The Tribune

A DANGEROUS disease is spreading through The Bahamas, and too many of us have become so accustomed to it that we no longer recognise the symptoms.

It’s entitlement.

Not ordinary ambition. Not wanting a better life. Not expecting fairness from your government. I’m talking about the extraordinary belief held by some Bahamians that their surname is an asset belonging on the national balance sheet, and that because a parent, grandparent or great-grandparent once contributed something to this country, successive generations are entitled to collect dividends from the Bahamian people.

It’s nonsense.

If we do not confront it, this mentality will keep eating away at our institutions, poisoning our politics, and turning government into an enormous dispenser of favours for people who believe the country owes them something.

Let's say something that apparently needs saying: The Bahamas owes your family nothing.

Your grandfather may have been a national hero. Wonderful. Honour him. Your grandmother may have helped build a political party. Celebrate her. Your father may have campaigned from settlement to settlement when campaigning was difficult and dangerous. Your mother may have given decades of distinguished public service. Their contribution belongs to them. It’s not a promissory note redeemable by their descendants.

Yet, we have developed a strange culture in which some people behave as though public service is hereditary. We see the same surnames appearing around political parties, public appointments, boards, honours, government opportunities, and positions of influence, generation after generation.

There’s nothing inherently wrong with that if each person deserves to be there. But that is the question we are increasingly afraid to ask: Do they deserve to be there?

Not who their father is. Not who their grandmother was. Not which politician answers their telephone call. Not how long their family has been "with the party."

Are they qualified? Can they perform? Have they earned it? Those questions should determine who gets a public opportunity in a serious country. Instead, too often, we whisper about lineage. We have almost created a Bahamian aristocracy without the titles.

Some people seem to believe they were born with an invisible deed that grants them a share of the state. Nowhere is this more ridiculous than after an election. The votes are barely counted before the invoices start arriving.

"I was there."

"My family has always supported the party."

"My daddy did plenty for them."

"My mummy never got anything."

"We carried our constituency."

"I deserve something."

"My children need something."

And, of course, the granddaddy of them all: "It's our time."

Our time for what? To raid the public purse? To get a government job when someone else is better qualified? To jump ahead of a public officer who has worked diligently for 15 years? To be placed on a board whose subject matter you barely understand? To receive a contract because your family has political currency? To have your children accommodated because somebody remembers what their grandfather did in 1977?

This cannot be how a modern country operates.

Political parties make the problem worse when they encourage supporters to believe elections are national lotteries and that victory means everyone in the winning colours should line up to collect.

Then governments discover the monster they helped create. People begin demanding "the lion's share." And when they don’t get it, suddenly everything is wrong with the government. The same government they praised six months earlier is now useless.

Every appointment becomes an insult. Every contract somebody else receives becomes a betrayal. Every person promoted ahead of them becomes evidence that "they're forgetting who put them there." Some become professional complainers, attacking anything and everything because the personal reward they imagined would come hasn't materialised.

This is not patriotism. It’s political extortion dressed up as loyalty.

Supporting a political party does not make you a shareholder in the Treasury and voting is not an investment for which government owes you a return.

Campaigning does not purchase an option on a government contract, and being born into a politically-connected family does not give you preferred shares in The Commonwealth of The Bahamas.

The Treasury is not an inheritance fund.

The public service is not a family employment programme.

Government corporations are not warehouses for politicians to store supporters.

Boards are not consolation prizes.

National honours are not family heirlooms.

And promotions should not be awarded to silence troublesome people.

This entitlement culture is particularly destructive inside the public service. Imagine working diligently for years, developing expertise, earning qualifications, taking on difficult assignments, and demonstrating leadership—only to watch someone leapfrog you because he or she has the right surname, the right relationship, or access to the right minister.

What exactly are we teaching the competent employee? We are teaching that person to stop working and start networking. Why pursue another qualification when a telephone call works faster? Why develop expertise when political pressure produces better results? Why become excellent when being connected is more profitable?

This is how institutions rot. Not always through spectacular corruption. Sometimes they die one favour at a time. One unnecessary appointment. One undeserved promotion. One contract awarded to appease somebody. One job created because a minister cannot tolerate another week of telephone calls. One unqualified relative squeezed into an institution already carrying too many employees. One incompetent person was protected because "that's somebody's child."

Multiply that behaviour over decades, and then act surprised when institutions become inefficient, bloated, and demoralised.

We complain endlessly about government inefficiency while demanding that government practise the very behaviour that produces inefficiency. We want professional public service, until our child needs a job. We want merit-based promotion, until our relative is passed over. We want government spending controlled, until our organisation wants funding. We want contracts awarded transparently, until our friend needs one. We condemn political favouritism when someone else benefits from it and call it "recognition" when it benefits us.

