GUEST COMMENTARY: BY ED FIELDS
(EDITOR’S NOTE: This is another excellent piece posted by Ed Fields on his Facebook page that I hope he does not mind me using as a Guest Commentary in my online publication BAHAMAS CHRONICLE.)
NASSAU, Bahamas, May 12, 2020 — Back when I was reporter in the 80’s a Financial Times reporter covering some conference or the other asked me, “How has Pindling been able to hold on to power so long without an army.”
The thought had never occurred to me and in my desire to come up with an appropriate answer, I blurted out, “Well everyone has a satellite.” And I meant everyone. From Lifebuoy Street to Lyford Cay.
Of course, it was a euphemism for the fact that we were not really oppressed in the true sense of the word. Yes there were cries of victimization, but there was no secret police, no torture, and no disappearances.
We were generally content. It is how we were conditioned. We were afforded the capacity to live a life of conspicuous consumption. And hence the political directorate had their way.
So it follows that people in this country have not benefited from its potential because of foreigners or white people or because we are not skilled or because there are no opportunities. It is because we have not had the vision required to expand our economic pie because of shortsightedness, political folly, process and most of all apathy. We all are victims of it and we have allowed it to continue.
Governments are not to blame. We are. We have become willing wards waiting for change. We have not made the transformation from subjects prior to independence to citizens afterwards. This has been recognized by many scholars who analyze post-colonialism.
If we see ourselves as citizens rather than subjects, we would force change rather than wait for it to come. Subjects gripe, Citizens act.
It’s as simple as that.
