beaten for making mistakes.

LGBTQI+ people are resented for even suggesting that human rights are not accessible and, in many cases, intentionally denied. People with low incomes are blamed for their circumstances and told they should work harder or save more money if they want to be able to live. Informal workers are underpaid and their work is undervalued. People who do unpaid domestic and care work in their own homes are not seen as skilled, and their work is not recognized as work, nor is it, in most cases, shared by others in the household. One thing affects another that affects another that affects another.

“FIGURE IT OUT FOR YOURSELF,” THEY SAY

There is a commitment to neo-liberalism, insisting that everyone is responsible for improving their own conditions. The pull-yourself-up-by-your-bootstraps approach has never worked because you cannot get water from a rock. We are not solely responsible for our current conditions, and many of us cannot change them on our own. These conditions have been created, in large part, by systems and by people in positions of power. The Transatlantic Slave Trade ended, but its effects are still with us, including anti-blackness and the wealth gap. Colonialism never really went away. Racism continues, as does colourism and a hatred for people from other, very specific, countries that we ought not continue to call “xenophobia”.

There is a clear distinction between people we call “expats” and people we call “migrants”. Even with a scarcity mentality, people are satisfied to see white people move here, get high positions and high salaries, free housing and spots at the expensive international schools for their children, and angered by the black migrants from our own region who often take on jobs everyone says Bahamians do not want or do not do well, receive low wages, and send their children to public schools where many of those children have the nerve to excel. Why might that be?

Bahamians often go abroad, overstay and find work. Some seek asylum. It seems we have tired of the brain drain conversation, and it is now a given that most young people, when they go to university, will not return for more than a short visit during the Christmas holidays. We have, somehow, accepted that this place is not good enough for the brilliant young people we work so hard to educate. In fact, many people raise their children with the intention of sending them somewhere else to live and work. How many parents send their children off and tell their friends, “Chall, I tell him don’t come back”?

Our children deserve it all. The world, really. That’s why we send them off to school. Hopefully, if they have any sense, they’ll stay there. Meanwhile, let’s stay here and guard the land. We don’t want to till the soil or cut the grass or climb the coconut trees, but this land is our land.

Someone else can do that work. Someone not from here. Someone who’ll take less money than the big company down the road. We could always find someone to do the work we don’t want to do.

WHY DIDN’T HE SHOW UP TODAY?

That’s their business if they want to live in a house with another family, and send their money back to Haiti.

You saw him the other day, at the money transfer place?

He was probably sending money to his wife.

What happened? He didn’t show up today? Well, where he gone?

You heard about the boat? You think he was on that?

You mean to tell me, all that time I thought he was sending money back to Haiti, someone was sending him money?

Yes, to go. To get out of here. To be with his family, somewhere else.

All that money?

Yes, all that money. I know, it’s such a surprise. Who would have thought that he would come here, and then, like you, decide it wasn’t good enough for his children? Who would have thought that someone else, from a place like that, would also want the best for their own?