The Eneas Folders

Destroying The Myth

2011-01-11T04:19:00.001-08:00

There are many myths which those of us in African Diaspora have encountered and had to overcome during the Diaspora’s settlement in the New World over the past five hundred years.Some people have come to regard these myths as fact, hence it is our responsibility to dispel these misconceptions where ever they appear.

Well into the ‘60s, there were several sports and positions in some sports which the “sports authorities “ identified as being physically and mentally unsuited for Black people.This type casting was a stigma which haunted Blacks around the world.

In 1930 Olympiad in Germany, Jese Owens was able to nullify Hitler’s propaganda about superiority of the Arian race by winning four gold medals. Then there were the long distance events. Roger Bannister broke the four minute mile barrier in 1954 and it was felt that the mile and longer races were the domain of Caucasian or white people. White domination of these events would another decade until the arrival of the Kenyan, Kip Kieno. His entrance on the international track and field scene signaled the ascendancy of Africans, both men and women, in the long distance events.

On August 27, 1965, Keino lowered the world record of the 3000 metres by over 6 seconds to 7:39.6 at his first attempt at the distance. He won two gold medals (1500 & 5000 metres) at the inaugural All-Africa Games. Later in that year he broke the 5000 m world record held by Ron Clarke clocking 13:24.2. At the 1966 Commonwealth Games in Kingston, Jamaica he won both the mile and three mile run. In the next Commonwealth Games, Keino won the 1500 metres and was third in the 5000 metres.

At the 1968 Summer Olympics in Mexico City, he won the 1500 metres gold medal (defeating American favourite and world record holder Jim Ryun by 20metres, the largest winning margin in the history of the event ) and a silver medal in the 5000 metres l. Four years later, he won the 3000 metres steeplechase gold and 1500 metres silver at the 1972 Summer Olympics in Munich, Germany. He retired in 1973.

For years, especially in the Southern United States where Blacks were prohibited from attending white academic institutions as a result of racial segregation,their exclusion extended to sports like football. In the schools of the Northern States, Blacks excelled athletically,particularly in football. In both locales,Blacks were virtually barred from certain positions like quarterback, middle linebacker and even kickers. At the professional level,it was unheard of to see a Black quarterback or middle linebacker.

Black college quarterbacks used to be a novelty outside of the traditional Black colleges of the southeast. Conventional wisdom before about 1975 held that Blacks could not hold leadership positions on the field, and the split second decision making required of college quarterbacks and middle linebackers was more than Blacks could handle.

The initial sprinkling of Black quarterbacks bagan with Fritz Pollard of Brown University (1915), then Wilmet Sidat-Singh of Syracuse(1937) and Willie Thrower of Michigan State(1953). By the ‘60s, the Big Ten Schools began to liberalize their football programmes by recruiting Black quarterbacks. Wilbur Hollis at the University of Iowa and Sandy Stephens at the University of Minnesota became quarterbacks and led their schools to conference titles and national recognition. Blacks were now playing at big time schools and some black quarterbacks would emerge in the NFL like James Harris,Warren Moon and Doug Williams. Today, the football landscape is totally different among colleges and in the NFL.

The last bastions of exclusion for Blacks were tennis, golf and swimming.In tennis, Althea Gibson and Arthur Ashe were able to become champions.In golf, there was Lee Elder and now Tiger Woods.In swimming Anthony Neste from Suriname was a gold medalist in the 1988 Olympics.

Baseball has to viewed from a different perspective.The athletic capability of the Black baseball player was never in question. Major League Baseball knew that Josh Gibson, Satchell Paige, “Cool Papa” Bell and Oscar Charleston were in the same league as Ruth, Speaker and Cobb.It was outright racial discrimination that kept Blacks out of Major League Baseball until 1947 when Jackie Robinson was signed by Branch Rickey to play for the Brooklyn Dodgers.Robinson’s entrance into Major League Baseball was described as “breaking the colour line”.

