What next for silos?

March 9, 2008

Dear Sir,

We are fairly confident that the Minister of Works and Engineering, Derrick Burgess will repudiate the story in Saturday's Royal Gazette entitled: "Govt: Cement silos can stay." If indeed he revealed a few weeks ago the new company Maxcem could only operate the plant until June 30, then we are sure he will honour that commitment because it is the right thing to do.

The Minister was quoted as saying yesterday: "There is no plan for Wedco to require Maxcem Bermuda Ltd., to relocate the silos at Dockyard. However, modifications to the Dockyard Master Development Plan may lead to a review of the situation."

No doubt, the statement reeks of a suspicious unscrupulous U-Turn that virtually saw the hangman's noose around Jim Butterfield's neck, to make way for others. This can't be true!

It is important to note Wedco also told the BCC shareholders in November, 2007 their lease would not be renewed. But hang on to that thought; the decision to eject the former company if they did not abide by the wishes of Wedco only came to a head last year. The festering problem commenced long before that and government could not broker a reasonable solution.

Now that situation is suddenly different. Is it because they have new players who know how to play the game? When did this new master plan come off the drawing board? These, and other questions in due course, will undoubtedly reveal what can happen behind closed doors. No transparency here!

So, after the spoils, in comes The Minister, no more playing around! Let's sit down and break bread. Better yet, let's have our cake and eat too.

TOPPY AND SAUNDRA COWEN

Smith's Parish

Keep the Draft

March 10,2008

Dear Sir,

I hesitate to throw my hat into this ring but have faith in "opinion counts", so here goes ! It can easily be understood why a group of young men resist The Draft ... It takes "sacrifice". In that sacrifice there should be found those wonderful words pride and duty.

Duty is the backbone of a country, a country for instance being called to war to eliminate evil, such as the 1939 war against Hitler, brave men making the sacrifice to defend the weak, when half of Europe was being put under the boot of Germany. Who knows, whether we would all be here today had we not had a strong army to resist; not discounting the fact that America also saw the sacrifice that had to be made, and many lost their lives in doing so. Human Rights? An old fashioned word today but to be cherished.

Duty, pride, conscience, all are wrapped up in the word sacrifice, all of these precious words help make the journey from boy to man. No it cannot be easy to be conscripted into the Regiment, but one hears of many cases of young men in Bermuda who hated the thought of going but enjoyed the experience eventually.

The issue, of course, is these young men want the right and the freedom to refuse to be drafted to serve in The Regiment, a volunteer system has proved unsuccessful as there were not enough volunteers to form a regiment. A Regiment, I might add, that we are all so proud of when we see them marching on parade so magnificently and professionally, a Regiment that comes to the aid of any need required and does a first class job in the community.

I doubt if there is a man, woman, or child, who would not stand shoulder to shoulder in defence of this lovely island, our home, if attacked by terrorists.

So may I say with the utmost respect to BAD "Move On" or "Try it, you might like it"? There are many alternatives that can be offered to BAD, in the volunteer community sector.

Finally, with illogical humour – when men have babies to level the fighting field, we can re-evaluate! Until then, keep the draft, keep The Bermuda Regiment, and continue to be proud and grateful to such a great body of men.

DIANA WILLIAMS

Pembroke

Disbanding the UBP

March 10, 2008

Dear Sir,

Country before party; party before self. This priority of allegiances is the unwritten contract upon which the citizen authorises his elected officials to govern over him.

Many UBP supporters believe the Premier and several Ministers have, through self-dealing and corruption, repeatedly breached that contract, thereby proving themselves unfit to govern. Indeed, even several PLP supporters have stated that the Premier placed his own interests ahead of those of his party when he chose to stave off a leadership challenge by calling the election immediately after the Privy Council ruled against him in his bid to prevent the disclosure of further evidence of corruption.

They argue that a new PLP leader untarnished by scandal would have easily won the election with a significantly larger majority and would have spared the country the race-based electioneering that further divided the black and white communities. The question we must ask is - what can we do about it?

