By OSWALD T. BROWN
WASHINGTON, D.C., April 29, 2021 – Although I was born and grew up in The Bahamas, I am so, so happy to be a naturalized American citizen after watching President Joe Biden’s “State of the Union” address on MSNBC Wednesday night.
I certainly hope that the Prime Minister of the country of my birth, Dr. Hubert Minnis, was watching President Biden’s remarkable address and that he had a notepad handy writing down points on how to be a good and compassionate political leader with sound ideas for implementing good and meaningful programs to solve the various problems facing The Bahamas.
Granted, the United States is one of the world’s most powerful countries and The Bahamas, relatively speaking, geographically is just an archipelago extending from off the coast of Florida to the Eastern tip of Cuba and may not even be recognizable on a world map, but it is nonetheless true that those of us who are citizens of the United States of America are immensely blessed to have Joe Biden as the President, after the previous four years of disastrous leadership of this great country by former President Donald Trump.
I moved to the United States in 1974 because of “affairs of the heart” — as I now refer to my first marriage, which ended in divorce in 1976 – but rather than return to The Bahamas I decided to remain in the United States. Because of my background in journalism I got a very good job working with the Publications Department of the Institute for Services to Education (ISE), which was established by President Lynden Johnson to assist in upgrading the curricula of Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs).
When Ronald Reagan became President in 1981, however, he stopped funding for ISE. A year later, however, I was fortunate enough to be hired by Dr. Calvin W. Rolark, Publisher of the Washington Informer, an award-winning Black-owned newspaper, where I was News Editor for more than 10 years before returning initially to The Bahamas in 1992 after Hubert Ingraham and the Free National Movement (FNM), a party in which I was a founding member, became the government of The Bahamas.
Because certain promises were made to me by Mr. Ingraham that were not fulfilled as a result of me bitterly opposing his attempts to destroy the legacy of Sir Lynden Pindling with a Commission of Inquiry, I returned to D.C. after spending a year in Freeport, Grand Bahama, with my boyhood friend, the late Preston Stuart Jr., during which time I was Editor of the Freeport News. However, I returned to D.C. in 1994 after a situation developed in Freeport – again as a result of “affairs of the heart” – that made it untenable for me to continue living in Freeport.
I eventually decided to return to The Bahamas “permanently” in 1996, and again became Editor of The Freeport News before being transferred to Nassau to become editor of The Nassau Guardian, the parent company of The Freeport News, in 1998 after I had started the process of introducing the Scripps National Spelling Bee to The Bahamas. At the time, only newspapers were allowed by Scripps to sponsor National Spelling Bees.
It is no secret that although I was a founder of the FNM, when I returned to The Bahamas in 1996, I once again became a staunch supporter of the PLP. I had made tremendous contributions to the PLP as a Black Power advocate during the struggle for majority rule in the 1960s. As an employee of Bahamian Times, the PLP’s newspaper, after I left The Tribune in 1965, I also contributed in getting the PLP’s message across to the Bahamian electorate.
Although Sir Lynden arranged for me to go to London in 1968 for a year’s training in journalism at the London Evening Standard after the PLP’s historic election victory on the January 10, 1967, when I returned from London in November of 1969, Sir Lynden and I had a “not-so-pleasant” disagreement over his decision to fire Arthur A. Foulkes, my journalistic mentor, as Minister of Tourism a month before I returned to The Bahamas. Therefore, when the Dissident Eight left the PLP in 1970, so did I, and under the leadership of the late Sir Cecil Wallace Whitfield, we eventually joined forces with moderate members of the disbanded United Bahamian Party (UBP) and formed the FNM after a series of meetings at Jimmy Shepherd’s Spring Hill Farms in Fox Hill.
I have provided this background information because I am having a difficult time understanding why the current decision-makers in the FNM have decided to “play hard ball with me” while I face possible eviction as a result of a ruling by the D.C Superior Court Landlord/Tenant Court on Wednesday, March 17, in favour of my landlord because of back rent that I owe.
The Court granted a stay of its judgment against me until June 1, 2021, but response to my public appeal “begging” for financial assistance from friends in The Bahamas has been woefully disappointing, so much so that I now gravely concerned that I shall not be able to pay the back rent that I owe before the June 1 eviction deadline.
Given the gravity of my current situation, I am once again appealing to Minister of Foreign Affairs Darren A. Henfield to implement the proposal I submitted almost three years ago to continue doing on a contractual basis what I did at the Embassy of The Bahamas for four-plus years as Press, Culural Affairs and Information Manager before the FNM became the government in May of 2017. I was informed by Ambassador Sidney Collie that a revised proposal for $2,000 a month had been approved and this was subsequently confirmed by Attorney General Carl Bethel.
Why my proposal has not been implemented remains a mystery, but I have ruled out direct involvement by Prime Minister Dr. Hubert Minnis because victimization does not seem to be included his governmental arsenal. A case in point is that Theo Neilly, the current Bahamas Consul General to Washington, D.C., was one of the seven FNM members of the House of Assembly who voted “No Confidence” in Dr. Minnis as Leader of the Opposition in December of 2016.
After the FNM won the May 10 general election, surely Theo Neilly never expected to be appointed to a top diplomatic position. The fact that he was strongly suggests that Dr. Minnis is not a vindictive person, so I really don’t think he has singled me out for victimization. Actually, I initially submitted my proposal to him personally when I was in Nassau in November of 2017 promoting my novel WOES OF LIFE, so he is aware of it.
So, Mr. Prime Minister, please extend your governmental “good will” to me and intercede on my behalf with your Minister of Foreign Affairs. Meanwhile, as my struggle to avoid conviction continues, I am again appealing to friends in The Bahamas to help me through this most difficult period of my life. My Royal Bank of Canada account number: 05285-735-231-3.
