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There's no point telling Labour Minister Derrick Burgess that he's gone way off course - he won't listen to me.

But I hope some of his friends and colleagues see the problem as serious as it is, and try to persuade him to quickly change the way he's going about things.

First, a brief summary of the Labour Minister's activities over the last few days:

He's kicked a Canadian construction foreman off the island after a verbal dispute (in which the foreman appears to be entirely in the right) with a PLP MP, warning foreigners they must respect Government MPs.

He's declared that foreigners should not be involved in politics, and then denied he was not trying to intimidate anybody - despite the fact that he has the power to kick any foreigner out of Bermuda, and has shown he'll do it at the drop of a hat.

When an Opposition MP pointed out in Parliament that the right of free speech and political activity is protected by criminal codes and our Constitution, the Labour Minister threatened his critic: "I'll deal with you outside."

When he learned that The Royal Gazette newspaper was planning to write about this episode, he told the reporter: "You use it at your peril. You think we are inferior." Why can't the story be printed? "Because you can't," the Government Minister replied, "I'm telling you what you can't use [it]."

Mr. Burgess has denied that he is trying to intimidate anybody, but that's certainly what he's achieving.

Try for a second to see his actions through the eyes of guest workers, who he curiously declares he values so highly.

The new six-year work permit limit has left many of them feeling unwelcome, and uncertain of when their time will be up. Mr. Burgess's department has proved incapable of telling guest workers where they stand in anything approaching a timely manner.

The 'Residents Only' line at the airport has suddenly been replaced with 'Bermudian' and 'Non-Bermudian Residents' lines; non-Bermudian spouses are even being separated from their Bermudian families in an exercise that seems designed simply to remind non-Bermudians that they are second-class.

Then there was the famous case of the Australian chef, escorted to the airport without a hearing after jokingly saying the premier's plate had arsenic on it - a comment that nobody believed.

Worse yet was Mr. Burgess's public warning: The chef's actions were "tantamount to threatening an act of terrorism, a criminal act of a most heinous nature. Such behaviour will not be tolerated by this Government administration, least of all from a guest worker in this country."

Then, of course, there was the case of the Canadian construction foreman, and the case of the doctor who lost her job at KEMH, after writing a letter to the editor arguing against closing an indigent clinic.

Mr. Burgess, as far as I know, had nothing to do with her firing, but did declare: "If any one of you spoke out against your company's policies you would expect to be dismissed. It's a common sense issue."

Then follows Mr. Burgess's warning against non-Bermudians getting involved in politics. "I would be afraid to," he said.

It's easy to understand that people WOULD be afraid, given that most people are expressing opinions and observations about the world and people around them of some kind or another - which is of course the core of political thinking - from the moment they get up to the moment they go to bed.

It's a key part of being a thinking, functioning, human being, whether you're local or foreign.

Freedom of speech, and freedom of political activity is protected because that is the morally right thing to do.

But it's also protected because it's almost impossible to stop thinking and speaking. We're humans. We just can't help it.

Since Mr. Burgess started his strange and damaging campaign, I've heard a lot of Bermudians joke, as they made political comments that Mr. Burgess might object to: "Well, he can't take MY work permit away."

Maybe not. But Bermudians - and especially Mr. Burgess's colleagues - should bear in mind that their Government is now widely seen as one that doesn't like contrary opinions, and is prepared to take action against them.

Maybe they can't kick Bermudians off the island, but they can hurt them in a thousand different ways if that is the attitude they want to take. So please, will those who are friends and colleagues of Mr. Burgess please beg him to relax and laugh a little. He has opinions, but let everybody else - local or foreign - have theirs too.

He can kick some of us off the island; he can intimidate others; he can threaten to take others outside the building and, what was he offering to do? Smash that MP's face to a bloody pulp?

But he will never succeed in stopping people from having opinions and expressing them.

His efforts will only succeed in hurting his people, his country and his Government.[[In-content Ad]]

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