January 30, 2013 at 5:54 p.m.
Wayne Furbert: The genesis of the warm-blooded politician?
This past week saw messages from two different quarters, which give us reason to hope that a new breed of political animal is afoot — a smarter, quicker and warm-blooded evolution from that which preceded them. The new mammals use co-operation and inclusion while recognizing the weakness of a reactive and paranoid herd mentality where strength in numbers comes only at the expense of the weakest.
Wayne Furburt, the newly anointed leader of the opposition threw a revolutionary curve ball for both his party and the opposition. In a move which will leave the most ossified of both parties scratching their heads he has promised that if the UBP is successful at the next election he will offer the opposition a seat on his new cabinet. Equally important he promises to give some teeth to our democracy by putting more issues to referenda.
In a political landscape scarred by divisiveness, arrogance and cronyism he has played a masterstroke of inclusive, responsive statesmanship.
Both parties have been guilty of a ‘divine right to rule’ mentality and of not making use of all the talent in the room. Mr. Furbert is the first leader to publicly embrace the germ of an idea of a government where all participate and co-operate for the good of the island and where party is an irrelevant anachronism.
Julian Hall, the brilliant, controversial, sometimes politician has voiced his most strongly worded wake-up call to his party to date and in doing so has drawn respect from all quarters for putting Bermuda first, party second and for advocating ideas which many believe but few dare to speak out loud. While little that he said was new the important point is that this call for a grassroots revolution came from inside the party whose leadership has failed to live up to the opportunity it was presented in 1998 to break with history, look to the future and make real changes.
Not surprisingly the response by the hive mind at Alaska Hall did more to underscore Mr. Hall’s comments than to defuse them.
Their claim that the party deserves credit for allowing Mr. Hall to speak out without fear of reprisal ignores the fact that Bermuda is at least notionally a democracy and that every citizen has both the right and the obligation to express their opinions. The claim to have worked for an unfettered democracy ignores the re-mapping of the electoral boundaries in their image and their continued resistance to stand alone referenda on important issues like independence.
Their claim to be responsible for a successful economy and low rate of unemployment ignores that it was the UBP who created the environment for international business while abandoning the tourism trade that was hobbled by the BIU-led general strikes of the early 1980s. It also ignores the fact that the low unemployment rate comes at the cost of 19 per cent of the population living below the poverty threshold on less than $36,000 per year and that they have overtaxed us by $211 million.
Their claimed role in housing 800 Bermudians doesn’t mention that most of them are sharing the same substandard one bedroom apartment and that first time home ownership is a less obtainable goal than it has ever been. They conveniently forget to mention that the legislation to combat gang activity is a response to a problem that appeared under their watch in a climate of permissiveness and an ‘ends justify the means’ attitude demonstrated by the government itself.
The dinosaurs may not go down quietly but they have overspecialized for a niche environment that is no longer relevant. They’ll be increasingly unable to exploit a political landscape that demands reconciliation and co-operation.
Nor can they prevail against the growing worldliness and willingness of the electorate to challenge the tyrannosaurs on their own turf.
Wayne and Julian may be the most recognizable of the new political mammals but they’re definitely not alone. Cue the meteorite.[[In-content Ad]]
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