Introduction

• Author: Derence A. Rolle Davis
• Pages: 10-12

Derence Rolle Davis

5. INTRODUCTION

I like to view The Bahamas as similar to building a house. Let us

then consider for a moment a person who decides that he is no longer

going to rent a house, but they are going to build their own house and

develop their own yard and their own space. Similarly, that is exactly

what we [The Bahamas] decided to do as a nation. We, as a people

decided that we were no longer going to have the landlord, that is, the

British colonial masters tell us how to run our house. We were not

going to pay rent any further. We decided that we were going to be

the landlords, the owners, and developers of our property. In order to

achieve this, we decided to become independent.

In becoming independent we then determined how it is that we

are going to build this house. Building this house then required us to

develop national symbols. We determined how it is that we are going

to organise ourselves by what the house rules and regulations or laws

were going to be. We decided how we were going to govern ourselves

and our children in our house. We decided that we were going to

build the foundation which is what our laws and Constitution are

built upon.

We determined how it is that we wanted our house to be

structured and so we set about building its walls and windows. We

determined how it is that we are going to allow people to come in and

out of our house. We determined that we were going to put on the

roof and we then decided how we were going to keep our yards, our

experiences and our territorial waters. We decided that we were going

to organise and allow for how we were going to paint the house and

organise everything within it. We completed building our house over

a period of time. We also decided how it is that we were going to

sustain ourselves. We determined that we would use banking and

tourism as our primary sources of income.

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