Evidence in support of the thesis that community health is the surest foundation for nation building is compelling and incontrovertible. Conversely, the evidence is also compelling that when community disintegrates, the nation itself is in peril. Today, as we reflect on the state of our nation, we take note of the fact that the news is filled with stories which speak to the disintegration of so many communities in our country.
The dark underside of this phenomenon is unfortunately often either ignored or forgotten, which is that national disintegration begins with the loss of community at home.
When poorly socialised and often totally brutalised people decide that they will form family units, they routinely reproduce after their own kind, that being other people who are poorly socialized and often totally brutalised.
This cycle of pain and distress must be broken if The Bahamas is to be put on a firmer footing. This will come no time soon as long as this nation’s leaders focus their attention on surface rather than substance.
If The Bahamas is to become safer, saner and more civilised, it will have to place more emphasis on building community. This begins and ends with placing more emphasis on the health and welfare of families, with the bulk of the attention focused on the health and well being of girls and women. When they make responsible choices, their children are better off.
Obviously, when this happens, the nation is assured of a healthier future.
Sadly, this country has been so badly hurt that truly horrifying information is now routinely noted, filed and then forgotten. One tragic instance suffices to illustrate how bad things are in this country. It was the story concerning the newborn infant girl whose remains were left in a garbage dumpster. Had it not been for a morbid bit of serendipity, the remains of the dead child would have been hauled off to a landfill. And, that it would have been the end of the matter as far as the public was concerned.
Today, with the knowledge that the public now has at hand what is truly amazing is that the story of the dead baby is no longer in the news. The public’s insatiable demand for information about other tragedies and horrors is being met by other reports of violence, mayhem and destruction. This will be the case as long as politicians and other civic leaders continue the routine of dealing with symptoms rather than search for causes. A case in point is the much vaunted Farm Road Project.
Information reaching us suggests that the focus of that community based initiative was put on ‘cleaning’ up the affected areas. Derelict vehicles were removed, dilapidated buildings were torn down and community policing was ratcheted up.
What was interesting about this initiative was its public relations hype and the extravagant claims that this pilot project might – one day – become a model for other similarly devastated communities.
This project – in its successes and failures – reveals and exposes a fundamental dilemma facing The Bahamas. We are convinced that the authors of the Farm Road Project were well intentioned but almost totally na�ve when they embarked on that initiative. By focusing so intently on surface manifestations of distress, they missed the root causes of the matter. Take for example the idea about ridding the community of so-called crack houses. If addicts are denied access to certain sites, they will obviously have no alternative but to satisfy their cravings elsewhere. The point is that what is needed are initiatives which deal with the root problem of drug use and addiction.
The bottom line is that the authorities should make it their business to deal first and foremost with the rehabilitation of people. This brings us to what is clearly one of the major successes of the Farm Road Project which was that the government now has in its possession information which lays bare the appalling extent to which this society has neglected to render assistance to some of its weakest members.
Preliminary indicators show that there are scores of people in that community who are wallowing in poverty, wracked by disease and living in despair.
In and of itself, this is not new. Indeed, the problems in that community and others like it have been with us for so long that they have become a part of the national d�cor, an ecological disaster and moral affront which has been kept out of sight, out of mind and out of the news for decades.
Ironically, it took the re-election of the Progressive Liberal Party in May 2002 to bring this record of neglect to national attention. After three decades and a half of majority rule and some thirty years of independence, heartland areas such as Grants Town and Bain Town still wait for relief.
Promised sequentially exodus, deliverance and help and hope, the thousands of people who live over the hill continue to struggle to survive in these hard places.The way forward for them and this nation is for government and its social partners to pay more attention to rehabilitating people rather than places.
Editorial, The Bahama Journal
