White fear of retribution from the black community about past injustices - or being dominated by the black majority - is at the root of criticism of Government's handling of electoral reform, according to former chief statistician and Senator Calvin Smith.

"White fear comes from their past history of dealing very unfairly with us," he told The Royal Gazette yesterday.

"They can't believe that we're not going to try to get even."

But there's nothing to fear because the economy is still controlled for the most part by whites, the black and white community have much more in common than differences and, historically, the black community has addressed its oppression through the democratic process, he said.

He argued too that whatever racial divide exists would be exacerbated and perpetuated by an electoral system designed to take it into account.

Sen. Smith, asked for his reaction to Monday's report of a lecture on electoral systems by politics professor David Farrell, said his gut reaction was "much ado about nothing". Dr. Farrell, while praising the ruling Progressive Labour Party for embracing electoral reform, told his audience during his presentation "Bermuda's Electoral System: Problems and Solutions" that Government should go further and examine alternatives to the first past the post system. And he wondered why race was specifically excluded from the Boundaries Commission's deliberations, since Bermuda was an "ethnically divided" society.

"Why should we go any further?" asked the senator. "What we promised to do we did and he knew that."

The Association for Due Process and the Constitution, sponsored the lecture as part of their strategy to expand the debate on electoral reform beyond the narrow limits of the Boundaries Commission's remit - and influence Whitehall to hold a constitutional conference on the changes. While the group says it is performing a public service to help people make informed submissions to the Boundaries Commission, it is also encouraging the public to make submissions that fall outside of the Boundaries Commission's mandate, saying they have every right to do so.

"There's nothing in our history to suggest we're going to get into a long period of beating up on a minority group here for the simple reason that the minority group, which is white, have a lot of economic power," Sen. Smith said. "So they are far from being in a position of being victims... I'm saying we spent most of Bermuda's history not using our position to take violent action. Certainly, we've been in the position to close down the Island but the black leadership has never fought that way."

He said a new political paradigm emerged when the PLP won the 1998 general elections, because the white minority was no longer the dominant force in politics. "The movers and shakers in the economy are white. For much of Bermuda's history, the movers and shakers in the political arena were also white. They might have been working through black people but they were white," he said. "Despite this dominance blacks have always sought to work through the democratic process."

Dr. Farrell seemed to share Sen. Smith's assessment that whites might feel threatened. "It's pretty obvious that the white minority got its way in all things," he said. "The attitude against the PLP proposals could be seen as the whites being scared of what the blacks are going to do...The whites might feel threatened under a different scenario." But he argued for a politics of accommodation which would "allow for the reality of there being different groups" and calm the anxiety.

Dr. Farrell has been pushing a form of proportional representation electoral system as the best means of achieving such accommodation.

The Association has focused its campaign on opposing the handling of electoral reform, saying a constitutional conference must be held before making any major changes to the constitution, and has not publicly expressed the concerns referred to by the professor and the senator.

"It would be short-sighted for white groups to seek ways to protect their whiteness," said Sen. Smith. "That would guarantee that blacks would do the same - especially now we've got the power to do so...It would be unfortunate if Bermuda's white population chooses this period in our history to protect their whiteness. The two groups have to find ways to preserve our common interests rather than seek ways to divide us. There are many things we share which have very little to do with race."

He added that the PLP could not take black voters for granted. "Of UBP votes, I'm sure at least 40 percent is black. I think it's very wrong to assume all the blacks would line up behind us - as the whites seem to have done with the UBP." The senator said: "It's clear their concerns about the changes is a fear of the reduction of influence by whites in the political process and a fear of being dominated by the majority black population. The way to meet this fear is by joining with blacks to deal with the common interests of the two groups such as the revitalisation of tourism, keeping a good social climate for the development of international business, protection of the environment , addressing the drugs trade and making certain the less advantaged share in the bounties of this society."