BOAT PEOPLE
– REV KEITH RUSSELL ON THE PLP SIGNS IN GRAND BAHAMA
We are living on a planet with a constantly increasing number of boat people—refugees. They are fleeing war and feminine and ethnic cleansing and unspeakable violence.
In many cases, they are heading over treacherous seas and landing on the unwelcoming shores of European countries, where they are met with the vilest assaults on their humanity.
The historical irony is that most of these refugees come from African nations. These Africans have a right to be there. These Europeans ought to and make space, transform their society to be more accommodating, to be more multicultural, and to be more human.
I hear you. But here is the thing, history and facts are stubborn, unrelenting. One of our great cultural icons Arlene Nash tells the story of a junkanooer who comes to the shack during the season for his costume. In a marvelous turn of phrase he says: I come to get me.
After 400 years of theft from Africa, the theft of its artifacts, gold, silver, rubber, uranium, cobalt and human flesh, upon which all of these European nations built their Empires and started the industrial revolution, how dear they tell Africans that they are unwelcome to their shores. Their entire existence is built on African labor and resources. One can say that the Africans are coming to Europe to get me.
And speaking about boat people, more than 90% of the ancestors of all Bahamians came here on a boat. And when they came they were not legal or free. Unless we can trace our ancestry to the Tainos, we are squatters with longevity. Therefore, we should be very careful how we use this squatters’ privilege, this gift.
This is why it is so disturbing that Mr. Pintard and his minions, in their gravelicious and desperate attempt to gain power, would choose as a center piece of their platform, an appeal to the base elements of our Bahamian psyche, stoking the vilest vitriol and hatred and xenophobia.
Through their theatrics and lies, they have many Bahamians believing that the Government of the Bahamas is engaged in a massive giving away of Bahamian passports and citizenship. Although the facts demonstrate that the system against fraud in these matters is working, in the number of prosecutions in our courts, facts don’t matter to these irresponsible desperadoes.
In their manipulative view, only FNMs love their country; only FNMs are willing to protect our sovereignty; utter nonsense. Again history and facts are stubborn.
We Bahamians must decide if we want progress, if we want a kinder and gentler nation; if we want to tone down the hate. Our neighbors to the North is a cautionary tale of where it leads when we follow the thinking on immigration espoused in the public square by these reckless FNM’s.
We have laws in our nation and international conventions we have signed that help us govern how we deal with persons who come to our shores illegally; and they are being followed. But we shouldn’t need laws for us to treat each other with common decency, or to be respectful.
Today, we remember the execution of (James Cone calls it the lynching of) a Palestinian, from the Galilee; from an obscure little town called Nazareth. Let that sink in.
Let us never ignore or dismiss the humanity of the other. Call them by their name. One of the ways of thinking about it is that we are all boat people. Be kind.
I write; you decide