The Tribune

EDITOR, The Tribune,

Before I was ten, I was all heated up about the Haitian migration issue.

I recall idolising Loftus Roker like the political equivalent of a marvel superhero. For this I partly blame Eddie Minnis, whose brilliant “Pot Luck” political cartoon humorously depicted the then-Minister of Immigration as a caped crusader against the alien waves from the south.

Clearly the ability to appreciate political satire sets in at some point after age ten.

Flash forward to today, and a ten-year-old me would probably have joined Lincoln Bain and crew hounding poor Haitians in their humble dwellings and being a general nuisance to those charged with public order. But I grew up instead.

And while I continue to regard Loftus Roker as one of the most impressive politicians of his impressive generation, the country has changed and grown up, too - to the point that the issue of immigration is now far too complex to treat with the nationalist reflexes of a newborn country.

In the 1970s, the immigration issue was (though emotive) easy for many to ignore, since so many other things in the country were headed in the right direction for the majority of Bahamians.

‘Bahamianisation’ initiatives (like the phased replacement of once-dominant foreign professionals by their Bahamian understudies), expanded educational opportunities and the advent of National Insurance all helped to grow the middle class and to lift even the poorest to a standard of social protection theretofore unknown.

Today, the conditions for uncontrolled immigration remain. But unlike in the 1970’s, we have now had 30-plus years of backward economic policies that have stalled the growth of the Bahamian middle class and widened the once-narrowing income gap.

These days, politicians create new taxes (like VAT) on the poor and middle while giving foreign millionaires deep cuts on property taxes and granting them permanent residency for the privilege of having them hog up our best real estate; they stubbornly maintain a tax system that makes the poor and middle pay most of the tax burden, then spend poor people’s money resisting attempts by international “bullies” to make rich people and corporations share the burden; and they grovel before every Tom, Dick and Sam who comes here promising the world – all while spending a smaller portion of GDP on the local population than any other country in the Caribbean region.

So although we actually need migrants as much as ever, today it is easier to stir resentment against them, precisely because they are now literally bucking heads with an increasingly marginalized Bahamian majority, disserved for years by regressive and idiotic policies presented as ‘responsible’ governance by politicians who simply don’t know any better.

None of this is to say we should accept shantytowns, illegal sloop arrivals or other law-breaking from Haitian migrants. We should not. Instead we should rationally control and regulate migration in a manner that benefits us all. These, too, are simple political choices.

But if we are serious and have any sense of balance and priority about us, then the blatantly harmful economic policies of our recent history (freely implemented by leaders who were freely elected by us) need to be faced down and reversed before we go hunting for imaginary villains on sloops and in shantytowns.

ANDREW ALLEN

Nassau,

February 19, 2023.