‘Bermuda has serious political shortcomings’

When it comes to Rev. Nicholas Tweed, politics is never very far away from his pulpit.

“There’s no such thing as just a Sunday preacher,” he’s fond of saying.

Born in London and educated in the UK and US, Rev. Tweed has been in his current role as pastor of the St Paul African Methodist Episcopal Church for about 16 months.

During that time Rev. Tweed has not been shy about saying what he feels needs to be said.

Corporations, according to the reverend, should shoulder more of the load of the economic downturn. Too much has been asked of the working class and the poor. Not enough has been done to ease the hardship of the underserved, he said.

The political in-fighting on the island comes at the expense of the most needy.

“There are serious shortcomings in terms of our political culture here in Bermuda. I think that sometimes political parties can get so busy fighting each other in a vacuum that they call government, they lose touch and become disconnected with the people they’re entrusted to serve.”

He added:“They’re aloof from the people. The things they seem to care about are not necessarily the things their people care about the most.”

His role, he said, is quite simple — act as a servant to the people. It’s a role he knows well.

He pastored for years along the US east coast, including a stint in Rhode Island, where he helped lead an advocacy coalition that helped shape welfare reform and supported other social causes. 

“We got 4,000 people’s health benefits restored,” he said.

This, however, is his ancestral homeland. His father, Dr Kingsley Tweed, was a well-known Bermudian civil rights leader in the 1950s. He led the fight against segregation. He also fought for the expansion of the voting franchise and served as the general secretary of the Bermuda Industrial Union.

Asked if he feels the need to carry on his father’s legacy, Rev. Tweed said: “I think each person should carve their own highway through the stratosphere.”

He summarized perhaps the island’s largest political conundrum: “The government is challenged with the political reality of trying to assure international business to remain committed to Bermuda, yet at the same time the government is also challenged with the responsibility to meet the needs of those persons who are now being thrust into poverty or close to poverty.”

Rev. Tweed points to his congregation’s newly launched hot food programme. It was opened for one hour and his church fed 150 people.

“That says there’s a lot of hungry people out there.”

Racism, he said, is still very much a problem on the island.

“For the most part people coexist relatively well,” he said. “But I think systemically, racism has yet to be dealt with in terms of structure. So you still have the majority of economic power which was accumulated by persons who controlled wealth coming through slavery, which later became inherited wealth, which later became an oligarchy or some people call it the 40 thieves.”

He said there is a “growing undercurrent of people who are becoming indignant and feeling disaffected.”

Some can’t get the medical coverage they need. Scholarship funds set up for the island’s most needy students have been slashed. People are forced to take second and third jobs to make ends meet, meaning they don’t have as much time for their children.

“That has its own consequences,” he said.