Respect for Dr. Brown

August 27, 2010

Dear Sir,

Dr. Brown's recent success – his dubious bullying of the Corporation of Hamilton – certainly puts him among the leading Bermuda leaders, and a sure candidate for a knighthood. As Dame Jennifer received one principally I guess as the first PLP Premier, and Dame Lois for fighting long and hard for the PLP then Dr. Brown should certainly be recognised.

Other strong leaders in my lifetime include Sir Stanley Spurling, essentially a Prime Minister without a title, Sir Henry Tucker and Sir John Swan. I think Dr. Brown is among them, not only because he has been a strong leader but also because he has the ability to get things done. His work has not always been for the betterment of Bermuda as I see it, but such things as the greatly increased number of airlines flying here and the improvement at the Transport Control Department are among the accolades he should receive.

What hotels may be built are yet to be seen, but he deserves credit for trying. He has struggled with our declining tourism without much success. In my view he should not be blamed (except for overspending, sometimes in the wrong direction and with the wrong people) for I think the tides of history were against him. Our economic periods seem to run in cycles of around a hundred years, and the time for tourism has been running out. In practical terms we are now too expensive in several areas including wages, to the greater comfort of the workers but to the detriment of the business, so a revival of tourism would require drastic cuts in pay. Would that be acceptable?.

Were the new docks at Dockyard the right way to go? I'm inclined to think we were bullied into it by the cruise ship companies. I think we would have been better off if the major lines had been resisted and we had found smaller ships but that's an arguable point. There are a good many Bermudians who will welcome the idea of a knighthood for Dr. Brown, and a good many others who will think it quite wrong. I suppose the outcome will await the Queen's New Years honours.

WILLIAM S. ZUILL Sr.

Smith's Parish

We need another way

September 6, 2010

Dear Sir,

I have frequently reminded your readers that the two most important events in the life of the entire black community since Emancipation were the desegregation of public places and the achievement of universal franchise. Both were accomplished without party politics and with a collaborative committee leadership. From the inception of party politics, its divisiveness and its hierarchy associated with its single leadership, more psychic and political energy, time and resources have been invested in conflict over the leadership rather than on any single issue. It was the personality conflict over the leadership that delayed the PLP victory for 30 years.

Consider the political energy and thousands of words that has been invested in the attacks and defence of just one person during the last couple of years rather than on an issue of importance to all black people such as concerns about the guns or the pros and cons of an affirmative action/black empowerment" programme. I have heard, or read, at least one proposal from each of the three current candidates for leadership to which I could give 100 percent support but which was not mentioned by either of the other two.

Why should we be deprived of the energy and input of the other two when all three could work collaboratively in a committee leadership? They have all said that they want to lower the voice on race. They are in a position to lower the voice of divisiveness within the PLP by setting the example by a collaborative leadership.

I have said that black people need to find another way to govern themselves for many reasons, including the fact that the Ministerial and Cabinet approach are obviously undemocratic since some MPs are given more responsibility and a much higher salary than others, which makes a mockery of the PLP boast that they introduced "one man, one vote, each vote of equal value". It is clearly untrue to say that the vote for a backbencher has the same value as the votes for a Minister.

Does this "new" generation really want something different for their constituents or do they like the hierarchy and divisiveness that comes from our current system so that some are so much more important than others? At least we could begin with this one small step of establishing a committee leadership which we all know did us all so much more good under the leadership of the Progressive Group and the CUAS than has happened to us since under a political party. We have often forgotten the "issues" under our obsessions about the leader.

All three of the current candidates have indicated that they want to bring the Community together. Sometimes there is a greater need to bring Blacks together even more than bringing Black and Whites together. I can think of nothing that would set a better example than by their working together in a collaborative leadership between themselves. We could then spend all of our psychic and political energy on their proposals and not on attacking and defending any one of them.

Compare our experience under the collaborative collective leadership of the Progressive Group and the CUAS and the angry, wasted political energy and thousand of words written about, for or against, each of our individual leaders from the very inception of the PLP. It would be the beginning of a more democratic and collaborative manner to govern ourselves. At the moment it is anything but democratic and our instincts are anything but collaborative! Let us hope that those who want to lead us will be willing to set an example for us.

EVA N. HODGSON

Hamilton Parish