January 30, 2013 at 5:54 p.m.
Brown's snub could cost him
Protestors won’t forget that the Premier chose not to greet them
Prime Minister Gordon Brown, currently ensconced in Number 10, is looking like a Prime Minister under siege. The besieging troops are made up of both disgruntled Labour Party backbench MPs and changing Labour party voters who, judging by the Henley vote, are either witholding their vote or sending their support elsewhere.
In any case, Gordon Brown - three thousand miles away from Bermuda's Dr Ewart Brown - has problems. But so, it seems, does Bermuda's Brown.
In all of Bermuda, there are only about 28,000 Bermudian workers*. On Friday, June 27, more than 10 per cent of this total group of Bermudians were sufficiently 'browned-off' to march on Parliament. It seems that they wanted to see and speak to Bermuda's Premier. It seems that they wanted to voice their concerns to the top elected official of a government that many had helped elect.
This 10 per cent never spoke to 'the man in charge'. It seems that the 'the man in charge' couldn't afford to break Parliamentary procedure - which is all about doing the 'people's business' - in order to step outside the House of Assembly and speak to that 10 per cent of Bermuda's Bermudian workforce about the 'people's business'.
It seems also the 'man in charge' was finally able to leave the House of Assembly only after the vast majority of that 10 per cent had marched off and gone back to work.
Bermuda has a life and pace and style all of its own. Bermuda has had 399 years of governance of a style that is uniquely Bermudian. This island's governance is eminently people and person centred. It depends on personal knowledge and personal acceptance. Unlike the U.S., it does not depend on celebrity stands and photo-ops and massive PR campaigns in cooperating or coerced or bought print and electronic media.
This island's governance is based, and has always been based, on personal contact. It's based on a community wide but still highly personal acceptance of individuals who are set in government, and on a sometimes wide - but not over-wide - tolerance of the faults and foibles of the individuals who are elected or selected as leaders.
There are unwritten rules of performance. One unwritten rule is that, in true Bermuda fashion, leaders have to be 'nice' and listen when Bermudians 'make off'. Failing to listen is rude, disrespectful, and is rarely forgiven. Bermudians have survived, and survived successfully, on this barren rock by cooperating and compromising. Both actions require communicating. Both require listening.
On Friday, the 'man in charge' didn't listen. That was rude. That was disrespectful. That was un-Bermudian.
Since Sir Henry Tucker started in 1968, Bermuda has had ten leaders of government. Excluding Sir John Swan's exceptional thirteen-year tenure, the average time in office for all other eight Leaders or Premiers was three years and seven weeks.
From 1968 to now, Bermuda has prospered. Clearly, the changing of Premiers did not cause economic havoc. Clearly, changes of Premiers did not wreak social havoc.
Over in the U.K., Gordon Brown is in danger of being tossed out either by his own backbenchers, who might do that in order to save the Labour Party; or by the general electorate who might do that because they are dissatisfied with Gordon Brown's performance as Prime Minister.
Three thousand miles away, in a parallel situation, Dr Ewart Brown seems to be not making and not keeping an essential contact, in our unique Bermudian way, with the common people of Bermuda.
Premiers come. Premiers go. There was a number nine. There is currently a number ten. There will be a number eleven. Like the U.K., and as it has for 399 years, Bermuda will still go on even if we go from ten to eleven.
* Bermuda Job Market - Employment Brief - Dept of Statistics - June 2007. Figure given for 2006 was 27,356 Bermudians employed.[[In-content Ad]]
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