February 2, 2014

Dear Sir,

During one of Rev Martin Luther King’s speeches a gentleman standing near him repeated Martin’s question “how long? And Martin went on in his speech saying “not long”. “Not” long is a relative terminology, as that was 50 years ago. I have to remind myself that although I’m now approaching my senior years, known to the public for over 40 years, I am just a baby in the struggle and what in my youth I thought would take days took years and those things I thought would take a few years will take a lifetime, perhaps a millennium.

All races and ethnicities want a better world and you know what? It is a better world but when we mentioned the word freedom, don’t know about you, I never think of the word evolution in the same breath. I wish I were a sociologist so as I could give one word to define what I have to spend so many words describing. There is a phenomenon associated with power. They say power changes people and it’s easy to see examples of that around the world and throughout history. It’s no wonder many of the world’s great benefactors actually came out of riches, they were not bemused by wealth. Sad to repeat sayings like “Give a poor man a horse and he would ride with a gallop”. Nevertheless, taking the good out of that means that persons need to adjust and get use to power which means evolution.

The poor really have never come to power it’s the next layer up, the petite bourgeoisie or that merchant or want to be merchant class wanting the same power that the bourgeoisie or the elite have. In Haiti it was not the common slave — it was the “gent de colour”. In Iran it was a similar class that replaced the Shah. What follows invariably is corruption and abuse of power. Black America is suffering similarly. The Black Mayors debacle is an example. Be patient folks it’s not a black thing, it’s a human thing through which all peoples have travelled towards a more creditable and civil behaviour. It is good that the Progressive Labour Party had a turn at the reigns because it helped to bring alive what is truly needed in governance. A painful but necessary lesson for the entire community because of centuries of denial and frustration of equal access to empowerment.

In black Bermuda, Hakim Gordon, not his father Edgar Fitzgerald Gordon, would be Bermuda’s John the Baptist. Hakim came from relative wealth and laid it all down to taste what it meant to be a pure human being. In white Bermuda Sir John (Jack) Sharpe and not Sir Henry (Jack) Tucker would be the John the Baptist. He was a man by example, was wealthy but austere; powerful but never haughty. He would seek the counsel of those others would shun. We denied them both as we denied our own humanity in favour of association with those with greed for material wealth.

KHALID WASI