Over the ensuing weeks Front Porch will sketch some of the narrative of the journey to equal citizenship and how we have fallen short. This is the first instalment. About a week ago, waiting on one of those interminable bank lines, this writer and others were subjected to the loud-mouthed, voluble bigotry of a Bahamian man seemingly in his 50s. His self-delighted ignorance and deep-seated prejudice about the upcoming referendum, if converted into dollars, would make him an instant multibillionaire.

What was curious and mildly amusing to watch was not just how pitifully wrong the man was about the facts. More fascinating was his unbridled delight in his belligerence and the chest-thumping delight of his sexism. He enjoyed delivering his harangue like a peacock might enjoy an audience.

The referendum is a provocation to this man and other men at every socio-economic strata of Bahamian society. It provokes the longstanding anxiety, the fear and the intense insecurity of scores of men, who are sick of women getting ahead of them professionally and economically, and who feel that their peacock feathers have been ruffled or plucked.

A period of advancement by a group is often followed by a backlash. The referendum may prove a tool for many men to figuratively hit back at women, who, they believe, should know their place and remain secondary to men.

For these men, and others, the referendum will not be an expression of hope or fairness or justice. It will be an expression of fear and anxiety and pushback. And payback. For many, the referendum will be manipulated as a bludgeon.

Listening to the rhetoric of the man in the bank and like-minded men, the notion of a Bahamian woman bringing her non-Bahamian husband to live in the country is a violation of the caveman mentality of prehistoric times in which men stood guard to the entrance of the cave, clothed in bearskin, wielding a club and grunting supposed-superiority.

Elemental
Sadly, the bank episode is elemental to a broader narrative of the journey toward equal citizenship in the modern Bahamas, beginning with the struggle for majority rule, including the advancement of the rights of women, from gaining the right to vote to the still unfinished business of constitutional equality, allowing all Bahamian women to automatically pass on citizenship to their children.

Curiously, until recently, the majority of Bahamian men appear not to have known that the constitution also discriminated against single men. There are many chapters in the narrative of the journey toward equal citizenship. The texture of the story involves a sociological landscape of, in fundamental ways, an insular culture dominated by a fundamentalist and paternalistic mentality and social order undergirding entrenched sexism and lingering homophobia, alongside a certain xenophobia.

For some, the referendum is a prism through which they see a fairer and more just society, with equality for all. Others see a society gone awry, where talk of equality for LGBT people is symptomatic of moral decline.

The former will vote their hopes, the latter their fears. There are likely more of the latter than the former in the country. It is the mass of generally ambivalent and conflicted Bahamians who can make the difference in the vote. Many of these are likely to stay home or vote no because of their unsettled thoughts.

While the referendum is substantively about equality, for most Bahamians it is entirely about other issues, whether alarm about the moral state of the country, economic anxiety, concerns about illegal immigrants, payback to the PLP on a number of fronts and being frustrated and miserable about the state of the country. Many will vote their moods.

Of moment is how young people, young women in particular, may vote. How they vote now may determine their long-term attitudes on the matters at hand as well as their definition and understanding of principles such as equality and justice. It is not simply the man in the bank or men in general who may doom the referendum. There are scores of women who will also vote no for various reasons, one of which is the concern by some over a single Bahamian man having a child with a foreign-born woman, and that child automatically becoming a Bahamian.

Storyline
The particular storyline of the removal of the discrimination in the constitution about citizenship involves how politics has navigated questions of equality, citizenship and other democratic ideals. At the center of the social, cultural and political drama, sometimes comic, has been a cast of characters exemplifying a range of motivations, virtues and flaws, and foibles and cant or "hypocritical and sanctimonious talk, typically of a moral, religious, or political nature". Some characters are writ large, such as former Prime Minister Hubert Ingraham who, given the Abaco of the time in which he was reared, proved the most progressive head of government in Bahamian history and an extraordinary advocate of women's rights.

Perry Christie, a man with few progressive instincts, is desperately seeking to right a wrong that was a gross act of expediency when he doomed the passage of the 2002 referendum. Then there are characters like a purple-prose and purple-frocked prelate who also helped to doom the 2002 referendum. He again seeks to incense his past misdeed and that of the PLP. No matter how much smoke the prelate may blow, the ashes of his disingenuousness and the dust of his partisanship long ago settled from the 2002 vote. It will not be whitewashed. The role he played historically is clear and will be recalled.

There are political reasons for the PLP to ensure the passage of the referendum. If a strong no vote seems likely the PLP may cancel the vote. But if the government wants a yes vote it will have to work hard because passage will be very difficult.

Last week's public event and House of Assembly vote on the referendum bills was anticlimactic for many, for several reasons, including the many postponements by the PLP of this referendum. The event evoked a limited joy for many who, even though they intend to vote for its passage, have grown weary of the politics and are not convinced of its passage by voters.

Many Bahamians, having gone through two referendums, are less inclined to vote in such an exercise. There is a large ambivalent group of Bahamians who deem the referendum to be of little importance, especially as it does not affect them or their families. It is a sad ethical ambivalence, a display of indifference to those who are fellow citizens and who should be moral friends.

The vote should be about personal moral character and the ethical character of our democracy. Moral indifference is not indifferent. It stains our character and the soul of the nation when we cannot summon the will and the courage to ensure the equality of others. Of all people, the descendants of slaves should not be indifferent to those seeking the basic fruits of justice. While this vote may seem irrelevant to some or an opportunity to advance various prejudices, in the end it will either unleash the better angels of our nature and deepen our spirit of egalitarianism or it will bedevil our democratic spirit.

o frontporchguardian@gmail.com, www.bahamapundit.com.

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