April 22, 2003

IT is unfortunate that in 2003 one of PLP's highest-ranking political figures continues to hold and espouse hateful and divisive views.

The recent Letter to the Editor by Progressive Labour Party Senator Calvin Smith exposed a brand of wretched thinking representative of a bygone era and has no place in modern Bermuda.

Over the past five years Senator Smith has tried time and again to portray the black members of the United Bermuda Party as people who have compromised their integrity and "blackness" due to their decision to support a party other than the PLP.

He continues to attempt to link the current members of the New United Bermuda Party team (most of whom were neither members nor supporters of the UBP during his favourite historical era of the 1960s and 1970s) to the decisions, both negative and positive, made by the old UBP.

Let me say unequivocally that the redress of past and present injustices and the levelling of the economic playing field are at the top of the agenda of the New United Bermuda Party. For us (unlike the current PLP leadership) it's not about improving our personal economic status, or the economic status of people who think like us - or people who just "happen" to be our friends and relatives.

Unlike the PLP, we don't believe in idle talk or false promises. Unlike the PLP, we know that if the people give us the opportunity to serve as their Government, we must deliver real and substantive change.

The people have had five years of a PLP Government that believe that simply saying they support economic empowerment is the same as delivering it. Bermudians want and deserve better than this.

The PLP's record speaks for itself. During their tenure their priorities have been Caricom, GPS, fast ferries, parties and generating frequent-flyer miles. Are these really what the regular working families of Bermuda have been crying out for? I think not.

The introduction of single-seat constituencies, while poorly handled, could have been the first step in bringing equality to Bermuda, not the last. Instead of standing up for the common man, the PLP Government have given the impression that they are too busy enjoying the perks of power to take an active interest in improving the lives of regular Bermudians.

The task of removing the remaining barriers is not an easy one and it will take a real commitment from all of us.

Bermuda in the 21st century can no longer support two Bermudas, one where opportunity is a birthright and the other where enjoyment of the full benefit of citizenship is unfulfilled. We must begin to talk to each other and continue to develop ideas that will make Bermuda better for our children.

Senator Smith doesn't seem to comprehend or respect this vision.

He continues to promote the flawed belief that 1960s thinking is the best approach to solving 21st- century problems. Senator Smith continues to express the simplistic view that black Bermudians are held hostage and have no choice but to support the selfish and failed policies of the current PLP. Bermuda and the world have changed a lot since the 1960s.

Any organisation which seeks to serve the people must continually grow, change and evolve to address the people's needs. The New United Bermuda Party has done just that. I am proud to say that I am part of a team that, "ain't your father's UBP", a team of new and bold ideas, a team of hope and optimism.

It is my eternal hope that Senator Calvin Smith and others who share his thinking will join the rest of Bermuda in the 21st century and begin to wrap their intellects around delivering real solutions to the challenges facing regular Bermudians.

JAMAHL SIMMONS, MP

Pembroke

Swagger and spleen

April 20, 2003

HISTORIANS do vital work. There is history without them, but they are its memory. Accurate history is an act of reverence: we acknowledge our origins. Or, sometimes, the past made cogent is our best evidence of things to come.

Your correspondent "Historian" (Mid-Ocean News, April 7, 2003) is all swagger and spleen. He trades in allegations - all of them false, mangled, or incomplete - not in the verifiable evidence and claims that are required of the vocation of which he pretends.

Jews have lived in Palestine for millennia. They have been a significant fraction of its population from the 19th century. Israel was established with United Nations blessing in 1948 on land of the Palestine Mandate, land that was not the possession of any sovereign state.

Attacked by five Arab nations - Egypt, Jordan, Syria, Iraq and Lebanon - Israel saved itself by defeating them. Arab hostility persists - there have been three subsequent wars - despite peace treaties with Egypt and Jordan. More recently, Palestinians rejected - in 2000 - a peace treaty that would have given them control of East Jerusalem and more than 90 per cent of the West Bank and Gaza.

