I felt the need to continue on the trend I haphazardly started last week with regard to The Bahamas and what the future may look like for the church in our daily lives. I also prefaced that submission with the understanding that we can't look into the future in a linear fashion. What I mean is that we can't think about the future and say with any certainty that "this" is where The Bahamas will be in general or overall; rather we must look at where we will be and what we will look like on several fronts.
As said, last week was about the role of the church. Politics, in this vein, is no different in terms of evolution, even though its impact on the general population and meaning for the majority of us is significantly different than that of the church.
What's really trending in Bahamian politics? The shorthand is that the major parties are fracturing. Not quite unexpected because, as the population grows, the larger organizations will find it challenging to serve all of the people under their tent.
This is not to say that the larger parties are unorganized and can't muster up enough coordination to serve all of the people under a given tent, but the fact of the matter is, we're dealing with people. People and by extension organizations and society at large, have hierarchies. Totem poles. A pecking order. So, oftentimes, gifts and hand-outs start from the top and filter down to the bottom.
As you can imagine, many of the people at the top got there because of their selfishness, aggression or to some extent greed. The higher up and more distant they become, the more likelihood there is of their becoming disengaged from the average citizen. It's easier for a camel to enter into the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter into the Kingdom of Heaven.
I'm not excusing the disengagement at all. I find it deplorable, particularly for a still, relatively, small and intimate country like The Bahamas. But, to some extent, the people in charge must look like the people in charge; if that means subjugating, creating distance, and subordinating the so called "lesser-folk", then so be it. If only by the sheer nature of the job. As they say, it's lonely at the top.
The Bahamas has a unique problem within that matrix: the baby-boomer leadership is deeply conservative, with an ever increasingly liberal youth demographic (Generation Y and beyond), mixed in with a frustrated Generation X that feels stifled and cheated because of the baby-boomer generation's staying power and clinging to power. For whatever reason.
Seriously, however, it is not only the age group differences that pose a direct challenge, the baby-boomer generation has had a significant amount of staying power. Something that should be commended, but it should also be concerning because, as they hold on to power, their ideas become stale, their way of thinking about doing business is outdated, in addition to their incestuously uncanny ability to select people of "like mind"; i.e., people within their own age grouping and also persons from younger generations who, even if only feigning, express interest in whatever program that comes out of that baby-boomer think-tank.
Without a doubt there will be a conflict of ideas coming out of the age-group differences as we move forward. As we are seeing more and more intently now, the younger generations have too much information at their fingertips to be given the same story on the same issues that have not worked. One only has to read Facebook for 30 minutes to find out how much they know, where they know it from, how it was confirmed and who is being straight up and honest about it.
What we are currently seeing develop is an era of duplicity in politics. One which is as seedy as it is unpredictable. We have oftentimes heard terms used, particularly within the last 10 to 15 years: "PLP's for (insert name of leader of the FNM), or "FNM's for (insert name of the leader of the PLP). In fact, the 2007 election was centered on such duplicitous, cloak and dagger gimmickry that one may liken to a Pink Panther movie, just with real life effects and consequences. The 2012 election was no different either, but less pronounced, with more action post election by the then governing party.
The era of duplicity is also going to be very challenging, due to the fact that the chain that binds the generations has a rusted and shop-worn link: that is the flow of information that Generation Y-ers (millennials) have at their fingertips right now, which the preceding Generation X-ers did not have when making their assessments. We can't overlook that, at all.
Along with the oncoming era of duplicity, we also have now a developed culture of distrust, chugging its fuel from the years and years of obeisance under a "dark" Bahamas.
We have a Generation Y that has a greater chance and opportunity to review the ideas and issues from the past, juxtaposed with current affairs, and consider how we became the way we are today. At the same time, the perceived source of much ire, the baby-boomer generation, is still in control, if only psychologically, yet again adding to the frustration and sentiments of being cheated by Generation X while simultaneously being greeted with disgusted sneers and sarcastic grunts from Generation Y.
Within the next 25 years, at least, as the baby-boomers are taken to their eternal glory at the very least, we will have a little challenge reconciling the following generations: Generation X will want to reclaim what they feel was stolen from them by the baby-boomer generation, and Generation Y will begin to say that you can't steal from me so easily and so openly as your predecessors did to you. This is going to create conflict. Even though there is a lot for all, the fact of the matter is we can't ever quantify feelings and sentiments: being cheated and lied to on the one hand, and pervasive false needs that border on extreme avarice on the other.
All within the same time, the political process will become more fractured; distrust will build and build in the most acrimonious ways. It will take tremendous acts of courage to mend the fences and provide equal opportunity for all. Regardless of where you started from, or where you are now.
This is not to say all is shot to hell right now as we speak, but I think everyone with an ounce of intelligence can see quite clearly that the policies of 50 years ago have not worked in the last 15 years, at the very least. It's obvious that the preceding generations' time is being eaten up by a generation, the baby-boomers, that have simply exhausted their usefulness (quite respectfully speaking).
The cannibalization of each other and lack of security for the future is based on old ideas that are not working and at best are deleterious to the future development of The Bahamas. The fallout will continue to be felt long after the baby boomers would have finally exited the stage, and the current carry-over of failed concepts for managing country-wide problems is not going over smoothly, and will become more problematic for anyone coming afterwards trying to implement the baby-boomers' methodology of doing things.
The era of distrust and duplicity is upon us. As with all countries, from large empires to small fiefdoms, there have always been successive years of "challenge periods". The Bahamas is right up next to our very own, made worse by the global financial collapse in, 2008.
This is not a prophesy of things to be, but a warning of what may happen if we do not summon the courage, intelligence, decency and tact to handle this matter in a judicious manner. But first we must understand the problem. To which end, I humbly rest my submission on the matter on the table for perusal.
o Youri Kemp is president and CEO of Kemp Global, a management consultancy firm based in The Bahamas. This column is published with permission from Caribbean News Now.
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