THE PLP RESPONDS TO THE KNIGHTHOOD FOR GODFREY KELLY
Godfrey Kelly just doesn’t get it. We suppose as a 91 year old man what does he care anymore. He is near the end and the knighthood now caps from his point of view a successful career. He has always helped he said and felt that he deserved it, should have gotten it before and that he should have gotten it when his fellow United Bahamian Party member Geoffrey Johnstone got it. Well again we say he doesn’t get it. He presided in a government that was racist to its core and corrupt. They oppressed black people. He was Minister of Education underdeveloped the education of black children in this country. He has not made amends for that. What was incredible is the Attorney General Carl Bethel who we never thought until now was an Uncle Tom. He sought to defend their bad choice by saying that Godfrey Kelly set the pace on education for the PLP and they were merely following the blueprint of Godfrey Kelly when they came to office in 1967. There is nothing like a slave to attempt a rewrite of history. So what he is saying then is that Cecil Wallace Whitfield who was the PLP’s first Minister of Education was simply carrying out what Godfrey Kelly was planning when he became Minister. We don’t think he really means that. Since the UBP lost and Godfrey Kelly faded into history, Sir Durward Knowles, a white man and one of the UBP supporters and benefactors, apologized on four occasions for the way white Bahamians treated black Bahamians during the UBP period. Not so Brent Symonette and not so Godfrey Kelly. They are unreconstructed and unrepentant. For that this country owes neither of them anything at all. It was shocking the bit about making amends, because he could only be suggesting that when the FNM was last in power he expected to get one but they gave it to Sir Geoffrey but not to him and now they are making up for it. What pray tell did he give to them that he felt that they were obligated to give him one? As for the PLP being gracious, it would have been gracious if Godfrey Kelly had just shut his damn mouth. Self-praise is no praise at all. If Godfrey Kelly wants to know what gracious is how about Lynden Pindling after the racism and vitriol against him by Stafford Sands, he called him and told him he was free to come back to The Bahamas and that he would not be prosecuted. That is gracious. This is not about the PLP seeking votes. This is about the principle of a racists being rewarded for their evil doing.
The official statement follows:
Statement From The Chairman of The Progressive Liberal Party
On British Honours Bestowed On Godfrey Kelly and Carl Culmer
For Immediate Release
30 December 2019
The PLP disagrees with the choices of both Carl Culmer and Godfrey Kelly for the national honours announced for New Year’s. These choices show a Government motivated by shameless partisanship. There is no objective evidence to support those awards.
It appears that Mr. Culmer is being rewarded by the Prime Minister for his very harmful brand of personal political attacks, diatribe and invective while unwittingly providing political cover and justification for every corrupt misdeed by this FNM administration.
The knighthood for Godfrey Kelly is a continued and studied attempt to rewrite Bahamian history. This is the man who presided as Minister of Education in the last ignoble UBP administration and was responsible for the education policies that retarded the country’s growth and national development, under educating the black majority in the country. What has he done since then to make national amends?
This attempt to rewrite history is not new to this FNM administration.
People will remember the FNM making Sir Roland Symonette, the former premier, a national hero, a man who opposed the creation of the nation.
The FNM continues to debase and devalue our national patrimony. History should not be rewritten and they should cease trying to make right what was wrong.
End