Bermudians should seize the moment and take responsibility for their own destiny, American civil rights activist Al Sharpton told an audience of hundreds last night.

And he offered some food for thought for the ruling party and the Bermuda Industrial Union in their current dispute, and some solid advice for the country's leaders.

Giving the keynote address at the Bermuda Industrial Union's annual banquet, Rev. Sharpton urged his audience to return to traditional values that helped black people overcome oppression and trust that righteousness can overcome might.

Rev. Sharpton invoked the memories of civil rights leaders Nelson Mandela, Martin Luther King and others to make his case.

"Quit underestimating yourselves, quit saying what you're not and realise who you are. If we can build the empire of Mali, if we can erect Timbuctu... if we can be the ones to delve through philosophy we can sit on a tropical Island and learn how to come together and build a power that is independent that the world ain't ready for. Come together Bermuda. I believe in miracles," he said at the close of his 40-minute speech.

Dinner guests included a host of Bermuda's leaders including Deputy Premier Ewart Brown, who introduced Rev. Sharpton, United Bermuda Party Leader Grant Gibbons, union leader Derrick Burgess and a host of workers from a range of industries.

Rev. Sharpton exhorted his audience to participate in history and not sit on the sidelines.

"Most of us don't realise that we read history objectively never understanding that 10, 20, 50 years from now someone will read about you. And they will read about what you did and what you didn't do," he said.

"Many of us are experts at critiquing everybody but us. Most people go to sporting events and never, ever participate. It's easy to sit at ringside and tell a boxer what blow to throw, but nobody's hitting you. Your arms are not tired, your legs are not weary and you sit there with a drink in your hand and say 'why don't he throw a right' ? never having thrown a right or a left in your life. And that's how most of us participate in history. We are experts in what ought to be done but very rarely do we say what we have done."

And he reminded audience members that no one controls them when they are born or die but they do have some control over what happens in between.

"How you handle that is how they see you at death. If you handle it well, they will remember it well, if you don't handle it well you won't be remembered well or maybe not even at all. But it's amazing how we sit back and act like our behaviour will not be considered in the span of time."

He urged the audience not to forget their origins saying too many people all over the diaspora had "negro amnesia".

"There's an epidemic there ? all over the African diaspora ? called negro amnesia. They have it in Africa they have it in Europe, England, in the Caribbean.

"They have it all over the United States. Lo and behold when I landed here this afternoon I saw the symptoms on your Island."

He said the symptoms included "complaining before they can remember."

"They denounce each other quicker than they denounce those who want to hold them down. We are more critical of our loved ones than we are of those that don't even like us. Those are signs of amnesia. Those are those that forget when you couldn't even vote unless you own property here. When you couldn't come in hotel like this and have an affair or even spend the night. Negro amnesia," he said to rousing applause. "You ought not wait till God breaks your health before you start appreciating those that want you when nobody else wants you."

Independence, he said, should not be treated as a controversy but as something "all people aspire to".

"In America they had all kind of slaves. They had singing slaves, they had erudite scholarly slaves that quote books. They had poetic slaves... But the only slave I wanted to be was a runaway slave. The question is never about being a better slave, the question is being free. And in order to be free you will have to pay a price... You may not get all you pay for but you will pay for what you get."

He referred to the current "family dispute" in the ranks of the BIU and he urged the ruling party to keep such disputes out of the public eye. "It is never better to go back into powerlessness rather than to be able to sit down and heal the wounds of a family dispute."

And he urged his audience not to focus on who is right but to focus on the result of the fight. "It may be that you've got to give up and adjust a little even if you're right. Because in order to bond things for a greater good, sometimes you've got to adjust your self righteousness for a bigger picture and a better purpose. So the issue is not whether you are right the issue is whether the ends, the result of your fight leads to where we want to go, or regresses so that those who want to play and profit from your division can see an open family fight and benefit from that. I don't say that families shouldn't fight, but families shouldn't go on the front lawn and fight... It does not benefit the family for others in the neighbourhood to know you've got a fight - particularly if they can benefit from your family divided and particularly since it took so long to get the family together in the first place."

He said he had gathered that much of the dispute was about ego and posturing. "A lot of this is petty ego and jealously and envy. And when people opposing your interests can see your weakness, they'll prey on you... We cannot afford to go back. Now we can debate about how to go forward but we can never go back."

Rev. Sharpton also reminded the audience that labourers had made Bermuda the success it is. "Those that got dirt in their fingernails... That is the salt of this country ? not people in high places with big titles. It was ordinary people that made this an extraordinary place," he said. "And those of you that sit high should never forget who put you there. It doesn't matter who's up if nobody's looking up to you. You can't be a leader if nobody's following you. And whoever the people raise up, the people can tear down."

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