Vexed Bermoothes

Mike Winfield summed up Bermuda’s situation clearly – particularly the political roadblock caused by racial alienation – at a Bermuda Race Relations Initiative meeting last night.  I encourage you to read it.

“For generations we have been fighting each other, hurling abuse at each other, always seeking to put the other down, to score points. Any excuse has us out writing new speeches, seeking new ways to castigate the other.

“And as we [the PLP and UBP] work hard to castigate the other, as we spend so much of our time trying to come out on top, so we can win the next election, could we be responsible, at least in part, for what is wrong in our community today?

“Whites are afraid, or at least reluctant to evoke the wrath or even frustration of blacks by being open and honest on how they feel. Whites tend to fall over themselves trying to say what they perceive is the right thing to say, the thing that won’t get them into too many problems and, instead come across as being insincere. Or some go to the other end of the scale and become radical in their disparaging remarks of fellow whites to the point where even to blacks, they sound extreme and insincere…

“I often ask why people are still supporting the UBP, or the PLP and so often the answer I get is: ‘My family has always supported that party, I am white so I support the UBP, or I am black so I support the PLP!’

“And it is these answers that manifest our most significant roadblocks to real progress. Because as long as the leadership of any party can rely on a significant segment of the population to always vote for their party regardless of policy, of practice and of behaviour, the whole fundamental system of democracy is threatened.

“When we get to the point when we can truly step back and say I am going to vote for the group that has the policies that I believe are right and for the people I most believe will deliver on those policies and who have my best interests at heart and those of my country, then we are maturing as a country.

“More importantly can we move beyond what we are, be it black, white, PLP, UBP, etc, and move towards what is it we want for our community, what is that we must achieve, what it is that is holding us back from really excelling, what stops us being an example to the rest of the world?”

Winfield commented on the recent row over Dr. Brown’s remark that white Bermudians would not have voted for Barack Obama:

“I am sure that I, like so many, shook our heads in disbelief when the election of President-Elect Obama, a case of huge celebration across the world became, in Bermuda, yet another reason why we should hurl abuse at each other…

“We can go on attacking each other for eternity. We can go on questioning the rationale and motivation for statements, we can go on seeking to find political gain, leap at perceived mistakes, shooting the messengers, and we can go on suffering the consequences.

“I submit, however, that the Bermudian of today is desperately seeking an alternative. They are looking for leadership that says do as I say and do as I do and then demonstrates why with their actions, they are deeply thirsty for solutions, for real talk that proposes real answers and which seeks to unite not divide. They hunger for a vision, a dream of what we may become.”