Politics and Space: Non-differentiation between church and state

Its political season in the Bahamas - election day has just been announced and now its time to get all riled up to support those I'd like to see in power. As I am abroad and won't be home for elections (which I can only say breaks my heart since I spent 2 hours on my birthday in a pharmacy waiting on a line to get my voters card), the best I can do is support my favorite party or candidate. There have always been two major political parties - the Progressive Liberal Party (PLP) and the Free National Movement (FNM) - just as in the United States, as well as independent candidates and less well known parties which are hardly ever even acknowledged. Now here is where it turns funny - I've said before that everything in the Bahamas is about who you know - who you are is completely dependent on who your parents are, and that stream of thought follows into politics. During political season, your identity  is often determined by who you vote for. If your grammy is an FNM, your daddy's an FNM, and if your friend's a PLP, her mother will be too. Very rarely will you find someone who does not support the party that their family do, and that passes down from generation to generation. It gets really ugly if you do: it demonstrates lack of loyalty, you'll get beat, disowned - just don't go there (just kidding, sort of).

"Sea of Red" FNM supporters at a Rally

 Now people get really out of hand demonstrating their "loyalty" and it gets pretty dirty. There are rallies and motorcades to show your support, yes, but it really becomes more of a competition based on the name of the parties themselves and the citizens support, rather than the actual candidates. If you see a sea of red shirts, you know your in an FNM crowd; if you see yellow, you're in PLP territory. And they will do anything to defend or promote their party. On the FNM website, there is a picture in an article here showing PLP supporters simulating violence against the FNM's on an official branch's facebook page - PLP in yellow watching a car run over an "FNM" dummy in red. You may say, its just a red shirt right? How are you so sure that's what they are trying to say? Because it's always that serious.

FNM spokesperson says in response, "As the country is seeking ways to reduce violence, PLP supporters are promoting the idea of violence against political opponents. The PLP would be better served spending their time putting out a plan, than engaging in this kind of behaviour". And with this kind of behavior, we do wonder who is actually capable of leading the country. The truth is, despite who I support, that neither party is.

There are comments (well justified) that suggest that people are all in a frenzy about supporting a color, rather than an actual candidate and that the parties condone this behaviour to gain support - the blind leading the blind, because neither party is really doing anything to help the country progress. In fact, its only choosing the best of the worst, because neither government will do what it needs to do. But that's always been the case in the Bahamas. Most citizens are too loyal to support anyone else - until recently. This season, there is a new party, one that has surprisingly gained a large amount of supporters in a small amount of time, called the Democratic National Alliance (DNA). Their selling point is essentially what President Obama's was during his campaign, that he could bring what other parties couldn't, we need a change, it's time for a new era, etc.

The problem is that the leader is young and hardly has any experience - and because of that, older voters will not vote for him. Further, these new generation of leaders can speak 'yes we can' all they want - the Bahamas is not in a position where it is prepared for a change because of the way our government works. As long as the Bahamas doesn't separate church from state, little can be done, because decisions are made for the wrong reasons and by the wrong people. Lines are blurred because the spaces of government and the church aren't different. Yes, the Bahamas is supposed to be a Christian nation, but in religion only. And not even the DNA, our so called agents of change, have made that differentiation. This is shown when we look at the biographies for each constituency's candidates: for my constituency, Yamacraw, we are informed here that Maurice Smith is "a born again Christian" and "a member of Abundant Life Bible Church, with a continuing mandate of spreading the Gospel of Jesus Christ". Please, please, tell me. How is this relevant to how he is going to help run the country? I applaud him for his faith, which I support, but I don't want to vote for him because of it. It's because it's what Bahamians want to hear, apparently.

We've learned in class that there is a relationship of space in terms of power and power relations. Focault's Discipline and Punish tells us in his example of the non-differentiation in the spaces of prisons and schools that its the ideology that's the biggest connection between the spaces. We want things to merge because the ideas we have for both of the spaces to be the same, even if we don't realize we are doing it. But the church was not meant to rule the state if the government is going to be doing their jobs. The DNA knows that they have to continue merging church and state in order to be considered. But the only way the Bahamas is going to progress is by separating the two. None-the-less, they are using a strategy in which they reorganize the idea of government, where the normal ideas of politics and government aren't condoned, which I must commend them for. In reference to Steve's comment in class, rather than wearing "combat boots" to the dance, they are having a completely different dance all together. They are, at least, trying. Until they get their act together though, I'll stick with what I know.

There's no way you'll guess who I want to vote for