Date: Fri 22-Sep-2000

END THIS `UTTER MADNESS' NOW SAYS SIR JOHN

BY PATRICIA

AS debate over the fate of long-term residents becomes more and more

acrimonious, Sir John Swan has expressed his dismay at the increasing

xenophobia and lack of civility shown by some Bermudians towards foreigners. While reminding Bermuda that freedom of speech is enshrined in its Constitution, he pointed out that it is the responsibility of Government to govern, assuming full responsibility for policy decisions. In a civilised society, protests, he said, should be directed to the Government rather than to individuals.

While the rest of the world talks about a ``New World Order'', he noted, Bermuda is still mired in attitudes that prevailed in the '60s. The 65-year-old former Premier voiced his that constantly expressed negativity is resulting in the perception becoming the reality. ``This is utter madness, and we have to correct it,'' Sir John said in an extensive interview with the Mid-Ocean News this week. ``We are reaching a situation where the opinion of the individual is apparently more important than that of the Government.

``We have total disregard for the due process that is essential in a

civilised society. As we allow our system to be damaged, children and young people get used to seeing and perceiving the ill-effects on a society that acts it out.'' There has to be a partnership, he said, between all sectors of the community that unites all races, all social groupings, the educated and the not-so-educated, the Bermudian and the non-Bermudian. ``For this partnership to work, we must learn to differ, but to present our differences with respect to one another, so that we all participate in reaching our educational, social and economic goals for the betterment of our people as a whole.'' Sir John continued: ``We must recognise that we, as Bermudians, are charged under our Constitution with the responsibility of governing our affairs and that, in a democracy, a Government is elected to carry out our affairs under our Constitution. ``Anyone who is not a citizen by grant or birth is our guest, and can only do, within the law, what the elected Government determines they can do. ``So, whether we agree or disagree with certain policies, we must direct our

comments to Government. We need a partnership that is civil and just.''

He said he viewed the recent stormy meetings over long-term residents' rights as ``an unusual step being taken in the process of protest. If you have a disagreement, you protest against the decision-maker. ``The foreigner is a guest, not a decision-maker, and we have to abide by those decisions -- otherwise, we lose the fundamental principles of democracy. ``Here we are, in the 21st century, with only around 45,000 Bermudians. We know we need a certain level of income to support our very sophisticated standard of living.

``We need the foreigner, because our size simply isn't big enough to do so on our own. It's essential, therefore, that we deal with things differently and take issue with institutions rather than individuals, develop a civil society that takes out the acrimony. ``At present, we are reaching a situation where it's the outside world versus Bermuda, where anyone from outside is regarded as a pariah. So why would anyone want to come here?

``It may be,'' he ventured, ``one of the reasons why we have these problems with tourism. Nobody of significance from the US or UK comes here any more that should tell us that we are not as important as we once were. With the end of the Cold War, they are off courting previous enemies.'' But Bermuda, said Sir John, persists in parading its warts before the world,``and we are telling the world, in principle, that they are the enemy. ``You would never read this kind of thing in The New York Times or even in Jamaica's Daily Gleaner because they realise it damages the image. So we have to see how we are presenting ourselves -- both to ourselves and to the rest of the world.''

Refusing to be drawn on mounting speculation that he is contemplating a

Return to politics -- fuelled by his hosting of a luncheon last week for General Colin Powell and attended by a cross-section of business and community

Leaders Sir John said he was merely ``trying to help my country''. General Powell, a long-standing friend of the former Premier, gave a speech which, said Sir John, focused on two main themes: ``He said the world had changed, was changing, and would change considerably over the next few years in ways that will affect every country and every individual. General Powell emphasised that in this change, we must not neglect or deprive our young people of the opportunities this change provides.

