BERMUDA is making a fatal error by "running backwards to the future" and looking to the past to solve the problems of tomorrow, says Sir John Swan, and as a result the country's leaders do not know where they are going - let alone know how they are going to get there.

The prevailing attitude of uncertainty is manifested throughout the community by constant bickering, constant accusations of corruption, constant mismanagement of public expenses, a pervading sense of insecurity and a total lack of any sense of direction, the former Premier and leading businessman said this week.

"We are faced with a world that is busily redefining itself in many respects and, in particular, with regard to its traditional political alliances. Look at the revolutionary changes we are now seeing between NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organisation) and Russia and thus, between the US and Russia - and, with the possible exception of Japan and Vietnam, the ongoing rapprochement between China and the rest of South East Asia," Sir John said.

Before leaving to participate in - and to address - a major conference at the prestigious Aspen Institute think-tank in Colorado this week, Sir John said he would persist in his efforts in trying to get through to the Bermudian people that the country must return to its traditionally inclusive ways of tackling its problems.

In a thinly-veiled warning that Bermuda must get itself back "on track" immediately, Sir John reiterated that there is still no clear vision of the island's future or its place in the world being telegraphed by either of the island's major political parties.

Bermuda, said Sir John, had become increasingly insular at the very time when the island urgently needed to maintain contacts, so painstakingly built up in the past - and, indeed, participate in - world forums.

"The US' proposed so-called 'Patriots Bill' legislation, which would take action against those companies which domicile themselves outside the US, could well become a reality," Sir John. "And we have already seen the effects on the Caribbean with its bitter dispute with the US over banana distribution.

"In other words, the US is demanding that the world gives to them what they believe to be their fair share of the marketplace - even if it's to the detriment of the affected countries and/or political alliances."

And, the leading businessman pondered grimly: "We have yet to grasp the full implications of the Israeli/Palestinian conflict, especially as it relates to other Middle East countries that might have atomic weapons and/or the means to wage biological warfare.

"Therefore, in such a serious world situation, it is absolutely imperative that if the Government of the day, the corporations of the day and the citizens of the day are to survive and achieve their objectives, we Bermudians must collectively have very clear objectives which are understood by all.

"And the Government must have the moral authority to be able to call upon all of our resources - both human and otherwise - to ensure that these objectives are met."

Sir John emphasised "This cannot be achieved if we continue to have these levels of deep discontent in Bermuda, a pervading sense of dishonesty and the general rancour that goes with people positioning themselves in an attempt to achieve their own selfish objectives - and then attempting to pass such behaviour off as a form of democracy!

"With freedom,'' he added in an indirect reference to the current Progressive Labour Party Government, "comes responsibility and with responsibility comes the transparency that leads to a dissemination of information so that the country can understand what its own society is all about."

The former Premier, who has been conducting, at some length, a series of interviews with this newspaper over the problems which he feels should be urgently addressed by the country, said: "I have been very fortunate in having been offered a scholarship at the Aspen Institute where the objective is to discuss the various philosophies of what constitutes a good society and how diverse philosophers and authors such as Plato, Confucius, Karl Marx, Virginia Woolf and Martin Luther King have, down through the ages, conveyed their own thinking on how such a society should be composed."

In being asked to take part in the Aspen Institute conference, Sir John joins world leaders such as presidents, Nobel Laureates, world statesmen, diplomats, ambassadors, and international judges, all of whom will be exploring the problems of international peace and security, democracy and citizenship, economic opportunities as well as the non-profit sector.