11th September 2003

MARKING EVENTS 11TH SEPTEMBER

            This morning we all awoke to hear the sad news that the Foreign Minister of Sweden was murdered while shopping in a department store.  I have expressed my condolences officially to the Swedish Government on this matter. It is a sign of the kind of price one pays for public service and political life. It does not excuse or explain it or make it acceptable but that is a sign of the times.

            It makes this occasion today doubly sad. Last night on our television screens, we saw again played out in slow motion, almost video game like horror, the events of 11th September.  It has taken on a macabre fascination that if we are not careful will trivialize the fact that almost three thousand families lost their lives in New York, hundreds more in Washington and Pennsylvania. That means that tens of thousands more have lost husbands, wives, brothers, sisters, sons, daughters, mothers and fathers.

            What The Bahamas shares with the civilized world is a common set of values.  Amongst the values we believe and support are a political system where there is pluralism of views, open, fierce and often argumentative competition, division of the spoils and benefits of the society amongst all on a rational and fair basis, without racial or religious or other discrimination.  We do not support irrational, blind hatred.  Our recourse for change is our political system and our political system must remain open and flexible to be able to accommodate both the need for change and the changes themselves. We support the freedom of speech and the freedom of movement, and the right of peaceful assembly.

            Our countries have been able to survive because at the center of the process of governance is a civil society, a civil polity that subscribes to the view that each man or woman of mature age has his or her say.  That was the message that our country sent to your country this same time last year.  It is a message that we have been sending; a creed in which we have believed since the time our countries came into their existence.

            I have, therefore, come this afternoon to repeat the message of the past but also to reaffirm our commitment to those shared values for the future. One thing that you should rest assured did not go up in the smoke of the 11th September 2001 was those values.  We stand strong and committed to them, and to the survival of our societies, as we know them today and as they have been known. Please convey these sentiments to your President.

            As we remember the tragic events of this day, I pray that Almighty God will bring peace and comfort to those who mourn the loss of loved ones, and that he will continue to bless the United States of America and the Commonwealth of The Bahamas.