What the h... is Bahamianisation? Really?

So ... this subject continues to leave me perplexed rather than anything else. OK ... maybe sometimes a little bit upset. OK ... it makes me mad!!!

I just don't know what it's all about, unless it's simply and only for political consumption. It's certainly not reality. And it won't help anyone get or keep jobs.

Sometimes I wonder if the people who "shoot out the lip" about having been victims of discrimination against Bahamians by employers ... particularly foreign employers ... can see beyond the end of their noses.

If they would only stop focusing short, they'd know about all the Bahamians who have been sent abroad by those same employers. I'm one. And I can name any number of others without even trying hard. I don't have enough fingers and toes to count those I know personally who have benefited from postings abroad by their accounting firms, banks, trust companies, etc. And those are only the ones I know about. And to kill that other bugaboo ... they're every colour in the spectrum.

One guy has held two positions in Nassau that were the result of "work permit" ads - one quite senior. In one case the Englishman's personal effects - labelled for Nassau - were stopped on the docks in Manila. Years later he was still upset! Just to show that foreign employers are more than willing to save money by hiring a Bahamian rather than swing for the rent and vehicle allowances, etc. they have to pay the "import". And before you say it ... this company has a fixed pay scale worldwide for each executive grade. So no savings on that score by hiring a "cheaper" Bahamian.

Not saying there aren't exceptions to this stuff ... but good policy - let alone life decisions - should never be based on the exceptions.

Instead of constantly crying "woe is me" the short sighted naysayers should ask themselves if maybe ... just maybe ... they are not employable for reasons other than the fact that they are Bahamian. They could perhaps change those aspects of personality - their basic aproach to life - that deny them what they consider to be the "good positions".

One [white] Bahamian aquaintance of mine years ago made a career of alienating pretty well every potential employer. If he considered himself capable of handling a job, then it should have been his. Said he. And he threatened lawsuits. 'Cause after all he also had a law degree. And in this little town pretty soon every human resource professional around had heard of him and avoided him like the plague. If he was willing to be belligerant before getting hired, it was a pretty good bet he'd be a "problem employee". Eventually he moved to the US ... and got treated pretty much the same, for what it's worth.

So ... it's not about nationality, is it? It's about character and ability and potential and willingness to learn and work one's way up.

Some of us went overseas low on the totem pole. We could have taken the tack that, after all, we had degrees ... MAs, even PhDs. But we learned the ropes ... did what we were asked. And we went beyond that. And pretty soon we had bosses that didn't want to see us go. We got promoted up against others who appeared to be better qualified on paper. And we were in somebody else's country. And we waited for work permits. And they were granted fairly. In part because each of those governments knew that part of the "tit-for-tat" was that their nationals were being sent abroad to other places for training and experience which would later be valuable to them.

The only influence we could bring to bear was who we were. What we could do. How hard we were willing to work.

We've received training in countries both more and less developed than our own. We've been away for short periods and long ... and we've been everything from trainees to management. Some of us got language training. Some of us got further education at our employers' expense.

In due time we came back home to contribute. To raise our families. To do what we could for our little corner of the universe.

I ask myself where I would be today had I been treated by my host countries overseas the way Bahamian politicians seem to be proposing. You just can't have it all. As much as you'd like to. If we're going to treat others this way, we shouldn't expect much better ourselves.

In my humble opinion, in one short month the politicians have managed to pretty well kill any hope we might have had of becoming a serious international finance centre.

Think it through, folks. There are consequences to all this.

And why doesn't the story of Bahamians overseas get told more often? Hunh? Why? Is it only politics? Or does the media love to feed only on the negative? 'Cause it gets people worked up? Why not tell the good stories. Of the Francises, the Wells, the Fountains, the Havens, etc. etc. etc. who have been away, done the hard time, and come back. Of the others that are still there, learning, accumulating experience.

Where's that story??