December 13, 2011Dear Sir,For some time, people who support Independence have said that it would mature us as a people and unite us. Whether a change in a legal condition would change our sense of ourselves is hopeful at best and irresponsible at worst. The idea that we should be united is a chronic theme of Island life. It was the name of the misnamed United Bermuda Party. Names and legal changes are not reliable. What is reliable is our own actions.We consider political engagement to be a choice. You can choose to vote. You can choose to voice your opinion. In related areas, you can choose to engage the issues of the economy, education and poverty. In a deeper sense, very prevalent among conservatives in the United States at the moment, our right or not to be engaged in government is a sacred right. A sense of duty is one you may choose or not.I think this is wrong. We do not have a choice. We may have whatever opinion we please and disagree as we see fit. But the government is not a separate activity from the rest of social effort. Politicians appeal to us with promises of what they will get government to do as if government was a separate organisation from ourselves that has some rights over us but also has obligations it has wilfully and culpably ignored.No. Our government is us and if we ignore it, it will go astray like any untended child or unweeded garden. Politicians can promise us anything we don’t already have. Government is not a villain. It is our home, our bed our garden. It is the way we educate our children to be citizens. It’s the only reason we have a choice in anything else. We must vote. We must make sure the government is a reflection of ourselves. We must acknowledge that government works as well as we have designed it to.By making this admission, we also admit we are a people. As long as we can choose to ignore government, we will not unite. Our nation, being a reflection of ourselves and not our races or religions (but indeed an inflection of them) is represented by the way we, by consensus, govern ourselves. When we accept that, we will be mature and united. We will be citizens of Bermuda instead of people who just live there.JOHN ZUILLPembroke