Fight crime, litter & hostility

December 7, 2008

Dear Sir,

During the past 12 years I have given talks on Bermuda's Parliament and its practice and procedures to hundreds of tourists. Most of them come from the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom, and they have shown considerable interest in our Parliament. I chat with them at the end of my talks and I have been very concerned recently about some of their remarks.

For example a number say that crime, particularly violent crime, less friendly behaviour by some Bermudians, and the increase in litter everywhere gives them great concern, and they will voice these concerns to their relatives and friends when they return home. With the world in financial turmoil it is essential that our country make every effort to remove these concerns. We must remember that Bermuda is not "Another World", it is very much a part of it, and tourism is being adversely affected by the anti-social behaviour of a growing number of Bermudians.

JOHN GILBERT

Paget

Double standard

December 6, 2008

Dear Sir,

The Education Minister gets fired for not moving quickly enough with education reform. Who fires the Tourism Minister for tourism's dismal performance?

GOOD FOR THE GANDER

Sandys

Obey traffic signs

December 3, 2008

Dear Sir,

Just a reminder to the public that traffic on King Street is not allowed to cross Reid Street between the hours of 8 a.m. and 9.15 a.m. and 4 p.m. and 6 p.m. There is a very logical reason for this. Bermudian drivers tend to be quite kind and will stop to let an offender cross Reid Street. This then stops traffic all the way back into the intersection by Island Trading during rush hour. I received a ticket once because I was stuck in the middle of the intersection thanks to a kind-hearted soul who was aiding a traffic offender. Please, read the signs as you go down King Street – it is clearly marked.

AH

Pembroke

We need a university

December 3, 2008

Dear Sir,

Greetings, Mr. Editor, allow me a few lines to offer my heartfelt thanks and congratulations to Mr. Philip Perinchief for stating the obvious in yesterday's daily, re: the long overdue idea that the Bermuda College become an accredited four year university/institution. Given our "progressive" economies, politics, social programs, etc., it's high time that the standards of education increase and improve as well. I implore my fellow electorate to demand as much, that we may compete and participate for employment and advancement, on a level with our foreign counterparts, saving, (at most times), the added expenses of overseas living costs associated with study abroad! Additionally, may someone (anyone), please "educate" me as to why this obvious idea has yet to be considered and/or implemented?

DINGLES 521

Devonshire

Leaders earn respect

November 19, 2008

Dear Sir,

I hope you will print my letter as I feel the message is timely.

My fellow Bermudians I am deeply saddened by the ever increasingly racial conflict perpetrated against the minority white population at the hands of elected Government officials orchestrated by our Leader Dr. Ewart Brown. Having just returned from the jubilant result of the US election was shocked to read the heading in your paper of Dr. Brown's supposition that white Bermudians would have voted for John McCain. I hasten to add that the Premier's spokesman Julian Hall clearly got it all wrong in his assessment of Obama's campaign proceeding his election. Further, his comments regarding Obama's culturisation as being completely white is principally flawed as he married a black woman which is clearly indicative that he identified with his black heritage!

I am a white Bermudian living in the US with a Bermuda heritage spanning nearly 400 years. Both my family and I volunteered for Obama campaign headquarters in Princeton, NJ the three weeks preceding the election. I am proud to have voted for Obamas along with my family and many friends. I note that Princeton is home to fourteen Pulitzer prize winners and whilst diverse is on overwhelmingly white community that voted 72 percent for Obama, thus clearly voting the man on the content of his character not the colour of his skin.

How dare the Premier presume the politics of white Bermudians. White Bermudians have long embraced black leaders, in point of fact for a great deal longer than our US counterpart. Leaders like E.T. Richards, a man who come from humble beginnings in Berbice, Guyana. John Swan, probably the most loved and respected leader Bermuda will ever see. Others like Jim Woolridge, a statesman of unequalled precedence, or maybe the Premier's very Aunt Gloria McPhee a woman of extraordinary intelligence, wisdom and love for her fellow Bermudians, etc., etc. I find this constant stock on white Bermuda both distasteful and unproductive not to mention blatantly wrong. It is entirely suspect that the Premier and his party have wilfully divided a loving nation for personal and purposeful intent. It is a poor reflection on the Premier that he is the very first unapproachable leader of our Island, surrounding himself and his ego with countless bodyguards. My last meeting with Dame Lois ended in a warm embrace, a kind word and a loving smile on a Hamilton street. A leader deservingly earned respect and not demanding unearned respect.