``To avoid that, we, the adult population must work in concert with our

Constitutions to ensure that our young people are given every opportunity to

be educated so that they can participate in these changes. ``Placing General Powell's comments in the context of Bermuda,'' said Sir John, ``we have a very small population of 45,000 Bermudians with a birth rate of about 800 per year. The question is, what are we going to do with the obvious changes that are taking place? ``We must be concerned about the deficit some of our children have in participating in these changes. How are we going to turn around the aspirations of our children and those of the parents for their children, so that people can be developed to live more productive lives?'' Bermudians can, he reflected, either sit and wring our hands and blame problems on the parents, the schools, the expat, or society in general, or we can come to some type of conclusion that we do have a problem that has to be dealt with.

``I tried to address this some years ago, concerning the young black male but people got uptight about it. But we cannot get uptight about this we must face the fact that we have a problem that stretches across the whole spectrum, but particularly affecting blacks and, more specifically, black males. And that's the point General Powell was making that when you leave anyone behind, your country gets behind, but when you raise everyone up, your country goes up.''

In looking for solutions, Sir John said it was necessary to realise that

deficiencies lie not only with the children, but with the parents. ``A very large part of our parenting population are single parents, with a portion of our population living in conditions that are not conducive to learning. ``Now we hear there are kids not getting proper meals and, obviously, if the parents have not had a formal education, they are hardly in a position to help their children with such things as homework.``Disciplining a child,'' he added, ``is not enough when a child needs help. But the children who most need help have parents who need help.''

Sir John concluded, therefore, that if Bermuda wished to remain a successful country in the 21st century, it was essential to rectify the growing divisions

in education, expertise and opportunity. ``So, our focus must be on a major reform, which has already started in the more formal sense in our education system. But these reforms will only service those who are born with the genetic propensity tto learn. They are not geared to help those who need the type of help they are unable to receive at home.'' While Government proceeds with the completion of the infrastructure for the primary, middle and secondary education programmes, it was necessary to proceed beyond that: ``At present, Government is spending $14,300 on each student, whereas, in the private sector, the cost per student is around $9,500. And, if you take it to an extreme, the cost of incarceration goes up to $40,000 per annum, per inmate. So, if we want to reduce the amount of money being spent on inmates, we have to better educates the `outmates'!''

In Sir John's opinion, those young people who cannot achieve an education in

A home environment, should be given the option to attend a boarding school facility, in an environment that will provide the ability to live and learn. ``These young people need to be motivated, counselled and assisted for a transition to further education. ``We should provide the very best we can find in the way of educators and counsellors and make it very clear that if we cannot find people locally, we go abroad to find those with the requisite skills. ``I would envisage it as tantamount to a public school but with the assets of a private school -- free of charge. ``We invest in our young people now,'' he stressed, ``or we pay later for their difficulties.'' While improvement in education was imperative, Sir John said this was just one step in a series of steps that needed to be taken to ensure Bermuda remained a successful community.

``I have already spoken of setting target for reducing some of the pressures inflicted on our society without the benefits -- that is why we need to look at tourism, not just playing the numbers game, but promoting qualitative tourism that will give us a greater return. ``Thus, the development of smaller villas, hotels with condominium or town houses attached will ensure longer-term residence. Then we need to address the types of things that will start to reduce pressures by reducing the number of people on the streets, to reduce the number of people in seasonal trade by encouraging hotels to operate year-round. This would mean the gradual elimination of the cruise ship trade, in a constructive, scheduled manner that allowed for adjustments to take place.''

In the final analysis, concluded Sir John, we must teach our children to have a vision about our country, where they can see themselves in occupations and be prepared to work towards where they wish to be: ``Our young people are crying out to us for help, so let us, in this new Bermuda, and in this new world order, move as expeditiously as possible towards the appropriate adjustments that are going to put the focus on the development of our youth.'' Obviously, he stressed, all these changes have financial implications: ``To do these things, it becomes even more imperative that our economy is strong, in order to meet these growing educational and social demands, if we are to fulfil this social contract -- or, as Colin Powell calls it -- `the promise' to our young people.''