This is the first in a three-part series on "The fall of the House that Jack built".

"When humans plan, God laughs." - Anon (or it may have been me; I can't remember)

If it looks as though this piece (which I will present in three installments) is primarily about why the United Bermuda Party should disband, I want to make it clear that this concerns a number of other issues as well.

It concerns the pressing need for us, as Bermudians, to release ourselves from what amounts to nothing short of imprisonment in a social and political cage which is not really of our making, at least not the generation to which I belong, but which, for the sake of our children, we must now dismantle; and which we must dismantle with what Dr. Martin Luther King once described as "the fierce urgency of now".

I will try to outline, without apology, the salient features of history that led to the construction of that cage. I hope that this will assist us in understanding how and why we need to devise immediately an exit strategy; a way out of the unhealthy and unproductive race-based political divide which is, and has far too long been, the all-consuming feature of our island life.

I have tried very hard, in writing this, to be right. But truth, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder. So, ultimately, you may view this writing as (to borrow from former Royal Gazette editor Eric Hopwood) no more than "one man's view".

Before anyone jumps to the wrong conclusion, however, I want to say up front (and I will expand upon this in Part III) that there is really no reason to expect or to fear that Bermuda will evolve into a one-party state. The principle that "nature abhors a vacuum" comes clearly into play here.

The disappearance of the UBP, which is all but complete anyway, will give rise to the formation of at least one, possibly two, other political parties. And while I am a member of the PLP and a strong supporter of Premier Brown, I have to admit that the longevity of the PLP is hardly guaranteed.

Having regard to its own history of political cannibalism, it will require a hitherto unseen amount of self-discipline and self-restraint on the part of the back-bench (and indeed some of the front bench) to ensure sufficient cohesion to enable the Government to make good on the promises which were made to the Bermudian people in the run-up to the election.

The main hope is we are now in the process of evolving into a political and socioeconomic system which is based finally on ideology and ideas, and not on race. It may look to some like a tall order; but Bermuda, more than most, is eminently capable of becoming a positive example for the rest of the world; if only we have the will. Publication of this piece will probably invite some of the usual knee-jerk attempts to derail frank, honest and productive dialogue. If it doesn't, I shall have failed.

And while it may be tedious and tiresome to contend with the opposition and/or apathy which has been mounted against "the Big Conversation", we have to press on; remembering at all times that ignorance and fear lie at the root of all prejudice. In the eyes of those who oppose the very idea of the Big Conversation in Bermuda, some of whom are allegedly well "educated", any discussion of race or institutionalized racism or the doctrine of White Supremacy, indeed any real discussion of our history, automatically amounts to "race-baiting" for partisan political purposes.

They are dead wrong.

Apart from that, many of these commentators are placing themselves squarely on the wrong side of history. They also risk ending up looking foolish, opportunistic, insincere or, ultimately, unpatriotic.

As I was saying, the United Bermuda Party really should disband. Why?

First, however genuine were the initial goals of the UBP and whatever view we may take of its evolution, its current motivation, its integrity and sincerity, the UBP is permanently incapable of credibly presenting itself as a viable alternative government.

It is in effect now dead on arrival. We have neither the Queen's horses, nor the Queen's men to put this Humpty together again. Can anyone really deny that the United Bermuda Party is, as I have stated previously, "a poisoned brand" in marketing terms? Can the UBP ever recover from either its past or majority perceptions of its underlying historical motivation, namely the perpetuation of White Supremacy in Bermuda at the expense of the just aspirations of blacks, at the expense of human dignity, and at the expense of true community cohesion? The answer is no!

Second, have you ever wondered why we in Bermuda are apparently either incapable or fearful or scornful of open and honest dialogue concerning our group differences and perspectives?

I suggest that it is because modern Bermuda, under years of UBP administration was founded on the entirely false premise that the best way to achieve racial harmony would be to stubbornly refuse to discuss race or racism. The ultimate source of our social and political morass, the doctrine and philosophy of White Supremacy, has been until recently completely excluded from the Bermudian political lexicon.

