50 YEARS ON FROM THE “72 CONSTITUTI0NAL TALKS”
NASSAU, Bahamas — Fifty years ago this month, Lynden Pindling led a delegation to the Constitutional Conference in London. Kendal Isaacs led the opposition, The Nassau Guardian reported on Wednesday, December 7, in an article written by Executive Editor Candia Dames.
On December 20, 1972, the delegation signed the independence agreement, and on June 26, 1973, the British Parliament enacted the Bahamas Independence Order.
The official date for independence is July 10, 1973 when the Bahamian flag was raised for the first time.
“The real independence occurred when the British agreed for us to get independence,” said A. Loftus Roker, who was a member of the delegation. “It felt good to me because I believed in freedom and that is what really distresses me because we don’t preserve our freedom. We take it for granted; we allow all sorts of things to happen, and I’m talking about leaders on every level – the politician, the preacher, the parents. We all seem to take too many things for granted.”
Despite the national challenges, many of which still exist 10 years after Roker spoke for the original version of this article, he has no regrets about independence.
“Nothing will cause me to regret independence, nothing,” he said. “I say I want independence even if I’m starving. I don’t believe I should be slave to anybody. So even if I’m starving.”
Sitting in his treasure trove of independence papers; other historic documents – many with Sir Lynden’s signature; old newspapers and cherished photographs – many with colleagues and dear friends who have passed on, Roker acknowledged some of the missteps the government made in the years after independence, but also the achievements.
“The Bahamas isn’t where I expected it to be in ‘72 when we signed the document, but I say the fault is all our fault,” he said.
“If I see wrong going on and I say nothing, I am as much at fault as the fellow who is doing the wrong, because if I told him he is wrong, maybe he would stop.”
Pointing to one mistake he said the PLP made, Roker said, “We said to people who voted for us that all the jobs in the banks would be available to you.
“What we didn’t tell them is that the garbage collection also belongs to you. And so, the people got the view that once the PLP came to power, I don’t have to do any dirty work. I can get an office job.”
SIGNING
The Bahamian delegation did not get all it wanted in the negotiations in ‘72, but it got enough, Roker recalled.
“If you lived in that time, you would find that the white Bahamians and foreigners who were businessmen here at that time were saying once we get independence, the PLP will take over the courts and all of that, and there will be no justice and we will confiscate their property and all that kind of thing. That’s why the Privy Council was left there as the final court of appeal,” he said.
“We kept it because we wanted to give the assurance that we were not trying to run the judiciary, that you had a final court which we couldn’t control.
“The same thing with the queen. They saw [independence] as breaking off all connection with Britain, and we will have our own president and we will be dictators.
“That’s why we left the queen there.”
With all the deficiencies in the constitution, Roker said he does not think it should be “tampered with”.
“If you think about it, if it is decided that anytime you don’t like anything in the constitution you can change it, the constitution would soon mean nothing at all and the young people would feel, that’s only a piece of paper, which it is. But if you don’t respect that piece of paper [it means nothing].” See complete article in The Nassau Guardian at https://thenassauguardian.com/the-road-to-freedom/?fbclid=IwAR3UpMcWiqfo_j22rZP7QhVUIwghMWSWv4GGQK9Mb3mWwg6ymWcXWMLJ7dc