The basis for this article stems from the recent swimming success of Arianna Vanderpool-Wallace who represented The Bahamas at the 10th FINA World Short Course Swimming Championships in Dubai, United Arab Emirates where she won a bronze medal in the women’s 50 meter freestyle. Arianna achievement depicts the strides the sport of swimming has made over the past three decades. Some people may remember that Arianna’s mother, Tietchka formerly Knowles,was an outstanding swimmer as she dominated her age group during the ‘70s. Tietchka, in a sense, “broke the colour line” in The Bahamas as swimming was a ‘White Sport’ in The Bahamas.She was one of the pioneer swimmers along with others like Anthony and Jane Saunders and my two sons, Geoffrey and Timothy.

There were several reasons for this, lack of facilities-no pools and lack of coaching. Betty Cole,Tietchka’s first coach, recognized the inequalities of the day and sought to initiate change by introducing Blacks to competitive swimming in The Bahamas. It has been a long haul ;however, the hard developmental years are yielding outstanding results at the national level, at the regional level with the CARIFTA GAMES, at the hemispheric level and now with Arianna at the World level.

Gone are the days when the prevailing view was that Blacks were not cut out for world class competitive swimming. Anthony Neste was not an aberration and Arianna has confirmed the fact that Blacks can be world class swimmers. This is one more myth which has been destroyed.

Ending the Political Civil War

2010-12-24T06:56:00.001-08:00

On a recent JCN TV 14 Jones and Company Program, Archbishop Drexel Gomez, retired Bishop of the Anglican Diocese of the Bahamas, Turks and Caicos Islands, spoke about “PLP truths and FNM truths”. His remarks related to the manner in which The Bahamas electorate responded or reacted to political decisions. It is blatantly obvious that political tribalism has affected, in a negative way, our national objectivity and truths is seen in colors of political parties - red or yellow. As a young nation, only 37 years old, we must put an end to this political civil war because a nation divided cannot survive.

If the Bahamiazzn people are not able to find common ground on the major issues which confront this archipelago we call The Bahamas, then we will become a victim of our own political myopia.

The South Africans devised the Truth and Reconciliation Commission to address the past misdeeds during that country’s Apartheid Era. We in the Bahamas must come to the realization that in the past there were PLP transgressions and yesterday and today there are FNM transgressions. There must be forgiveness if we are to move “forward, upward, and onward together”.

Let us open a new chapter in the political life of the Bahamas. Archbishop Gomez made the point in one of his Jones and Company appearances that The Bahamas w as “ adrift”. We are adrift because political tribalism has disconnected us as a people from the moorings which formed the foundations of nation building.This is the main reason for our inability to devise or establish a national concensus on the myriad of issues facing us.

New frontier for the Bahamas at this juncture of the 21^st century is identifying and finding solutions to the issues of growth and development which face our country. These issues transcend ethnicity, social status, income bracket, where one lives, the type of house one has , the car one drives or whether or not one’s father was Jamaican, Haitian, English, Canadian, Indian or Barbadian or Nigerian. We are here; it is our country, and we must leave it a better place than we found it. This can only happen if we pool our collective intellectual and innovative resources. We must rid ourselves of the culture of political tribalism when it comes to our people, particularly on matters of economic development.

In 2010, two national issues come to mind-the Baha Mar project and the privatization of the Bahamas Telecommunications Company(BTC). The Bahamas is a country which is heavily dependent on Foreign Direct Investment. As a result of the global economic meltdown , FDI has virtually dried up in The Bahamas and the economic implications were substantial as it negatively impacted employment. It was also source of foreign exchange injection into the economy as it acted as a means of bolstering the foreign reserves of the country. The Bahamas has an open economy so the level of foreign reserves is critical because it determines our capacity to import critical commodities such as food, medication ,construction materials etc.The Baha Mar project is a $2.6 billion FDI undertaking. Despite the bang this project would have on the economy, it was fraught with controversy.

Globally, the liberalization of telecommunications commenced almost two decades ago. For a decade , governments of The Bahamas has been jostling with the notion of liberalizing its telecommunications entity, once the Bahamas Telecommunications Corporation(BATELCO) and now BTC. There is one stumbling block-the Bahamian people .Bahamians have a strong attachment to their national assets and BTC is the country’s most profitable utility entity. There is a strong feeling in the country that BTC, if privatized, should remain under the aegis of Bahamians. The Ingraham Government , on the other hand, has embarked on a strategy which calls for selling 51 % of BTC to foreign concern, namely Cable and Wireless. This difference in approach has created a national standoff between the government and the Unions who, apparently, share the view of most Bahamians.

