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Is this a good sign or what?

First comes Khalid Wasi (aka Mr. Raymond Davis), trying to demolish the political and racial divisiveness of Bermuda politics with his new All Bermuda Congress.

Next Wayne Furbert, a man who has long championed the same kind of stuff, becomes head of the UBP. He immediately promises a barrel full of reforms to include citizens in public decisions, and cut back on partisan nastiness.

Then up pops the former PLP MP Julian Hall, as articulate and forceful as ever, and he’s singing a similar tune.

Not that he’s planning to vote for Mr. Furbert or Mr. Wasi: He wants the current PLP leadership to change its ways.

Mr. Hall, after all, is a labour man.

But Mr. Hall, too, called for greater openness and honesty, and less racial divisiveness in politics. He pointed out that the island would be better governed if it was governed by all of us, and not by an ‘inner circle’ who can tolerate no criticism.

Rising immediately (and apparently impervious to any inkling of irony) PLP spokesman Scott Simmons slammed Mr. Hall for his criticism.

He praised the PLP for every positive development in Bermuda, including the creation of democracy, free speech and Mr. Hall’s political career.

More ominously, or creepily, the PLP spokesman claimed Mr. Hall had been “irresponsible” in his use of “freedom of expression”.

“It is both the PLP Government and the country that enables Mr. Hall and others to flirt publicly with yet another third political entity with no reprisal to be faced."

To the PLP leadership, it turns out, critics are not only “irresponsible” but ungrateful too.

Mr. Simmons’s statement shows how fundamentally wrong the PLP leadership is, and how Mr. Wasi, and Mr. Furbert, and Mr. Hall, are so fundamentally right in their demands for change.

“Free expression”, not to mention “flirting publicly with yet another third party” — I can’t believe Mr. Simmons really had the gall to say this — are not privileges granted to Mr. Hall and other Bermudians by the people of the PLP Government.

They are our rights.

They are enshrined in our constitution.

The Government of the day has an obligation to provide them. We are completely entitled to them. Mr. Hall, and the rest of us, should not be expected to be beholden in any way to the PLP or anybody else.

They should be beholden to us.

They should be grateful to us.

They should be listening to us and involving us, and doing what we want — not the other way around.

Mr. Simmons’ statement was a clear reminder of the things that Mr. Hall, and Mr. Furbert and Mr. Wasi, are hoping to change.

Here are a few of the areas that all, or most, of these men have touched on:

n Government needs to be more open: We need to end the closed, ‘paranoid’ style of leadership. Government works best when it is open to suggestion and criticism, and which people feel a part;

n Government needs to be more honest: Lying, and generally twisting or misrepresenting the truth, is routine and tolerated. There is no code of conduct, and it shows;

n Government needs to stop using race as a political weapon: The racial suspicions and resentments of the 1960s are being artificially preserved by our political parties. As Mr. Hall put it: “We are just too small for this party political system with all its politics of divisiveness and racial hatred. We have to grow up. We must learn to think outside of the box.”;

n Political parties need to work together better. “Just because they are in the Opposition doesn't mean that the UBP ideas are always wrong and the PLP ideas are always right,” Mr. Hall said. Mr. Furbert (if elected) wants to put a PLP member in his Cabinet.

I know that with Mr. Wasi, Mr. Furbert and Mr. Hall all speaking out, it’s beginning to look like a political movement.

I hope it becomes one but it isn’t yet — not until large numbers of citizens hop on board and start demanding the same thing.

And when our politicians are secretive, or lie, or are racially divisive, or refuse to work together, then we should stop just rolling our eyes but get angry and insist on change.

And keep demanding, and keep insisting, until it finally dawns on Mr. Simmons and others in political ‘inner circles’ that it is they — not Mr. Hall, or Mr. Furbert or Mr. Wasi — who are irresponsible abusers of democracy and free expression.[[In-content Ad]]

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