By AVA TURNQUEST

Tribune Chief Reporter

aturnquest@tribunemedia.net

THE rationale behind proposed reforms to nationality and immigration laws is a reflection of xenophobic policies sweeping the world, according to former Director General of Culture Dr Nicolette Bethel, who yesterday predicted a cataclysmic, violent uprising.

Dr Bethel, a cultural anthropologist and assistant professor at the University of the Bahamas, was responding to a presentation by former Court of Appeal President Dame Anita Allen on the draft Nationality, Immigration and Asylum Bill, 2018.

Dame Allen, who chairs the Law Reform and Revision Commission that prepared the bill, characterised the legislation as “an effort to better protect our borders, to be tougher on violators, and to maintain this country’s nationhood.”

In the context of illegal immigration, Dame Anita further stated it was not unreasonable to suggest the country was in danger of losing its national identity.

Yesterday, Dr Bethel called this argument a “smokescreen” because successive administrations have not invested any resources to creative culture arts that would lend to the pursuit of a national identity.

She remarked $1m in a public/private fund was not the kind of investment that created such an identity.

“It’s appealing to people’s worst nature, it’s scapegoating,” Dr Bethel said.

“I don’t think that’s the reason why the law is being passed. There is a zeitgeist or sign of the times going around the world that is exclusionary, nationalist, and vaguely fascist, and we are probably riding that wave.”

She continued: “But none of the things going on around the world, none of them make sense. They resonate emotionally but don’t make sense anywhere in the world. They are going to lead to a cataclysmic uprising, bloodshed, everything, it will happen.”

Arguably, one of the most controversial features of the new bill is the provisions concerning the status of people whose acquisition of citizenship has been deferred under articles 7 and 9 of the constitution.

People in this category are those born in the Bahamas to foreign parents, and those born overseas to married Bahamian women with foreign husbands, and the bill provides them a “right to abode” via a resident belonger permit, allowing them to reside and work until they can apply and while their citizenship application is being considered.

Those who miss the constitutionally mandated time to apply for citizenship, by age 19 or 21, or have not applied for a resident belonger permit in the interim - will be up for deportation; those who have already missed the deadline will have six months to apply for status once the bill is passed before their residency in the country is considered unlawful.

Yesterday, Dr Bethel said: “What I’m saying is that by creating legislation, that has resonances of the kind of legislation that was created in Europe particularly Germany in the 1930s opens the door to uprisings and public violence.

“In two directions,” she continued, “it’s a violent act against the natural born child of a migrant. We are initiating the act of violence and we are giving permission to nationalists to feel justified in violence against the ‘other’. And so violence against us will result.”

In her presentation, Dame Allen explained the existing state of the law “hampers the exercise of immigration control” over people born in the country to foreign parents, whom she said have no reason to leave the country after their birth.

Responding generally, Dr Bethel challenged the characterisation of people born in the country as immigrants.

“The people they are talking about are not immigrants,” Dr Bethel continued, “they are people who are born in this country. So I don’t see how this is a threat to jobs? These are people we have already paid for their healthcare and education, and to lock them out of the job market is to lock the country out from recouping on that investment.”

Dr Bethel continued: “If people are born in this country, and they have already by default identified as Bahamian, we should make it easy for them to be Bahamian, and to know what Bahamian is.

“We have absolutely no requirement for anyone to do anything that resembles true education about Bahamian history in the schools. People come into the University of the Bahamas with no knowledge whatsoever.

Dr Bethel said: “We have no national library, we have something called a National Library System but we have nothing beyond the archives that is tasked with collecting, and opening to the public, and promoting and publicising Bahamian works of any kind.”

Dr Bethel noted the National Art Gallery of the Bahamas was the only “touchstone”, with the absence of a national school of the arts and no public education curriculum on drama.

“Junkanoo is not enough and the way we have dealt with it has changed,” she added, underscoring there was more financial investment pumped into the creation of the Carnival parade than allotted for past Junkanoo parades.

As for the country’s national identity, Dr Bethel said: “We have not invested in it in any way, shape, or form. The way it’s created is through national monuments, investment in artists, things that people can touch and identity with.

“The only thing we have really invested in is drawing boundaries and exclusion,” she said.