Some Bahamians are today being genuinely surprised at the news that thousands of Bahamians are living in conditions that are sadly and savagely appalling.
Some of these surprised Bahamians are today teetering on the edge of shock as they awake to the reality that there are -this day- any number of Bahamians who must avail themselves of ‘tin tub and slop bucket’.
Evidence is coming – fast and furious, as the old saying goes – to suggest that hard times are here. And today there is every indication that things are going to get worse before they begin to get better.
As this trend continues, there is evidence to suggest a rise in certain kinds of crimes.
Here reference is to the upsurge in crimes against persons and property.
Incidentally, some of the crimes against the person are quite savage; suggesting that some of this nation’s criminals are becoming more and more feral.
Rape and murder are at the top of the list in this bestiary of horror.
And as per usual in such circumstances, many Bahamians grow desperate. Some grow faint as a consequence of fair; while others decide that they will take the law into their own hands. Of some note in this regard are any number of disturbing indicators of stress and distress in this country of ours.
Indeed no day passes when there is not a report of some outrage or the other. In some instances Bahamians are apparently so distraught that some are becoming suicidal; while others work through their own destructive impulses by way of any number of god-awful attacks on each other.
And all the while, as the bloody beat goes on, the nation’s youth play the part of chorus in this ongoing national tragedy. Making the whole mess even more horrible is the fact that all of this violence is taking place against a backdrop that would depict The Bahamas as some kind of tropical paradise.
We are some times take to wondering as to how long the millions of tourists who come to The Bahamas ‘to get away from it all’ can be shielded from these Bahamian realities.
We are today quite convinced that the Government and its social partners must -even now – go that extra mile in seeing to it that the issue of crime and the fear it spawns should be treated as public issue number one.
And for sure, we make this point in the full knowledge that crime is far too important a social issue to be left to the police. Crime fighting must begin with the baby mother and father; in short with a focus on those conditions that literally breed crime.
Regrettably, some of those sad places that purport to be about the business of schooling are themselves little more than crime incubators. While we freely admit that this conclusion may seem harsh; the rhetorical question is for those who say otherwise to tell us how to characterize places that routinely produce social deviants and infant-criminals.
How else is one to describe the transformation of a child who was once the essence of innocence from that state to the one that is depicted on the evening news; a young man brutalized beyond all definition and as angry as hell with the whole wide world?
Were we minded to characterize these times, we could do so in Dickensian terms, and describe them as the best of times; and as the worst of times for the world’s peoples.
Evidence to support this conclusion is abundant. In our region, we have the obscene spectacle of poverty and wealth in squalid embrace in the Republic of Haiti. And for sure, we know that the same phenomena – albeit in attenuated form- exist in The Bahamas. And for sure, we also do know that no amount of bulldozing of squatter villages – whether in The Bahamas or Zimbabwe – can or will eradicate human misery.
The reality for many is the dreadful impact of pestilence, famine, disease, destruction, and early death. But even as we cite the problem of poverty in the world, reference must also be made to the garish obscenity, which obtains in so many places in the world- inclusive of the Bahamas- where some people live in wealth beyond measure; and where so very many others wallow in misery.
This need not be so in a country that boasts so very much about its myriad of successes. Bahamians need not be terrorized by poverty.
Editorial from The Bahama Journal
