A local activist is planning a march in downtown Nassau for November 25. Our Carmichael community founder Ranard Henfield is trying to bring Bahamians together to agitate for better from our leaders.

"I've wanted to get to the point where the country can speak to Parliament and let the politicians know and appreciate that the people are not satisfied," Henfield said in a recent interview with The Nassau Guardian.

"Every circle I go to persons are complaining. These are persons in the fishing industry, tourism industry and people who are just trying to make ends meet.

"They are saying that politicians are making decisions that are not in our best interest."

We agree with Henfield. Everywhere we go too people complain. They do so for good reason. During this term there have been murder records. There is a recession.

Baha Mar went into bankruptcy. Andros appears up for sale to foreigners. The unemployment rate has remained in the mid-double digits. The state electricity provider still can't keep the lights on. There is mass discontent.

Public protests are powerful. We recently witnessed regimes fall in the Middle East and North Africa during the Arab Spring when fed-up people took to protest. Street demonstrations in Iceland after the release of the Panama Papers led to the fall of the prime minister. For all our problems here in The Bahamas, though, we for some reason do not show our dissent in public protest in these times.

In April the group Raising Awareness about the Bahamas Landfill (RABL) organized several hundred people to Cable Beach to protest the repeated fires at the New Providence landfill. The fires are a threat to the wellbeing of those who reside on and visit our main island. The organizers did a good job in the turnout - it may have been as many as a thousand people - but it was not the type of mass demonstration that would shake an administration.

There has not been a mass demonstration in The Bahamas in recent years of thousands and thousands of people that is not an event organized by a political party. The Bahamian people vote in large numbers. They go to church in large numbers. The gamble in large numbers. They drink in large numbers. But for some reason, we are currently not street activists. Why? That's unclear.

Henfield is not well known. That will count against him in getting support. He should be commended, nonetheless, for attempting, as RABL did, to transform the complaining culture of the modern Bahamas into an activist one.

Perry Christie is not so concerned when you sit at a bar with two friends and cuss him out. However, he would be terrified to see 20,000 Bahamians in downtown Nassau showing rage at his ineptitude in peaceful demonstration. For that many people to leave their comfort zone and to dissent would let him know that his leadership has been poor and is hurting the Bahamian people.

Christie lives in a bubble of his delusions. He thinks he is a great leader and that the Bahamian people love him. After all, you voted him back to the Office of the Prime Minister four years ago. He continues to govern in the manner he does because you have not shown him your dissent and disgust enough. When he makes his silly jokes from speaking stages you politely laugh. When he does his buffoonish shuffle dance you giggle, thinking it cute.

If Bahamians took to the streets from time to time in large numbers you would get the attention of your leaders. People power scares leaders in democracies and dictatorships. You need a certain measure of consent in order to govern. When the people rise up and march it is a direct challenge to the authority of those in power.

We wish Henfield well. He is exercising an important democratic right. The question is will you join him or continue to just complain? Whining gets nothing accomplished. Showing Christie your face and letting him hear your voice would get his attention. It would also strike fear in a man who has grown tone deaf to the hardships of his people.

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