The Palestinians who rejected that offer preferred the violence of a second intifada (uprising). Suicide bombing has been one of their preferred styles of attacking Israelis for more than ten years. Hamas, Islamic Jihad and the Al Akhsa Martyrs Brigade (an offshoot of Yasser Arafat's Palestinian Authority) have used it extensively against Israeli citizens and other residents. Killing oneself to decimate the civilians of another state is an abomination to civilised people everywhere. Describing it as "martyrdom", bribing people to do it only compounds the crime. The Israelis try ferociously to stop suicide bombing (would any government do less?) Yet "Historian" thinks the bombers are plucky and admirable.

"Historian's" remarks about ancient Jews and Romans come to this: he doesn't think Israel has a right to exist. Too bad. It does, and will.

Nineteenth-century nationalism - Zionism is its expression - was one spur to Israel's creation. Religious memory and the Holocaust were two more. Rancour like that of "Historian" is a fourth. The reality of Israeli life nevertheless exceeds these origins. Eighty per cent of its people are secular. Its open economy and democratic political system compare to the poverty and autocracy of other states in the region. Which is the better model: Israel or its feudal neighbours?

The Middle East is complicated, its evolution uncertain. Iraq has a new opportunity. One hopes that Israelis and Palestinians may have one too. Neither side has anything to learn from "Historian". He is craven and anonymous. I am . . .

DAVID WEISSMAN

Sandys and New York City

@TIMES-18:Powerful message

April 20, 2003

I AM writing this letter to comment on your recent thought-provoking Opinion (Mid-Ocean News, April 17) surrounding our Government's alleged support of the Cuban regime. It is very seldom that I read the Mid-Ocean News, any local paper for that matter.

However, to stumble across such an enticing article as yours revived my belief in the ability of the press to portray a reflective and objective composition of thoughts surrounding controversial subjects.

Your article left me wanting to learn more, not only about Castro's regime, but also the abominable contradictions that lie within our local Government.

During the course of my first university degree, I visited Cuba for three weeks to participate in a study-abroad programme. The course was titled "Contemporary Cuban Culture and Society" and throughout my brief time at the University of Havana, I was overwhelmed with the conflicting messages that bombarded me from all divisions of the so-called proletarian Cuban society.

Your article linked many of these fundamental political issues and/or contradictions to our local context, at a time when such a link is necessary, and I found that very engaging. However, I have one comment of criticism - constructive, I hope.

Such a powerful message, and important issue, is something that I feel should be relayed to the entire Bermudian public. Although your article was very well written, with a consistent flow of thoughts, I found the language used to be above what the average reader may be willing or able to absorb.

I am not entirely sure to whom you were targeting when writing this article, but if it was the general public, your language was superfluous. If I, as an university student, had to repeatedly pull out my dictionary to get through the article, I can only imagine that the majority of readers probably gave up before the third paragraph.

This is an important contemporary issue that brings to the surface many questions that the Bermudian public needs to ask about its own Government. Therefore, the language used should appeal to the majority.

However, despite this, I commend and thank you for writing such an informing and interesting piece. It is a pleasure to find such well-written press and that is what journalism should be about.

N. ALEXANDER CABRALL

St. David's

@TIMES-18:Take a closer look

April 17, 2003

THE tone of your Opinion today titled The Useful Idiots Guide to Totalitarianism reminded me of an old Soviet joke. It took the form of a question during a call-in show on Radio Armenia.

Q: Is it possible to create socialism in a capitalist country like, say, Holland?

A: Sure it is, but what did the Dutch ever do to you?

Fidel Castro's literacy programmes, medical system, etc. look nice from a GREAT distance. You'd have to be crazy to ever want to live there.

One example of what he's managed to do for his country since taking power: I watched the documentary Buena Vista Social Club with my family when we lived in Azerbaijan, one of the former Central Asian Soviet republics.

Watching Ry Cooder and son driving through the streets of Havana, my family and I immediately recognised the fading, crumbling buildings - this is exactly what communism will do to a beautiful city. Anyone who's visited a socialist country will recognise this cultural trademark of totalitarian rule instantly.

Perhaps Dr. Ewart Brown should go to Cuba on his way to one of the many Caricom meetings that Government Ministers now attend. He should take a closer look at Castro's regime before he runs his mouth off defending his buses/ferry deal with Cuba on the grounds that all things are relative. Castro's administration has its positive features relative to what exactly, Dr. Brown?

DAVID STUBBS

Buckingham, United Kingdom