The Tribune

TRITE and simplistic cliches on Bahamas nationhood are enemies of history, memory and myriad freedom struggles and movements for equality, including the fight for majority rule and women’s rights.

Easily deployed, misleading, superficial, treacly, these cliches insult intelligence. They are like cluster bombs loaded with multiple bomblets designed to indiscriminately maximise harm.

Half a century ago, in 1973, a major cluster bomb exploded at independence: the destructive cliché that independence was the beginning of The Bahamas as a nation. The debris field is widespread. We are still cleaning up the mess half a century later.

The Cluster Munition Coalition observes: “Cluster munitions … can saturate an area up to the size of several football fields. Anybody within the strike area of the cluster munition … is very likely to be killed or seriously injured.”

Following the initial devastation and damage, cluster bomb-like cliches leave behind minefields of highly explosive falsehoods that are dangerous for generations, requiring immense effort and resources, and decades, if not centuries to eradicate.

A dangerous cliché-cluster bomb was expressed and delivered in Priscilla Rollins’ song, “Independence Morning, It’s like a Baby Borning”, a catchy tune that has delighted audiences since 1973.

Ms Rollins captured much of the enthusiasm and excitement of independence. Still, the Bahamian nation is much older than 50 years. We are centuries older.

The analogies we create and refine about nationhood, including various metaphors and similes, play an essential part and instructive role in our national storytelling, history, aspirations, mythologizing and symbolising.

Our preeminent historian, Dr Gail Saunders, who recently passed away, would be horrified that Bahamians who should know better, including government leaders, would use misleading and imprecise language on certain aspects of our history.

At the recent 50th independence celebration on Fort Charlotte, Prime Minister Philip Davis unfortunately unleashed his own cluster bomb, adding fuel to the proverbial fires in remarks that got a central feature of our history terribly wrong and that is misleading.

Mr Davis inaccurately misstated of Bahamian history:

“In just a few short hours, come midnight, our Bahamian flag will be raised once again. It will be an echo of that moment, 50 years ago, on July 10th, 1973, which marked the birth of our nation. ...”

He continued: “On that night, as the flag slowly ascended, with it were raised the hopes and aspirations of the Bahamian people, to carve out our own identity, to make our own way, to seek to build the best little country in the world. And we seized the charge. We set about building this nation…”

Mr Davis noted: “But Independence was not just a moment in time. It was not just the throwing-off of the shackles of colonialism … Independence was the first big step on the long journey that continues to take our nation forward and upward.”

The first big step? The Bahamas Prime Minister has an obligation to get basic civics right, especially for young Bahamians and successive generations. Unfortunately, Mr Davis doubled down on his incorrect version of history.

At independence we celebrate the status of a sovereign, independent state, not the beginning of The Bahamas. Our people, our history, our resilience, including our triumph over the subjugation of colonialism and slavery, are centuries old.

The Bahamian nation and experience are exceedingly older than the 50 years following independence from Great Britain. A deeper appreciation of our rich history is diminished when we say, “Happy birthday” on July 10th. It is more accurate and more meaningful to say, “Happy Independence!”

Respectfully, Prime Minister: From those who revolted against slavery, like Pompey and others, to those who got together as the Ballot Party in 1925, to those who launched the PLP in 1953, to those who started the FNM in 1971, we have been building a nation for centuries.

The suffragettes, those involved in the Burma Road march of 1942, the General Strike of 1958, the Labour Movement of the 1950s and more, and others who forged a Bahamian nation did so before 1973.

While independence was the culmination of the fight for sovereignty and the unshackling from colonial rule, it was not the birth of the nation. Moreover, the struggle to decolonise our mindsets continues 50 years later with the final decoupling from a foreign head of state still to be achieved.

Even the autocratic Sir Stafford Sands, who kept black Bahamians and poor whites subjugated, appreciated much of what it meant to be uniquely Bahamian, because he understood something of Bahamian history and that we have been forging a national identity for centuries in this archipelago.

As noted by Bahamianology, The Nassau Guardian quoted Sir Stafford as he moved for the appointment of a Constitution Committee in the House of Assembly on 25 January 1960: “I have had the pleasure of moving for the appointment of a constitution committee several times and it is always with hope that we can take another step toward self-government.

“I would rather serve under a Bahamian who was my worst enemy than under another man who was my friend. I am convinced that this Colony can only reach its fullest flowering under self-government.”

Independence was decidedly not “the first big step on the long journey that continues to take our nation forward and upward”.

What is a nation? In his remarks in the House of Assembly a few weeks ago former Prime Minister Dr Hubert Minnis offered: “The dictionary defines a nation as ‘a large body of people united by common descent, history, culture, or language, inhabiting a particular country or territory’.”

He further noted: “Also according to the dictionary, a nation-state is defined as ‘a sovereign state of which most of the citizens or subjects are united also by factors which define a nation, such as language or common descent’.” The distinction between nation and nation-state is critical.

Dr Minnis continued: “At independence, we celebrate national sovereignty, not the birth of the broader Bahamian enterprise and experience.”

The Bahamas, like other Caribbean jurisdictions, assimilated the contributions of many cultures into a new Bahamian and Caribbean culture, forging something unique out of what Caribbean Nobel Laureate Derek Walcott described as “fragments of epic memory”.

At a One Bahamas event in 2010, former Governor General Sir Arthur Foulkes recalled the hundreds of years of our history and the emergence of Bahamians as a unique people: “Over many years they came from Europe and Africa, and some from Asia; and they came by direct as well as by circuitous routes. Many of our forebears – diverse in race, colour, creed and ethnicity -- came by way of the United States, South America and the other islands of the Caribbean.

“But today we are one people with a distinct identity among the nations of the world. We are Bahamians. We have come through many trials and tribulations but now we joyously celebrate the blessing of being able to live as one people, in peace and unity, and to call one of the most beautiful spots on the planet our home.”

The journey to independence has many chapters. Simplistically saying that The Bahamas was born in 1973 is more than factually incorrect. It is a cliche that negates a history of struggle and nation-building by ancestors who forged today’s One Bahamas.

More in the weeks ahead.