For the most part, the black community has already spoken. They returned the PLP to power with a clear majority, and even though the Premier convinced many PLP supporters not to boycott the election by promising a leadership review immediately after the election, that promise has been allowed to die a quiet death without repercussion.

For the white community, and in particular for the UBP party faithful, there is indeed an important step that can be taken to better ensure that the next election does not result in the return to office of persons whom they believe to continue to breach the sacred contract between citizen and elected official, but such step requires that the leaders of the UBP strictly apply to themselves the standard of integrity they claim the Premier has failed to meet - to place the interests of country before those of party and self.

The last election made clear that the UBP will never again get back in power. Simply put, if you can't beat an incumbent mired in a sewer of self-dealing and corruption, you're never going to win. (Yes, it's possible, as one UBP official argues, that the UBP will get back in power when the growing corruption spreads its tentacles so far and so wide that the island falls apart, but does anyone really want to wait for that precondition to become a reality?)

What the white community must understand is why the UBP did not get back in power, why the UBP cannot attract high-quality black Bermudians, and why these failures have self-perpetuated to the point where there is no longer any realistic chance of the UBP regaining power. Let's examine these assertions in more detail.

As a white person, I do not profess to understand the myriad of reasons why the black community voted as it did, but I do acknowledge that the collective statements of several black social commentators have a strong ring of truth.

Black Bermudians voted the PLP back into power not because they ignored the allegations of corruption, but because they decided that even if the allegations were true, they were not prepared to throw out a black party for moral failure simply to replace it with a party that was established by powerful white families that had promoted or condoned segregation and a racial glass ceiling. Simply put, the black community's distain for the UBP is even stronger than its distain for corruption.

While the UBP and its apologists may point to a number of pro-black policy changes made by the UBP over the last forty years, they can never erase from the minds of black voters the belief that the powerful white families that founded the UBP were the initial cause of the discriminatory practices in the first place.

Indeed, the black community's distain for the UBP has always been there, but in the early years it was counterbalanced by two factors: strong black UBP candidates (doctors, lawyers and business and community leaders) and the black community's lack of faith in its own ability to govern. Today, those two counterbalancing factors are no longer there.

When the racial glass ceiling fell in Bermuda, blacks rose through the ranks, slowly at first and then quickly with the growth in international business. Today, there are simply too many successful black men and women in Bermuda to ever again believe that blacks lack the inherent ability to govern this island. The successive victories of the PLP in 1998, 2003 and 2007 further solidified that belief.

The ability of the UBP to attract outstanding black men and women to run for office under its banner has been diminishing for some time. We all know these men and women.

They have university degrees from good schools and now are lawyers, accountants, doctors, dentists and senior officers of large insurance companies and investment firms. They are good parents that are responsibly raising good children. In essence, they have spent their entire lives proving themselves worthy. Yet, even though they have so much to offer the country, they have refused to enter the political arena.

In some cases they simply have no interest in politics or they feel that, with work and family commitments, they already have too much on their plate. But in far too many cases, there is simply no place for them to go.

To run as PLP candidates, they risk having their good reputations tainted by the clouds of self-dealing and corruption that swirl around the Premier and certain Members of his Cabinet. To run as UBP candidates, they risk having their good reputations tainted (as well as being ostracised by their families and friends) not only for joining a party that was established by powerful white families who promoted segregation and a racial glass ceiling, but also for undermining the belief of blacks in themselves because it plays right into the old myth that only a white party can successfully govern, and the UBP will always be a white party in the eyes of too many Bermudians.

To bring this point home, the UBP need only look at whom it chose as chairman of the party and gave a safe seat to in the last election - a man who, while in a position of trust, stole $500,000 worth of heroin, and then sold the drugs for personal profit.

