I read in part the Throne Speech and also in part the Opposition's reply. Enthused? No. Not enough to dive deep into any detail on either. Rather, in both cases, it was seen as an anticipated response to a perfunctory annual exercise.

My level of dissatisfaction with the Progressive Labour Party government of today is exceeded only by the futility of the One Bermuda Alliance, whose continued existence elicits great wonder.

OK, I have said as much before, so why continue blowing such verbose political gas into the atmosphere?

I have lived long enough and was born at a particular juncture in Bermuda's metamorphosis from being a segregated society under a colonial government to a diverse, integrated society presumed to be under a responsible government system.

The baby-boomer generation witnessed the world in transition. The British Empire collapsed after the Second World War, leading the way for the decolonisation of many countries. The baby-boomers, while not direct intellectual participants, would have known most of the actors on the stage then. Whether it was C.L.R. James, Stokely Carmichael, Malcolm X on the international stage, or Stanley Ratteray, Roosevelt Brown or Sir Henry Tucker at local level, they were the known voices and experiential life of the baby-boomer generation.

If desegregation and equality leading to a diverse, multicultural society was the goal, then it was a failure. Not that the goal was wrong, unattainable or that there was no one truly interested in that ideal, but that the worst tendencies were deployed to sabotage the goal — and they prevailed.

The direct remnants of that transitional era are the United Bermuda Party, PLP and the Bermuda Industrial Union. Looking down from a 30,000ft perspective, there was a civil-rights protest movement followed by an invitation to join the Establishment. Two things become clear: the protest movement lacked a real strategy, and the Establishment’s invitation was false and insincere.

Someone has to say this transition was a failure of immense proportion. Speaking on the human society as a whole, it has failed to live ideally, and as a senior Black person with considerable experience, I saw the hope expressed in the Fifties promoted by the genuine desire of the disenfranchised for full participation — aided by the Bermuda Workers Association — turned into a comprehensive disaster and betrayal from where we stood in less favourable times.

While we can blame the stars and the moon, ethics would require personal accountability. The natural law of physics would suggest that if you leant on a fence and it caved in or fell, you would need to examine the foundation or structure of the fence.

Our leadership has failed, and to speak to that failure is taboo in too many quarters. Pretending to be a success when failure is visible and obvious is intellectual dishonesty. I first heard that term when it was used by Hilton Hill at a PLP meeting in the early Seventies. I understood what he was saying then, but the gravity is now more appreciated. We have had our prophets, but we killed them all.

Instead, we followed those whom our instincts told us would deceive us. We were led into using hatred, slander, suspicion and outright jealousy instead of love, patience and transparency as the mortar for building our society.

Some of this stuff is biblical when you consider the Crucifixion, where the choice was given and the people said: “Free Barabbas and crucify Jesus.” The analogy is of a people wanting power and presuming a political actor was the answer.

Truthfully, we fit that biblical analogy as our present dilemma. As a people, we lacked power and fell victim to liars promising power without realising that all the power needed lay within. The Beatles’ All You Need Is Love is epic in that regard.

The question is, can our leadership change? This means all our leadership, including the religious. Put more succinctly, can the PLP or BIU change? The answer is everyone and everything can change. The supplementary question is, will they?

Given the arrogance and insularity on display, it is not impossible, but highly unlikely. That kind of change requires humility, remorse and a show of vulnerability. These types of characteristics are notably absent in our leaders today. Evident change requires adherence to the truth as fundamental behaviour, but how many leaders have we seen who ignore the truth to remain in the fold or become critical only when removed from the gravy train?

All these things matter, but we have abandoned principled behaviour for party loyalty. Until we get leadership on the right course, it will not matter which party rules, or even if independents make a significant dent at the next election. We will have the same outcome.