These two initiatives created a political civil war which polarized the country.The polarization stemmed from the fact that both initiatives were viewed through a political lens rather than on economic merits or whether or not approving Baha Mar or placing BTC in the hands of a foreign concern were in the best interests of Bahamians and The Bahamas.

The Reality of The Global Village

2010-12-17T17:35:00.001-08:00

It has been months since the volcano eruption in Iceland. It was a natural disaster which no agency or organization predicted; it was simply an occurrence of nature. Its impact, however, has been global. The most obvious has been the disruption of air travel to and from Northern Europe. Estimates have it that it costs $1.7 billion in losses with the airline industry losing some $200 million each day. These costs, for many, have been viewed from the perceptive of passenger travel either as tourists or business people going to and from Europe from various parts of the world.

How did this European component of the airline business impact The Bahamas and the Caribbean?Generally,the European market is the high value content of Caribbean tourism. Europeans stay longer and , therefore, spend more money than the average North American visitor of which the majority come via cruise ships to The Bahamas and elsewhere in the Caribbean.

The other component which may be overlooked by many people is freight. Air freight is a big business for overnight mail and packages. Federal Express, DHL,UPS and Sprint are the biggest in this type of business. Commerce has been adversely affected by the lack of air carrier services between Europe and many parts of the world.Our local postal service utilizes air carrier systems with its speed mail service. Businesses and the average person depend heavily on the air carrier network which has revitalized the manner in which mail and parcels move around the globe.

Another segment of the air freight business is food specifically highly perishable commodities like fruits,vegetables and flowers.Suppliers in the global food network were unable to get their commodities to the European market. Many countries like Kenya and Israel, for example, have developed innovative ways of providing the European consumer with fresh fruits, vegetables and flowers on a daily basis.

In Kenya, for example, this European market has revitalized agriculture in that country as new export markets have been developed and large investments in agribusiness have been made through partnerships between Kenyans and Europeans.Israel, on the other hand, pioneered the overnight fresh produce market to Europe. The losses for these countries and others have been horrendous.

These export marketing agribusinesses have brought new technologies and this has enabled Kenya to broaden the base of its agricultural sector as well as improve its competitiveness and productivity because it has had to meet the demands of the European market on a daily basis.

Acts like the Icelandic volcano eruption emphasize the point that we live a global village and also the fact that man is not totally in charge. Nature will have its own way in its own time and in its own form – be it a volcano, earthquake, hurricane or tornado as was recently experienced at the container port in Freeport.

There is no doubt that the tornado, though not as globally impactful as the Icelandic volcano, had negative ramifications for Hutchinson Whampoa’s global operations.

There has always been interdependence in trade;however,in recent decades as a result of the advances of technology and introduction of the internet, there has been change in proportions. This has been fuelled by the advances which have been made in wealth creation and the manner in which the global economy has been reconfigured.There are billionaires in every corner of the globe as well as an expanding middle class, be they in China, India, the Arab world, among the Asian Tigers or Latin America. This middle class are all in competition for the every day commodities of 21^st century life, hence the exacerbation of the global model for almost every conceivable item or commodity which can be traded leading to an explosion in global trade.New markets are fuelling new demands as the entrepreneur sees the world through new opportunities.The commodity chain is interconnected and whatever the disruption be it natural like a hurricane or volcano, the impact is global.

Developmentally, The Bahamas has been stagnant for the last two decades in terms of diversification of its economy. Progressive countries respond to change in innovative ways. Who would have thought that the Westminster system of governance in the oldest parliamentary democracy in the world,the United Kingdom, would be taking a page out of the U.S. Presidential debates and introduced it into its electioneering system?Here again political debates have taken on global proportions as an electoral tool in democracies. Even national politics has been globalized as a mechanism to enhance the electoral process in England, for example.

If we lose this perspective, we are headed for failure because the reality is that there is a greater degree of inter-connectedness than ever before and every aspect of our existence is impacted.