“ ... Am I my brother’s keeper?”

— Genesis 4:9

A question asked from the beginning of time to this very day. A question that could evoke a yes-or-no answer for any given reason, at any given time.

This week, we can apply this question to the plight of a man who not only has Bermudian roots but also has sprouted several Bermudian branches and limbs of his own making. Someone who has injected a much needed reminder of what social activism must truly be about.

I speak of none other than the Reverend Nicholas Tweed, of the St Paul AME Church.

For the past four years, he has evoked the spirit of John the Baptist with his fiery speeches from the pulpit, on the steps of Parliament, on the lawn at Cabinet, and, perhaps even more importantly, on the highways and byways of Bermuda.

In 2014, along with Bermuda Industrial Union president Chris Furbert and Bermuda Public Services Union president Jason Hayward, he helped to form the People’s Campaign, which has become a formidable lobbying group that advocates for the rights of government workers and the unemployed, and against unfair immigration policy proposals.

Interestingly enough, there was a time when many One Bermuda Alliance ministers openly repeated the People’s Campaign’s slogan of “Equality, Jobs and Justice”.

So it is perhaps ironic, or ominous, that under the OBA government, Tweed was given a letter effectively telling him to leave the island by January 2017.

There will be many opinions and facts put forward that would argue that, from a legal standpoint, he must go, or that from a moral standpoint, he should stay.

One argument for him to leave will be that the AME Church never advertised his position, which contravenes present immigration policy.

In yet another ironic twist, there are immigration policies that allow international business companies not to advertise locally for key positions. Are we to believe that a community-minded pastor is less important to the Bermudian society than an international business executive?

One argument for him to stay would be that his father, the legendary Kingsley Tweed, is as Bermudian as a Bermudian can get.

Yet, again according to present immigration policy, if a Bermudian has a child born outside of Bermuda, that child does not automatically get Bermudian status.

Since Tweed’s situation mirrors that of many, both scenarios are prime examples of why the country is long overdue for comprehensive immigration reform, something that he himself, along with thousands of other Bermudians, took an unprecedented stand on by occupying Parliament for five days in March this year. This action subsequently forced the OBA to abandon its proposed Pathways to Status legislation.

With that fresh in the minds of the masses, it comes as no surprise that Bermudians are ready to mobilise yet again.

Such is the sentiment expressed on social media, in our homes, in the streets, on the radio, within the workplace and inside the walls of local churches, that it is clear that the people are responding in one single voice: “United we stand, divided we fall”.

So upon us once again is the question of the ages: “Am I my brother’s keeper?”

Yes indeed. We stand with our brother, the Reverend Nicholas Tweed.