In the throes of the work stoppage that brought Bermuda to a standstill, rumours circulated that senior persons in the Progressive Labour Party and Bermuda Industrial Union had a bit of a falling out over how to proceed, especially with the Government caught between a rock and a hard place.

As with most rumours, these remained unsubstantiated and died a death.

However, from the moment that Marc Bean made clear on Friday before last that the PLP would fight the Bermuda Immigration and Protection Amendment Act 2016 tooth and nail, despite a resolution having been found less than 24 hours earlier, the hint of a rift between the Opposition and the union had some legs.

This was exacerbated during the start of a marathon week in the Senate by Marc Daniels’s call for the resignation of fellow senator Michael Fahy — from his Cabinet post as Minister of Home Affairs as well as from the Upper House.

Then came what we now know to be unfounded allegations circulated on social media that Fahy, in the company of Michael Dunkley, used racially offensive terms to describe the people they were in negotiation with over the Pathways to Status initiative.

During a toilet break.

Amusing, perhaps, if you can find the humour in the analogy. But not so for the perpetrators of this myth, or for those who ensured that the misinformation spread, should Fahy or the Premier attempt to seek legal redress, as many suggest they should.

What these developments, and a lot of what we saw during the protest marches, prove beyond a shadow of a doubt is that we remain a deeply torn community along racial lines. Bitterness, resentment and pure hatred have been found to be in copious supply, whether you were in and around the House of Assembly during the enforced lockdown or on the blogs, where reside some of the most poisonous minds in Bermuda or farther afield.

The question of race is perennially a troublesome one here. Blacks, at best passive-aggressive, on the front foot; whites, at best apologetic, on the back foot.

All it takes is for talk of Sally Bassett, Mary Prince, 1834 and forced segregation to get the blood flowing — that is for those who have bothered to educate themselves on such things. For others, those who already seek disruption to establishment practices, come what may, all you need is a white face or a foreign accent. The race card.

Young black Bermudians are told to know their history, which is important for them to have knowledge, for knowledge is power. But having knowledge of your history merely so that the baton of hatred can be passed on to the next generation is counterproductive and indicative of the vortex of racial disunity that has so engulfed Bermuda for the ages.

It is one thing for the leader of the country to admit that he and his party have to do better at understanding a section of the community. But when that section of the community comprises a large majority of the electorate, that is saying something. It says that we have learnt little, or have wanted to learn little, about one another — black and white. Meanwhile, the political parties squabble and manoeuvre themselves for the next election.

For all the talk, they are no closer to collaboration than mankind is to finding a cure for cancer, so much so that it can be argued with justification that the true beauty of Bermuda can be found in her physical appearance; not in the people that inhabit it.

For the people have a deep distrust of one another on racial lines. The daily pleasantries can be said to be of only face value, but while backs are turned, the seeds of divisiveness are planted. The future does not look good, no matter the successes or failures of the economy. For as long as we are so racially divided, we are only ever a protest away, well-intentioned or not, from the blue touchpaper being lit.

The future cannot be profitable when the people who make up this nation hate one another with a passion. The level of hatred was exposed during the labour unrest. The racial split was exposed by the make-up of two sets of demonstrators: one in favour of Pathways to Status (white) and one against (black).

But not all white people believe Bermuda’s new immigration proposals were fine as they were, pre-Bill withdrawal, while not all blacks are resistant to the idea of long-term residents gaining leave to remain before applying for status five years later — if anything, a succession of polls suggests that many blacks believe it the right thing to do. It is only the how that the Government and, now, the working groups need to get right.

And then there are the children, the majority of whom know no home other than Bermuda.

These children who were not born here but have grown to be responsible, law-abiding citizens as adults while making massive contributions to this island. They deserve far better than the chants of “go home” or “go back to your own country”, so often heard during the worst of the hate-fuelled vitriol during the protests.

So whether you have been on the island since you were 3, in the case of Michael Fahy, or since the age of six months, you should be afforded the right to call Bermuda home as much does the career criminal, whose stall is set out no differently in these times of economic depression as it would be in times of affluence.

Collaboration is the watchword. If the actions of the One Bermuda Alliance and the PLP are a reflection of the community they serve, we are doomed indefinitely to more of the juvenile same that has stained many a session in the House of Assembly.

It is in their mandate to ensure that collaboration is more than a 13-letter word that sounds good as it rolls off the lips. They need to set the example for generations to follow. Bermuda’s future as a civilised democracy depends on it.