August 7, 2014

Dear Sir,

The time has truly come for people of goodwill to let their voices be heard. There is a saying, “call a spade a spade!”

It is very interesting yet hardly surprising that individuals who have played absolutely no role in the quest to create a fair and just Bermuda, suddenly emerge from the shadows of the citadel that has undergirded white supremacy with spiritual and moral legitimacy — for the past 1417 years, if one accepts its purported origin to date back to the mission to England by Saint Augustine of Canterbury in AD597, or if you prefer at least the past 480 years, from its independence from the Catholic Church — as proclaimers of reason and goodwill.

Yet, despite the self proclaimed good intentions, and cries of great sadness over recent events, the letter writer proceeds to regurgitate a narrative derived from the media without checking it against the facts in the name of reason and level headedness.

These “code words,” can be recognised for what they are, feeble attempts to tell people to settle down, get back in your place. This is a recognisable pathology and the people know it well. Guided by outrageous fabrications such as “the cries against PRC’s”, “the demand for reparation on Tucker’s Town land” and “to say nothing of the ultimatum being served on the elected government.”

The issue with Permanent Resident Certificate holders being granted Bermuda Status was not, and I reiterate not anti PRC, it was objecting to the underhanded and deceptive manner in which the government set about using what Chief Justice Ian Kawaley called a “sleeping provision,” to subvert the Immigration and Protection Act of 1956 and the subsequent 1994 and 2001 Amendments to the Act for a purpose that was never intended.

I am sure my moral and learned friend understands this, and should therefore understand the difference between on the one hand, opposing an unjust action on the part of government, and on the other hand, agreeing that PRC holders should have the opportunity to apply for status if they desire to pursue it, but that the government should provide a clearly defined process to that end.

In response to appeals to the government that were repeatedly dismissed or ignored, the people chose to exercise their democratic right in a peaceful, orderly and lawful way, and presented the government with a letter which demanded a response. No ultimatum was issued; this is a fabrication.

On Tucker’s Point, the same democratically elected house, whose virtue has been extolled by the letter writer, passed a bill not requesting reparations — another fabrication — but a bill to form a Commission of Inquiry into alleged claims of historic losses of citizens’ property through theft, dispossession, or adverse possession claims.

In response to the governor’s decision not to grant the request from the people’s house, the people exercised their democratic right to voice their displeasure. Again in a peaceful, orderly, and law abiding manner.

In addition to the aforementioned fabrications, it is really outrageous for anyone in this day and age to display such — not selective amnesia, but defective memory — as to compare Africans who were brought here in chains having been dehumanised and emasculated to Portuguese people who came as migrants, and regardless of what they faced once here were endowed with the benefits and privileges of the dominant white society.

This is unlike the experience of African descendants who later migrated into a racist system that did not respect their humanity and viewed them as inferior to their white counterparts. A system no less, supported and maintained by the very same Anglican Church to which the letter writer belongs.

In respect to the struggle for human rights in Bermuda, the good “letter writer,” should check the record.

The struggle for human rights in Bermuda was always initiated without the permission of the white oligarchy, whether from Monk to Mazumbo, from Tobitt to Tweed, or from the dockworkers strike in 1959 to the General Strike of 1981, and the Anglican church was always on the side of maintaining the system of white supremacy, and never on the side of black people or the side of justice — the more things change the more things stay the same.

To proffer a narrative contrary to this depicts a level of dishonesty of the highest order.

It is also intriguing to hear the appeal to the numbers game to undermine the validity of the genuine concerns of the people of Bermuda. We cannot accept 2,000, 3,000 or even 4,000 people should speak and act in such negative ways and as such determine the fate of more than 60,000 residents.

Where was this voice when the “forty thieves,” were determining the fate of black Bermudians who could not even sit in the so-called church that the letter writer so proudly represents.

And where was the Anglican Church during the Theatre boycott — it was where it always is — on the side of the racist oligarchy, or where was the good letter writer for that matter.

I do not know what Theatre Boycott “erased the vestiges of official segregation in Bermuda,” but I have it on sound authority that that conclusion is a figment of the letter writer’s imagination.

Bermudians have been and continue to fight against the vestiges of white supremacy and segregation to this day.

In reference to “the most productive march in living memory,” it would appear that the passage of time has somewhat distorted the reality. The March on Washington was not the trivial or pejorative “I Have a Dream march,”: it was a march for Jobs and Freedom.

It was a march calling for economic and racial justice.

The leadership converged on Washington against the will of President John F Kennedy and the government at the time.

And lest we be dictated to by a minority, the US population in 1963 was 186,241,798 while the most generous estimates for the attendees at the March on Washington is between 200-300,000 people.

So, how could such a small number determine the fate for such a large number because justice demanded it, it did then and it does now! One cannot help wonder that if the good letter writer is so acutely aware that the Island is “encumbered with more problems than it has ever had,” why the voice and or presence of the letter writer in responding to this crisis is so conspicuously absent.

Perhaps, this is explained by the letter writer’s view that responsibility begins and ends at the ballot box.

I do not know what kind of democracy the letter writer is familiar with, but democracy includes a social contract between the people and the government. The people elect a government who commit to serve the people, once elected they serve all the people not just the people who elected them. Civic responsibility goes beyond simply casting a vote and becoming a spectator until the next election.

It requires that the people then take responsibility to hold the government accountable for what they do in the name of the people and for the good of the country.

It is not by accident that whenever the people appear to be waking up and taking their destiny into their own hands.

Whenever the people are aroused to hold people accountable to live up to the promises they have made, whenever the people are “sick and tired of being sick and tired,” that representatives of the old Oligarchy, those who have been trained and conditioned to seduce the people to “stay in their place,” those who have been silent when it comes to the pain of the people, those who have been silent when promises are broken, those who have been silent when the blood of our sons and daughters runs in the street, those who have been silent in the face of growing unemployment, those who have been silent when the rights that our forebears have fought for are being trampled on, are rolled out.

They come using the language of “reason,” as if the people are incapable of utilising reason, they come in the name of “goodwill,” as if the people have no goodwill, yet they never come decrying the conditions that give rise to the people finally rising up to say to those who are entrusted to serve them, you cannot serve us without listening to us, and yes, enough is enough!

So, let’s just “call a spade a spade!”

REV NICHOLAS GENEVIEVE-TWEED

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