It would be my proposition that the day I as a minority see the PLP put forward a white candidate as their Leader we will truly have evolved. As the UBP have had many leaders both black and white it is a point they have no need to prove.

In closing I will share on important lesson I learnt by the example of my Uncle Flip Schulze who as one of Americas foremost photo journalists spent eight years of his life living and documenting the civil rights movement. He brought the message of Martin Luther King to the American people through Life Magazine. He took that assignment against the advice of his peers, but he felt strongly that MLK's message needed to be brought to mainstream America.

One day my skinny white uncle was asked by his close friend Martin Luther King to attend a meeting of the Southern Conference Baptist Ministers. As they entered the church one of the Baptist Ministers pulled Martin aside and said, "What's the white guy doing here, this is a black mans meeting." To which Martin replied, "He is my trusted friend and if he has to go, I go too! What would make us any better than them if we judge based on his colour?"... My uncle stayed. The point being MLK was not about white and black he was about right and wrong, a point clearly missed by our leadership

ANDREW W. OUTERBRIDGE

Princeton, New Jersey

Honour Saint Sally Bassett

Dear Sir,

The Memorialization of a Slave. This composition is based on a front-page story of a November weekend edition of the Bermuda Sun under the headlines "Race Row Swirls Around Statue". Why did City Hall turn down Sally Bassett? The memorialization of a slave, not in my park, not in my back yard! Be it Sally Bassett or any other slave, because I have no space left for a slave! Why did City Hall turn down Sally Bassett? Because!

The Bronze Statue of Sally Bassett proclaims in dramatic fashion, in poignant artistic terms, in unambiguous clarity. An era that transpired between two racially significant events that had profound impact, influence and consequences on Bermuda's social landscape! The first event was the advent of the exhausted and violated, enslaved Africans, who landed hungry and thirsty, chained and shackled at Barrs Bay Hamilton. In the 17th century! The second event was the 1959 boycott of apartheid theatres which also served as a catalyst in dismantling racial segregation on a much broader social level, in Bermuda's ongoing racial evolution!

Because! The statue of Sally Bassett boldly exposed the irrefutable, undeniable truth that between the landing and the boycott, black Bermudians experienced physical and emotional disfigurement, brutal whippings and fiery public executions, inflicted by cold-blooded powerful white hands! Injustice was the established rule, the daily norm, the status quo, virtually exclusive to the so called Negroes, but thank God, its no long so!

Because! The statue of Sally Bassett is a provocative symbolic depiction of a form of past racist oppression, that has suppressed, but has failed to silence the voices of protest, the marches of protest, the voting of protest, within the black community, who are the scarred but not scared, who are the bruised but not beaten, who are the hurt but not helpless, who are the knocked down but not knocked out prisoners of hope, no longer the victims of despair between the landing and the boycott.

Because! The statue of Sally Bassett, unapologetically awakes memories of a time when from those wh landed to those who boycotted, all were humiliated, intimidated and mis-educated by a systemic poison of racial manipulation, fostered, controlled and perpetuated by a partially eclipsed white oligarchy, woven into the social fabric with an unshakeable belief in the decency and justice, of inherited white privilege and generational white supremacy!

Optimistically, a growing number of enlightened white people no longer consider it a racial taboo, to concede that it is indeed true! No longer consider the assertion to be a polarising racial cliché, but a looking you dead in the face, fact of life in Bermuda! The memorialization of a slave, if not at City Hall, well maybe at Crow Lane, where a bronze statue of Johnny Barnes waves motionlessly and meaninglessly at every passing motorist and where Sally Bassett was on June 1, 1730 burnt alive at the stake!

I can see the consuming red, hot flames and dense black smoke of injustice. I can hear Sally's haunting cries of innocence, and smell the nauseating roasting flesh of a grotesque form of vengeance! I can see Sally's bronze statue erected on the very steps of City Hall, for everyone to see and for no one to forget the memory of the then slave, now saint, Sally Bassett! Mr. Major Sutherland Madeiros, if you have no space for a slave, why not a saint! For Sally Bassett is no longer a slave, she is a saint!

R.J.

