Crown Land is land that Bahamians have kept public for future use for the benefit of Bahamians. Often, it is used as an agent of diversification from tourism. Often, it is used to grant land to Bahamians to jumpstart new agricultural ventures. Often, it is held as public land in order to preserve the beauty and environment unique to the Bahamas.
But that Crown Land is now in jeapardy, as an out-of-control Prime Minister uses it for short-term gains.
But enough about that for now. Let's change subject, and imagine the following:
I will use Yosemite National Park as my example, because it is a spectacular and well known symbol for America's public lands. If you wish to replace in your mind another such wonder from another country, please do so. Imagine the Vatican, or the Alps, or Mount Fuji, or the Kremlin. Imagine Mount Everest, or Tikal.
Imagine that on March 1, 2005, Japanese Wonder-Fun electronic theme park developers sign a secret document with President George Bush. The document is a result of months, maybe even years, of exchange between the president and these developers.
They call the document, "Heads of Agreement."
The document is an agreement that turns over Yosemite National Park and portions of adjacent National Forest to the Japanese developers, to build an electronic fun park. It is likely that President Bush had no authority to turn over the land to a foreign developer, but the laws seem confusing. There is no observable way to keep President Bush from moving forward.
The people living in the Sierra Range adjacent to Yosemite National Park, many of whose families had been living on land adjacent to the park for hundreds of years, were not consulted publicly. The Japanese developers held a public meeting, but they announced it only six hours before, while most of the Yosemite Valley residents were working outside of the valley.
The Heads of Agreement has several laborious clauses, some excuse the developer from having to hire only Americans; giving reasons why in certain instances it is necessary to hire Japanese.
The nearby Mammoth Lakes Airport is assigned special hangars for the exclusive use of the electronic fun park land-owners.
Under the Hotel Encouragement Act, President George Bush offers several exemptions from a wide array of taxes and obligations, including property taxes, customs duties and stamp duties. The developer is given the authority to import and export the construction equipment to build their fun park from Canada and Mexico. Bush hands over control of the local utilities - water, sewage, phone and even electricity to the developer. Bush promises to quickly permit the Japanese purchases of fun park land condominiums. He even gives the developer rights to extend existing roads and allow them special access through Yosemite's famous valley. even if at the expense of residents or the environment.
All of this, George Bush does in relative secrecy: president turned businessman. The state government of Califorrnia and the people of the Yosemite area have been excluded from involvement, even though the creation of a Japanese electronic fun park will seriously degrade the base of tourism that Yosemite relies on, on the grounds that it will spoil the reason people visit Yosemite in the first place. Bush, operating from a central government far away and in a very different culture and environment, decides that this fun park is best for the American economy.
All of this sounds insanely unlikely, and it may be. But everything you read above happened. Although instead of America and the President and Yosemite, it is the Bahamas and Prime Minister Christie and Guana Cay's crown and treasury land.
Prime Minister Christie's goal is for the central government to place a starter hub development in each of the out-islands. His plan is to do so quickly, as quickly as possible, to give the short-term impression that his administration is responsible for creating jobs and revenue. Like an old Bahamian pirate, he has moved swiftly through the out-islands, taking crown land and stretching the legal system to institute mega-developments in parts of the country that simply don't want them or whose fragile environment can't handle them.
A pirate has no regard for a local community's rights. A pirate cares not for what some islanders want. His authority is only to his own ship - his 'central government.'
But modern governments rely on the efficiency created by units. In the west, we believe a society and an economy work best when divided into groups: the individual, the family, the neighborhood, the local government, the provincial government and lastly the central government.
Most decisions are most efficiently made by the individual or the family. But some obligations, such as flood control, are more efficiently handled by provincial government, and defense, for example, by central government.
Once a central or federal government starts to exercise control over responsibilities of the local or neighborhood levels, at their expense but for the apparent gain of the country as a whole, that government is understood to be in breach of the values of liberty.
The local community of Great Guana Cay, which has stayed independent and self-sufficient for over 200 years and has evolved as a community to survive no matter what the external circumstances, now finds that a distant central government wants to take away its liberties and its primary source of employment: tourism.
Everybody who knows Guana Cay knows that the establishment of a California-style cookie-cutter golf course resort on about 2/5's of the island will devastate the tourism that the community relies on. People visit Guana Cay for its beauty, for its quietness, for its disregard of cookie-cutter California trash tourism.
By allowing an American-style development on Great Guana Cay, it's no secret that the community will face severe hardship. Tourists who have been visiting Abaco for years visit Guana for the natural, unspoiled environment and relaxed atmosphere of the village on the island. The Bakers Bay Club may bring in new jobs and some investment into the Bahamas economy; but it negatively impacts the economy of the people who settled and live on Guana itself, and offers no economic benefit to them whatsoever.
It is extremely rare these days for central governments to make decisions directly affecting locals without their involvement. But it is happening today in the Bahamas. People are outraged, but they have little voice.
In Harbour Island of Eleuthera, or Bimini, and in the town of Sandy Point: all across the Bahamas, local communities feel as though the government is acting like a shipload of pirates, cutting at their destiny in a risky gamble with Bahamas' future.
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