work needed to face a troubled present and a challenging future. But sometimes they are operating a personal cause at public expense. At least two people in Bermuda are particularly adept at preaching the "poor me'' syndrome to the public without much justification. "Look at what happened years ago to poor me.'' Often, of course, the "poor me'' story is only part of the picture and ignores the person's own contribution to their problems.

But being a demagogue can be a career and it can be a successful and lucrative career. Obviously it can be a political career if you can fool enough of the people enough of the time. But it can also be a career in the sense of providing a public platform, even a public image. Some of the public will be fooled by almost anything and if "poor me'' can be politicised into "poor you too'' then there are people who will find it attractive and who will act on it.

Sometimes demagogues are very adept at manipulating the public's emotions to their personal ends. The public needs to be aware of guarding against self-centred action. Personal agendas have no justified place in public life.

The truth is that if you dwell in the past you fail to cope with the problems of the present or to prepare for the challenges of the future. Bermuda's past was no worse than any other country and much less cruel than most countries.

Much of Bermuda's past was distinguished and productive. Some was ugly and ranges from slavery through to rum running. But slavery was a product of its time and not of our time.

Slavery was not created by white people for black people. Slavery was inflicted by those people who could dominate on the people they dominated.

Whites enslaved blacks in our part of the world but blacks enslaved blacks in Africa and whites enslaved whites in any number of places. That is not an excuse but it is the fact. It is a part of history. It is past and gone and the present with its drugs and violence and social degeneration is here now and the high-tech future is coming.

Yet there are black leaders in Bermuda who encourage black Bermudians not to aspire to the future but to mire themselves in the past. They continue unhappiness with a past which cannot be rewritten rather than encouraging advancement into the future. These leaders often contribute to the problems of the present because they diminish our commitment to solutions by diverting our focus to the past.

If we dwell in the past we suffer in the present and we will miss the opportunity to prepare for the challenges of the 21st Century. The future is a challenge for everyone no matter what their colour and no matter what their social identity. Those who are not prepared for the high-tech challenges will fall through cracks much wider than any we know today.