Dear Sir,

Did you ever take time out to assess some of the things that you were told, or even made to believe, and discover that they were not as real in their appearance as they had been made out to be? In other words, do you ever get the feeling at times that most of what you were made to believe was nothing more than just an empty, hollow illusion?

I never went to high school because I had to drop out of elementary to find work to help to feed the family. You see, my mother had a hard time trying to keep up, since she was the main breadwinner of the family and was not making enough money. But one of the things that I at least made an effort to do was to use my brain to think to the best of my ability.

I don’t remember how many nights I spent sitting up in bed, spending the night thinking, but there was never a time I did not take a look at the issues going on that had me wondering what the heck was all that about.

I guess I had a lot of sleepless nights. But, Mr Editor, when you take into account all that which makes up and defines this little place we call Bermuda, it is difficult for one who likes to think not to try to use those good old tools of curiosity, logic and common sense to analyse our state of affairs.

Sometimes you may get it slightly wrong, but most of the time because someone tries to hide the obvious, you’re not that far off track from being right. After all, I don’t recall at any time being invited into any of those fancy business boardrooms to participate or give my opinion as to what direction I feel Bermuda should go. Therefore, I have to do my own investigation and form my opinions based on my findings.

Like my grandmother used to say, “where there is smoke, there has got to be fire. If I needed to know what was burning, then I was to go and find out”. That was one of her trustworthy phrases that I found was true to its word.

So off I went with my grandmother’s wisdom in hand, with a strong dose of encouragement never to back down or give up trying to get at the bottom of the truth. I don’t know about you, Mr Editor, but I get this feeling deep down that there are people on this little Atlantic enclave working very hard trying to keep the greater portion of the population moving in the right direction of being aloof.

The saying is, “if you keep the crowd’s attention to what’s going on in the room, then they would be too busy to look out the window to see how the weather is doing outside”.

Half the time, a great percentage of the people don’t know what’s going on, period, so a lot of what people should be aware of and paying attention to just goes flying over their heads unnoticed.

As I have written to you a few times before, psychology is one of my favourite subjects, so I could very well understand just how political technocrats, politicians, sociologists, pollsters and the business community know what to put into place to occupy our minds. Trust me, they know us as a group better than we know ourselves, so they are very much in tune and able to set an agenda for us in most areas of our lives. It is where we are least aware, with someone that you don’t know having planted a certain notion in your head that you did not put there yourself.

Bermuda is a small country with a small population. It is my belief that those who have a vast economic interest in Bermuda would put up whatever necessary defences to protect their position. It leaves the question to be asked: where does the centre of political gravity and real power rest? Is it in the boardrooms of big business? If you ask me, Mr Editor, I get this feeling that it’s not totally up to Parliament.

Because of the type of psychological control I feel is being used on us, I find there comes a time I have to put aside my emotions and face what I see as the real facts behind the real politics that govern us and ask myself the big questions:

• Does the power of the wealthy few in fact override the vote of the electorate at the ballot box without the people knowing the difference?

• Do we have a 1 per cent versus 99 per cent issue going on in Bermuda?

• Who does Parliament really answer to?

• Are they telling us just what we need to hear?

I’m sorry, Mr Editor, but those are the punchline questions I find myself asking.

E. McNEIL STOVELL

Pembroke