If this is the best black candidate that the UBP can offer the public, then it is time to fold its tent. It doesn't matter that the man subsequently rehabilitated himself. Public office is not simply another form of employment where one earns a living; it is a sacred position of trust that mandates the holder to religiously safeguard the collective future of every man, woman and child on this island. An office of such importance should only be given to someone who has a consistent track record of honesty and integrity. The stakes are too high to do otherwise.

With the counterbalancing factors gone, all that is left is the black community's distain for the UBP. For this reason, the perception in both the black and white community is that the UBP will never regain power, which makes it even less likely that the UBP can attract high-quality black candidates, which makes it even less likely the UBP will regain power. In other words, it's now past the tipping point - it's a self-perpetuating cycle.

The choice for the leaders of the UBP is difficult yet clear. They must adhere to the unwritten terms of the sacred covenant of governance - they must put the interests of the country ahead of those of the party and themselves.

Simply put, they must disband the UBP. By doing so, they will create a political void that will finally allow the best and the brightest from the black community to enter the political arena. These men and women, united in a new party untainted with a political legacy of racism, will be able to offer the electorate a dedication to honesty, integrity and skill that both the white and black communities yearn for.

Such a bold move by the leaders of the UBP requires a giant leap of faith - they must believe that the best and the brightest in the black community love this country as much as they do; they must believe that these men and women are capable of providing this country with effective, honest government; they must believe that the ability and personal integrity of a man has nothing to do with the colour of his skin, and they must prove the sincerity of that belief by entrusting their future and the future of this country to the best and the brightest from the black community. Such a giant leap of faith would be a significant first step toward not only ending racial disharmony in this country, but also ending what many UBP supporters see as the growing tide of self-dealing and corruption by the present government.

The choice is clear. The UBP can either continue to exist and its leaders and supporters simply accept the fact that the PLP will continue to hold power regardless of its self-dealing and corruption, or the UBP can die in the hope that the next group of black leaders conduct the affairs of public office the same way they have conducted their entire lives – with honesty, skill and integrity.

CLEAN SLATE

Smith's Parish

Standing by comments

March 3, 2008

To: Michael Hardy (R.G. March 1)

Dear Sir,

I stand by my generalisation. I acknowledge there are always exceptions to generalisations and invite you to join CURB and meet some of those I consider "exceptions".

In any case any white person who recognises the economic and psychological damage inflicted on black people as a result of decades of racism and the privilege it has bestowed on them as a white person and seriously wants to correct the evil, they are not going to be put off by my comments!

But since you want specifics: Minister Terry Lister (R.G. March 3) provides one. Absolutely every Corporation and company in this little Island of ours knew that Minister Terry Lister with all of his qualifications and high powered experiences was totally and completely irrelevant to all of them. There were NO exceptions — not a single one!

I do, in fact, have many other reasons for my generalisation but does anyone need another? If Terry Lister was irrelevant to all of those white people you can bet that the rest of us are even more irrelevant!

EVA N. HODGSON

Crawl

Paws for thanks

March 10, 2008

Dear Sir,

On February 24, the Bermuda SPCA held one of its most successful Paws to the Park sponsored dog walks to date. Under sunny skies and a balmy temperature, 200 supporters and an estimated 100 dogs enjoyed socialising and exercising together.

We thank all of the participants for their hard work in gathering sponsorship and for converting the pledges into cash by walking on the day. Our thanks also go to volunteers and staff for their contribution to making this day a success and to the Department of Parks for the use of the Botanical Gardens.

The SPCA would also like to thank the following companies for donating products contained in the walkers' backpacks John Barritt & Son; AC Brewer Distributors Ltd; Dunkley & Pioneer Dairies (Pedigree), Animal and Garden House and Butterfield & Vallis. As always, we are extremely grateful for the support of our corporate sponsors, Continental Motors, North Rock Communications Ltd., Brighton Nurseries and Noah's Ark Feed & Supply.

The event would not be successful without the support of the public – your participation does make a difference in helping us help those who are unable to speak for themselves.

DIANA DOWNS

President

SPCA