DAME MARGUERITE DID A DISSERVICE TO US ALL

Tribune photo

Every year, for so many years now you cannot count, Fred Mitchell and Dame Marguerite Pindling have gathered at the mausoleum of her late husband Sir Lynden O Pindling in order to honour his memory and that of the coming of Majority Rule on 10 January 1967.   The holiday was initiated by Fred Mitchell in Parliament and the campaign for it was led with almost singular devotion by Fred Mitchell.  So the question that all sane people were asking is what could have happened to cause the outburst by Dame Marguerite Pindling at the graveside on 10 January 2023 this year which led to a vicious headline in the press? It seemed like a singular act of madness, petulance, and selfishness. It was sad and did a disservice to a wonderful effort by the next generation of PLPs.

What was particularly egregious was not so much the attack on Mr. Mitchell and the PLP and the Prime Minister right in their face in a public official ceremony, but on the younger generation that led the effort and is just seeking to come to terms with what being PLP is, what being black is, what being a young Bahamian is, and to be dismissed so petulantly for an imagined slight.

Almost certainly, the government should never return to the Pindling mausoleum because of that outburst.  It was so inexplicable and inexcusable.  There is a tradition that Governors General are silent about public matters. Every single Governor General since Milo Butler has scrupulously observed that tradition.  This former Governor General Dame Marguerite Pindling has violated that tradition.

It is unfortunate because what it did was derail a studied effort since the death of Lynden Pindling to ensure that what is repeated about him is not the propaganda that the FNM and its allies have spun about him but rather the good things which he has done for the nation  His wife and himself were always portrayed in the propaganda of the FNM as a couple of entitlement.  This was false but fully half the country and most by 1992 had accepted that as a given, which resulted in his loss of office.

Now a generation later, with that mostly behind us, the idea of a national figure Lynden Pindling was beginning to be accepted by the country at large, particularly in the face of the disastrous regime of Hubert Minnis.

That singular, petulance on 10 January 2023 by his widow may have jeopardized all of that and has caused the former Governor General herself now to become the object of ire and controversy.  It is such a shame.

Number of hits for the week ending Saturday, 14th January, 2023 up to midnight: 253,845;
Number of hits for the month of January up to Saturday, 14th January, 2023 up to midnight; 622,664;
Number of hits for the year 2023 up to Saturday, 14th January, 2023 up to midnight: 622,664.