It is as though the belief that whites are inherently superior and blacks are inherently inferior is now hard-wired into the DNA of a sizeable portion of both racial populations. We can, and we must, reverse these poisonous notions.

Even religion, when one observes the way in which the Christian Church operates in Bermuda with its "white churches" and "black churches", is clearly not immune. We still practice to this day de facto segregation on all too large a scale.

Third, In the face of a daunting array of problems looming ominously on the horizon for Bermuda and much of the rest of the world (e.g. global recession, climate change, terrorism, the relegation of young black males to the status of a permanent, and potentially very dangerous, underclass; increasing criminality and disdain for basic human life), the overriding issue of racial and social polarization threatens to leave us completely vulnerable to these awesome challenges.

For a start, we waste talent. Neither party (nor racial grouping) has what you might call a monopoly on competence or mediocrity.

In the Bermudian context, with whites politically barricading themselves within the UBP and wanting little or nothing to do with the PLP, the bulk of white intellectual input on social and political issues amounts to negative carping at best and blatant expressions of bigotry at its worst.

So long as the UBP exists whether led by the latest incarnations of "nice coloureds" (not my phrase, but as you will later see, a phrase taken from our history), or by smooth-talking and ostensibly well-meaning and "liberal" sons of the stranded gentry, our racial polarization will continue.

This is largely because it appears to be the primary creed of some of these people that they are divinely ordained to protect the status quo from significant economic or systemic change and in particular from a more equitable redistribution of wealth and opportunities. Thus they will nitpick — and nitpick is all they appear to want to do — at non-issues, such as the "leadership style" of a leader, Dr. Ewart Brown, who clearly has and practices his own style, now with the permission of a majority of the electorate.

Really, the complete burial of the UBP, indeed probably its cremation and the scattering of its ashes throughout the seven seas, can only help. As an idea whose time has come and gone, the UBP should now disband.

Not to rename itself, or to try to institute internal constitutional change in the vain hope of presenting itself as a more "democratic" institution; but to disband; to free its elected Members of Parliament from the party whip, thereby enabling them to serve, as in theory did all members of the House of Assembly until the start of party politics in Bermuda in 1963, as "independent members".

As we all know, I am hardly alone in making this recommendation.

As we shall see in the next segment, as a political party the UBP was, in the first place, founded in that year 1963 for reasons which may have been plausible then; but which are now clearly utterly irrelevant. I will go on to stress something which many of us have clearly forgotten and on which we need to concentrate: neither the founding fathers (and mothers) of the PLP nor Dr. E. F. Gordon, the father of Bermuda's Labour Movement, ever intended or foresaw in the Labour Movement's "political arm" a party based on the non-ideology of race.

I hate "the white vote"; and for that matter I equally despise "the black vote".

But the reality of both stem from our modern history whereby, apparently like planet Earth itself, "the black vote" was created overnight out of some kind of "Big Bang" reaction, spearheaded in the year 1963 by Sir Henry "Jack" Tucker, then Governor Lord Martonmere, and unknown "mandarins" in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office of the British Government.

The founding of the United Bermuda Party was ultimately an extremely urgent and frenzied reaction to the novelty of universal adult suffrage and, more significantly, the formation of the Bermuda Progressive Labour Party.

It goes without saying that several millions of pounds of British capital were at stake here; as was the fate of White Supremacy in Bermuda itself. I will be arguing that in the party political context, whites in particular need to be set free, or to free themselves. But let us make no mistake whatsoever about another simple fact, also the result of the pernicious doctrine of White Supremacy: blacks have for far too long ignored their responsibility towards each other, themselves, their children, and the entire mixed society in which they live.

It really is time, as the Jamaicans would say, for Bermudians of all stripes to "free up". And, painful and uncomfortable though it may be, the key to moving forward is, first -whether we like it or not, whether we find it "comfortable" or not to look back.

Tomorrow: Part II: How and why that House was built in the first place.