Our long perspective on the matter of crime today is that what Bahamians are witnessing today is the bitter harvest of neglect. Years ago when thousands of Bahamians allowed themselves to be seduced by ‘hurry money,’ few took time to note that payback day would come. That day is now.
A quarter of a century ago, thousands of Bahamians bowed to the lure of cocaine, marijuana, any number of other illicit activities and easy money. By so doing, they sowed the wind. Today, this country is reaping a whirlwind of terror and disaster. In its heyday, the criminal activities associated with drugs spawned other distresses. Among these was the HIV-AIDS crisis. Thousands of Bahamians have already perished, victims of guns, drugs and AIDS. This country is now wallowing in a double-barrelled mess: one involves public safety and the other public health.
Innocent lives like those of our colleague James Bethel and Danish investor Arne Petersen, have joined the list of hundreds of other men, women and children who have been either hurt or killed in the past decade and a half.
Accustomed as most people are of drawing up annualised lists, few take the time to note that today’s news is nothing more and nothing less than the festering expression of yesterday’s neglect and delinquency. When, for example, paths cross between some of this nation’s failed citizens – some of them addled by drugs and riddled by disease – and others who are sterling successes, the outcome is often tragic.
As we have railed and warned on occasion after occasion, when schools fail, they ‘graduate’ people who have not been taught the value of reason and civility. When churches fail, they unleash onto the community people who are not saved. And, for sure, when parents are failed, they generate children who are not loved or protected. The sum of the matter, then, is that when poorly educated, poorly socialized and often uncivilized people hit the streets, they are a menace to themselves and people who would wish to be decent and law-abiding.
The news over the weekend was similar to the news on any other number of weekends in The Bahamas. It was that crime did not skip a beat. Two enormously sad killings were the nasty climax of a season of mayhem and murder which shows no sign of abating any time soon.
We were horrified, sickened and disgusted when we heard the information that our colleague James Bethel was felled by murderous thugs. It gives us no end of distress to note that this man’s life was trampled underfoot by people who allegedly had robbery as their motive. Today, as we lament the death of James Bethel, we do so with the clearest conviction that the government and people of The Bahamas must act now to bring the crime menace to this society under control.
While no amount of tears or talk can restore Mr. Bethel to the community of his family, his neighbours and the wider society, we are optimistic that the grief we share can be turned into a resolve to see to it that some good comes of the evil that felled him.
For our part, then, we cherish the memory of James Bethel and wish for his family to know that their loss is ours and that of all people in media who came to respect him for his keen intellect, his devotion to his craft and his love of this nation.
In the other instance of Arne Petersen, people who knew this investor are disgusted and appalled that he could be brutalised as he was. Mr. Petersen’s demise is another nasty blow to a country which is battling the perception that criminals and thugs are on the verge of running amok.
Something is terribly wrong in this nation. An angry and fearful public is demanding reassurance from the government and its leaders that something be done to restore a sense of calm to urban centers like Freeport and Nassau.
What this means in the short run is that the government must demonstrate that it can restore and maintain the peace for decent law-abiding citizens like Mr. James Bethel and Mr. Arne Petersen and their families. While these two men have been felled by thugs, today the public wants to know what the government proposes to do to minimise other such ‘senseless killings.’
Indeed, no day passes in this country when there is not a report of serious crime against persons and property in The Bahamas. People living in both our urban centers and remote Family Island outposts are all subject to the depredations of any number of thugs and criminals.
Some of these lawbreakers specialise in human cargo smuggling, drugs and guns. Others focus their attention on rape and robbery. In addition to these examples of lawbreaking are horrific acts of violence which accompany home invasions. On occasion, men, women and children are subjected to dreadfully repugnant acts of sexualised savagery.
This matter of crime in The Bahamas has become so bad and so routine that the mass public is no longer outraged by the ongoing onslaught to its sensibilities. A major part of the explanation for this state of affairs is to be located in the fact that once people have reached the point of psychic overload, no amount of bad information phases them today, in a society where everyone knows someone who is either a predator or victim, no one is surprised at anything. Indeed, it took the death of a senior cleric to wake a numbed populace to the reality that this country had produced a generation of thugs who had no compunction in hurting or killing anybody who got in their way.
Editorial, The Bahama Journal
