An article in the October 12, 2023 edition of The Royal Gazette, including a front-page photograph, captures something I find encouraging for our wider community. In that image, Belco president Wayne Caines is speaking with three people who were among a dozen or so who had gathered to demonstrate in front of the utility company.

First and foremost, the article features residents exercising their hard-fought-for basic human rights by showing concern regarding the increase in the cost for electricity — a significant part of any family budget. This increase adds to the impact of Bermuda’s high cost of living.

This at a time when multiple crises are leading to increased challenges across the global community. These times calls for all members of the human family to exercise their agency in response to the circumstances.

The company’s president saw fit to engage in conversation with those demonstrating. At least two demonstrators found Mr Caines’s input to be meaningful, according to the newspaper report.

It is significant that the three demonstrators captured in the photograph represent a cross-generational demographic: Lynn Millett and Sharon Riviere are elders, while Sean Smith represents a younger generation, whom Millett considers a mentee. All three happen to be Key West folk — those who have lived for some time in the Pembroke West area, and are neighbours of Belco.

One of those three happens to be a longtime friend of mine. Lynn Millett and I go back several decades. We served together as members of the Black Beret Cadre when our friendship began and I learnt from Lynn that his father had been employed at Belco as a lineman. His father was involved in the historic 1965 Belco strike and was one of those demonstrators placed before the courts, charged with assaulting some of the policemen during what was described by the media as a “riot”.

Lynn, who was 13 at the time, explained how that circumstance proved to be traumatic for his family, but that his father was eventually exonerated by the courts. However, five years later, Lynn’s father died having been electrocuted while working on an electricity pole. It goes without saying that Lynn, just a week before to his 18th birthday, was devastated by that tragedy, and left with trauma for a substantial period.

Given this context, Lynn’s engagement in the demonstration had special significance, as he visited those grounds on Serpentine Road, which has poignancy for he and his family.

While Lynn was under pressure to address some family matters, given the circumstances, he decided to bring his significant experience in social justice to that second demonstration. Not only had he been involved in the Berets but as a young father, he was a member of a small group known as the Bermuda Workers Socialist Party during the late 1970s and early 1980s. These included some former Berets and young former members of the Progressive Labour Party.

A focus of the BWSP was to address the issue of how working people bore the brunt of the implications of inflation. During the extended 1981 strike, the BWSP set up the “Striking Family Fund”, which was co-chaired by Canon the Reverend Thomas Nesbitt and the Reverend Larry Lowe. It raised $7,000, along with substantial amounts of groceries to assist families during the strike.

Lynn had also joined the anti-apartheid movement in the early 1980s and it was during this campaign that he and I staged a sit-in the office of a partner of one of Bermuda’s most prominent law firms. This person had been a member of the board of an international firm with direct South African connections, and was resident on the island.

Millett was also directly active in the labour movement, serving for a period as the chief shop steward of the Public Transportation Board Division of the Bermuda Industrial Union. This demonstrated his commitment to fostering solidarity both locally and globally.

Now retired but still, by circumstance, having to “hustle”, Lynn’s income is substantially “fixed”. Therefore, he is a part of that sector of our population that is most affected by the increase in electricity bills.

That said, the comments he made in the Gazette article reflected a statesmanlike perspective from this grassroots activist. Lynn’s input to the newspaper demonstrates an appreciation of the “Big Picture”. His actions, qualified by his approach to this contentious matter, helps to leverage the type of solidarity that is most needed in the face of the global multi-crisis. His call for conversation implies that no one should be left out.

Millett’s approach reflects the street wisdom: “Play the ball, not the man.”

Lynn went on to share with the media and his fellow demonstrators that they should not be fixated about the numbers in attendance — wisdom from his long history of activism.

Kudos to Wayne Caines for his openness and direct engagement on that occasion. As he sustains this approach, I’m hoping that others with this type of role will be encouraged to do the same. And bravo to Comrade Lynn.

• Glenn Fubler represents Imagine Bermuda