Devonshire

P.s. the elderly slave Sarah Sally Bassett was unjustly accused and condemned, as a co-conspirator in a plot to poison her granddaughter's white slave owner! Without a defence lawyer, without creditable evidence, without a jury of her peers, without a judge or appeal, without due process, without justice! When will the victimisation of Sally Bassett end?! the day when the descendants of slaves and saints, remember the landing; remember the boycott; remember Sally Bassett; and take a solid as a rock, uncompromising stand!

Access for all

November 29, 2008

Dear Sir,

This letter is to appeal to all shop owners who have steps, two or more, to have at least one hand rail for elderly people to pull themselves up to go into the shops. It is extremely scary to go into the shops that only have the glass window to hold on to. — Marks & Spencer, Strands are among these places on Reid Street. If you are a little unsteady about coming down or going up, it's frightening.

A couple of years ago Gibbons new renovation building had no rail and I wrote to Mr. Gibbons who wrote me back a letter. Thanking me and he had a rail put up right away on the men's entrance.

So merchants, take notice of your entrance and see that they are safe to go up and come down. I hope this letter will bring results, because I know lots of elderly are nervous about taking the chance. I will not go into a shop if it does not have a rail. I'll walk around till I find an elevator even if it takes a while. A fall can be very dangerous to old people.

AN ELDERLY PERSON

Devonshire

Grateful

November 29, 2008

Dear Sir,

Today, Saturday, I saw the face of a man who, unless he stops overtaking cars on blind corners, will be another squished and dead, motorcyclist. If I had been going less slowly or ten feet up the road Bermuda would have had one more squished fatality.

GRATEFUL NOT TO HAVE BEEN HURT

Paget

Bring back Tech

December 5, 2008

Dear Sir,

Plus ca change, plus c'est la meme! It never ceases to amaze me how doubtless well-meaning people can surface with some new brilliant idea re some particular aspects of education.

In this instance I refer to the column in The Royal Gazette edition of the 4th December 2008, P13; which, in turn referred to: I quote: "how to get students ready for industry". We have been through all this before and much money will doubtless be spent on researching this proposal project! With your permission I would like to take this opportunity to enlighten the people concerned with the project what happened in the past as regards the subject under review.

Quite a number of years ago, I was appointed Head of the Electrical Department at the then Bermuda Technical Institute, Friswell's Hill.

This was a boys' secondary school which not only provided an excellent general education; but as the boys progressed through the years, also gave instruction in motor vehicle engineering, electrical installation, carpentry and construction and general mechanical engineering.

It was a small school, but with a dedicated staff, divided between Bermudians and expats. It gives me great pleasure to recall some of them. Messrs. Guishard, Carey, Maxwell, Foggo, Castle, Alvarez, Henderson, Molyneaux, Barn, Smith and myself. The Institute was based on the Technical High School concept existing in the UK and had been introduced by the excellent principal, Mr. Ted Crawford. In my case I taught some technical drawings and science with the additional subject, electrical installation, etc.

When I arrived there were no external students except at evening classes; but as time went on I insisted that we recruited trainees from the rapidly burgeoning industrial field. Consequently we were able to start "day-release" classes for trainees from firms such as Masters, Belco, HWP, Universal, Canber, etc. and the Telephone Company. I further insisted that they sat external examinations such as City and Guilds of London and U.L.C.I. installation exams. We also began courses in air-conditioning/refrigeration and basic electronics.

Alas, after almost nine years of dedicated work by the staff, disaster overtook the Technical work. A certain UN "expert", Dr. Ford, was introduced to speed up the work of integrating the Hotel School (Prospect), the B.T.I. and the Fifth Form Centre to form the Bermuda College. His opening gambit was: "I don't believe in City and Guilds examinations." More of which later, but the integration led to the virtual demise of specialist technical training in Bermuda.

It further led to my services no longer being required (sic) and I very reluctantly had to leave Bermuda, eventually being posted to Africa. (Note: There I discovered that a certain U.N. official was ejected from Lusaka because he was threatening to ruin the technical education there!)

Since that time there have been a number of attempts to resurrect technical training in Bermuda, although one "training officer" resorted to sending his charges to a technical college in the UK. Perhaps Mr. Burland and his colleagues will have some success with his suggested project, although I feel that his diversification is too widespread. I note, too, that someone has mooted the idea of a university in Bermuda. Instead, why not reconstitute a proper unit specialising in craft and technical subjects, to replace the late, lamented Technical Institute? One stipulation I should make would be that exams were external.

R. BRACEWELL

Hamilton Parish