The Tribune

“THE first step in liquidating a people is to erase its memory. Destroy its books, its culture, its history. Then have somebody write new books, manufacture a new culture, invent a new history. Before long that nation will begin to forget what it is and what it was. ... The struggle of man against power is the struggle of memory against forgetting.” – Milan Kundera

At the 50th anniversary of independence there is tremendous work to be done to educate Bahamians about our basic history and basic civics, including the Constitution. Those charged with organising this commemoration have an obligation to ensure that it is not overwhelmingly a parade of festivities and feel-good events.

We should not mostly be engaged in a series of blowout parties. At the heart of this anniversary should be a variety of educational and meaningful cultural activities. This is a golden opportunity for remembrance, recollection and awareness.

For example, many Bahamians, especially of a younger generation, do not really understand certain key aspects of the Constitution, the full enumeration of fundamental rights and concomitant responsibilities, certain attributes of parliamentary democracy and a host of other basics of a maturing nationhood.

How can we hold a referendum on certain provisions or discussion of a republic if there is scant basic understanding of the fundamentals of democracy and government? Many take for granted that most Bahamians understand the basics of democratic participation and citizenship more than they do.

Correspondingly, most have a limited grasp of the entrenched legacy of slavery and colonialism, thereby having little ability to appreciate the imperative of emancipating themselves from the servitude and guile of their mental slavery rooted in our past.

A party-filled celebration, absent how it is rooted in the struggle against slavery and colonialism, is an insult to previous generations involved in the struggle. It is a form of romantic denialism. It fails to recognise that the emancipatory struggle continues because many remain cognitively colonised.

History and memory can be erased, supplanted, frittered away through indifference, frivolity and intellectual and ethical laziness by those who should know better. At the core of slavery was the pernicious strategy to indoctrinate the enslaved in their supposed inferiority and the supremacy of their masters.

RACISM

At a social event, three professional women, all over 60, lamented the racism within the British Royal Family and the alleged treatment of Meghan Markle by some in the Family and the British media. There was debate as to whether Prince Harry should have published his book, Spare.

Pressed as to whether we should become a republic, given this racism, the strong response was, “No, we need the British monarchy!” Further pressed: “But you just said many of them seem to be racist.” There was no response. The women went silent.

The eventual transition to a republic is a distant horizon because there is considerable education to be done. Most of us do not like change because “we know what we know” and we are mostly ignorant, happily so, of the vast amount of what we do not know or do not care to know.

After 50 years of independence, we fear becoming a republic in part because of a startling deficit of self-confidence.

Many will gleefully welcome King Charles who has been invited to the Golden Jubilee celebrations, a half century after he was here for the 1973 celebrations. In distressing ways, we have made no progress. Will the King be embarrassed watching scores of black Bahamians fawning over him and waving our national flag?

Those who were born before independence are among those most frightened by change, in part because they still lack a deeper sense of nationhood and never truly assimilated many of the ambitions and the scope of the meaning and promise of independence.

Many of us remain intellectually and emotionally colonised. The colonial and slave system were designed to keep the colonised as a permanent underclass, with enough subsistence to survive but never sufficient to thrive or develop.

Many of our people are still of this mindset and place for various reasons, including the desire by some in the political directorate to maintain a clientelist state in which the masses are dependent, uninterested or unable to rise.

What are among the best ways to promote new ways of thinking and being? Education for transformation may be rooted in emancipation stories, cultural activities and the broader historical narrative of struggle and transcendence.

The late Rex Nettleford, Jamaican by birth, but a cosmopolitan son of the region, was a master teacher and creative intellect who utilised the classroom, the media, theatre, songs, music and dance as tools of emancipation.

This is the quality of creativity we require to transform and educate Bahamians, including during this Jubilee. Thankfully, some theatre and arts groups are utilising the anniversary as time for celebration and remembrance. There are other creative avenues we might utilise for civic education.

By example, how might we use the Preamble to the Constitution to educate and inform Bahamians about our national longings and struggle. The Preamble recalls a part of our story cum journey and the principles on which a sovereign Bahamas was founded.

Imagine a video presentation for social and broadcast media on the Preamble. But first, a historical aside. The uscourts. gov website notes: “The preamble sets the stage for the [US] Constitution… It clearly communicates the intentions of the framers and the purpose of the document. The preamble is an introduction to the highest law of the land; it is not the law. It does not define government powers or individual rights.”

JUSTICE

The framers drafted the 52-word paragraph in six weeks in 1787, including five major principles, with justice as the first: “We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.”

What is some of the history of our Preamble? The original draft was penned by constitutional father Sir Arthur Foulkes.

After the 1968 election and the attainment of majority rule a new 1969 constitution gave the local government more responsibility for internal affairs and security, among other changes. The title of premier was changed to prime minister.

The British informed the new government that a preamble could not be used until independence. Sir Arthur’s draft was amended with several changes for the Independence Constitution. The original draft did not include the reference to “Christian values”.

Some religious ministers wanted the wording: “Christian nation”. Sir Lynden Pindling balked. The word “values” was used as a compromise, according to Sir Arthur.

Sir Lynden and others realised that the word “nation” would be too restrictive and not in keeping with the commitment to pluralism and freedom of religion. They understood the importance of the country being seen as a democracy and not a theocracy.

DISESTABLISHED

Approximately 100 years earlier in 1869, the Anglican Church was disestablished as the “state church” through the Disestablishment Act (Statute Laws of The Bahamas). Sir Arthur notes that the state used to pay the salaries of Anglican clerics. Other denominations opposed this state favoritism and demanded the change.

It is important to know this history, especially in the face of the theocratic, denominational and religious conceits and imperiousness of some Christian denominations.

Applications for the public service included questions about one’s religion and the religion of one’s parents. What these questions meant was denomination but the two were conflated.

Constitutional expert Sean McWeeney, KC, chaired a constitutional commission which released a 246-page report in 2013. As noted in the Prologue, the Commission “engage[d] in nation-wide public consultation and a ‘structured dialogue’ with the general public on matters of constitutional reform.”

In a recent Nassau Guardian article Mr McWeeney argued: “I’ve heard it said by a number of people that the Constitution is fine the way it was conceived and it requires no change, which is demonstrably untrue in any number of respects…

“The good thing about the Commission’s report is that it’s so comprehensive and so deeply considered that it’s really a blueprint for constitutional change that has long legs, and I think it’s going to be a template that future governments can use for quite some time.”

Many concur with these and other suggestions by Mr McWeeney, more of which next week. Such reform should be accompanied by public education to help Bahamians to better understand the workings of our democracy and their role as citizens.

Democracy survives and flourishes when a critical mass or a core of citizens preserve democratic memory over amnesia and ignorance. Democracy suffocates and teeters when such memory is depreciated or left unnurtured, especially by the governing class and political and other leaders, including in academia, the media and civil society.

• More next week.