That hypocrisy is strangling the country. And politicians must accept their share of responsibility. For generations, Bahamian politics has too often encouraged citizens to see politicians less as policymakers and more as providers.

Get me a job.

Get my child transferred.

Get my nephew promoted.

Get my cousin a contract.

Get my organisation some money.

Put me on a board.

Recommend me for something.

Do something for me.

A minister can hardly concentrate on transforming a ministry when half the political ecosystem expects them to operate like a concierge. And because politicians fear offending influential supporters and familiar families, they entertain too many unreasonable demands.

Sometimes leadership requires telling people no.

No, you’re not qualified.

No, your surname does not change that.

No, your father's service does not entitle you to a government position.

No, your grandmother's political history does not entitle your business to a contract.

No, your years of complaining do not constitute qualifications for promotion.

No, your children do not automatically inherit your political connections.

And no, government does not owe you "something" because you helped it win an election.

Imagine the liberation that would come from politicians saying those words—and meaning them. But entitlement survives because politicians feed it and citizens demand it. It’s a mutually destructive arrangement. Government gives favours to maintain loyalty. Citizens offer loyalty expecting favours. Eventually neither side remembers that government exists primarily to serve the national interest.

And perhaps the ugliest expression of this mentality is what we are teaching some of our children. Too many parents are trying to hand their children connections instead of competence. We make telephone calls instead of demanding that they improve themselves. We ask somebody to "look out for them" rather than telling them to become so good they cannot reasonably be overlooked.

Then we release adults into society who genuinely believe that because of who their parents are, ordinary rules should bend around them. That’s not helping your child. That’s manufacturing entitlement.

Your child may carry an important surname and still have nothing useful to offer. That sentence will offend some people. It shouldn’t.

Every family produces different levels of ability. Intelligence is not hereditary on command. Competence does not automatically pass through bloodlines. Neither does leadership.

A brilliant statesman can have an unimpressive child. A great businesswoman can produce an incompetent son. A national hero can have grandchildren who have contributed absolutely nothing of significance to national life.

There’s no shame in that. The shame begins when those descendants demand recognition based on somebody else's achievements.

If your grandfather built a legacy, add to it. Don't live off it.

If your mother opened doors, walk through them and accomplish something. Don't spend the rest of your life demanding that others open every door because of her name.

If your father served The Bahamas, serve it too. Do not send the country an invoice for his sacrifice.

The Bahamas cannot become a collection of family franchises. This country belongs just as much to the brilliant child from an unknown family as it does to the child whose surname everybody recognises.

In fact, the true test of our institutions is what happens when those two children arrive at the same door. One has the surname. The other has the qualifications. Who gets through?

Our answer will determine what kind of country we become. Because if the surname wins often enough, the qualified child eventually gets the message: Leave. Take your talent elsewhere. Stop believing the system is fair.

Or, worse, learn to play the same game: Find a politician. Build connections. Join a camp. Become useful to somebody powerful.

That’s how meritocracy dies.

And small countries must be particularly vigilant. The Bahamas still suffers from too much village thinking in national affairs.

"That's so-and-so's daughter."

"You know who his daddy is?"

"Their family been with us from way back."

"Don't do them that."

"Try to find something for the boy."

That may be how favours operate in a village, but it cannot be how a nation is governed. A country requires standards that are stronger than relationships. It requires institutions that can tell powerful people no. It requires promotion systems that can withstand telephone calls. It requires hiring processes that do not collapse when a famous surname appears. It requires politicians willing to lose a few friends rather than compromise the public interest.

And it requires citizens mature enough to understand that equality sometimes means you do not get what you want.

We should honour our great Bahamians.

We should teach their stories. Name buildings after the deserving. Preserve their records. Celebrate their sacrifices.

But we should stop treating their descendants as royalty. The Bahamas has no royal families. There should be no political princes and princesses. No hereditary government positions. No inherited entitlement to contracts. No family claim on promotions. No permanent reservation at the national table.

Come with your qualifications. Come with your record. Come with your ideas. Come with evidence that you can perform. Come prepared to compete with everybody else.

And if somebody from an unknown family is better than you, have enough respect for your country to accept that the better person should get the opportunity.

That’s nation-building. The alternative is national decay disguised as loyalty.

Entitlement is a monster because it’s never satisfied. Feed it one appointment, and it wants another. Give one relative a job, and another appears. Award one favour and yesterday's favour becomes tomorrow's expectation. Eventually government spends so much energy feeding expectations that it loses the courage to govern.

We cannot continue down that road. The Bahamas owes every citizen fairness. It owes every child opportunity. It owes taxpayers competent government. It owes public officers fair treatment. It owes future generations institutions stronger than the personalities temporarily occupying them.

But there is one thing The Bahamas does not owe anyone: A reward for having the right last name.

Your ancestors may have helped build this country. Thank God for them.

Now tell us: What have you done?