Within a matter of hours, Bahamians will usher in a new year. And, as usual, most of them will use this milestone as an occasion to renew commitments and to review past joys, sorrows and triumphs. Many of them will make resolutions for the coming year. We, too, have some wishes and hopes. Among them is our unswerving commitment to continuing to speak truth to power. Otherwise, but closely related to this resolve is our overall desire to continue to work for the achievement of the common good.
As Bahamians pause on the threshold of a new year, they should take time to reflect deeply and purposefully on what is perhaps one of the greatest challenges they currently face. From our vantage point as privileged observers of the Bahamian social scene, Bahamians are, for the most part, so caught up with their individual concerns that they continue to lose sight of the common good. This myopic preoccupation with individual well being has the unintended social consequence of reinforcing an ethic of greed. When, for example, governmental, business and other leaders from civil society focus so closely on their individual agendas, they often lose sight of the ways in which their efforts can be enhanced through collaboration. In the instance of government, there are any number of disastrous examples of what can happen when politicians become a law to themselves, believing that their every whim or idle wish should miraculously change reality for the better. Invariably, the result is ruin for these kinds of politicians and the people who blindly follow them.
Similarly, when business elites focus too closely on their ‘bottom line’, they often lose sight of the fact that they pay more when the surrounding society is left diseased and dysfunctional. In the same vein, there is the troubling paradox presented when churches are expanding and social ills are increasing apace. This is explained by the fact that, in instance after instance, these organizations serve as means of ego-gratification rather than as places where people go for healing of mind, body and spirit.
In the year past, then, the evidence is fairly compelling that many Bahamians continued to go their selfish ways, oblivious to the hurt and harm visited upon others in their society. It is this loss of community which is both cause and symptom of some of this country’s abiding failures and distresses. Bahamians can resolve to do things differently. Resolutions which are meaningful can be made.
If ever there was a time in Bahamian social history when such were needed, this time is surely it. With a world at war and with so many uncertainties about what lies ahead, Bahamians know with a certainty that they will be in for surprises and shocks in the year ahead.
This sense of dread and anxiety has been spawned, in part, by past experiences. These show how vulnerable The Bahamas is and the extent to which its much vaunted prosperity is predicated upon external growth and progress. Existing as it does in an international environment which is now far from stable, The Bahamas will – in the months ahead – be obliged to try to find the means of securing its footing in that world. While the United States of America will loom large in these calculations, The Bahamas must do all that it can to find and woo other allies. This effort will involve macro-economic, macro-political and macro-social considerations.
In the instance of the national economy, the government will be obliged to accelerate and deepen public discussion and understanding of the implications and ramifications of the proposed Free Trade Area of the Americas Agreement. Crucial in this context will be the issue of how government itself is to be funded. Obviously, too, the New Year will bring with it any number of issues and concerns for the business community as investors – both foreign and national – work to achieve their goals.
Whatever happens in the economy will determine whether other policy goals can even be considered. Put otherwise, whatever the Progressive Liberal Party had to say about purposeful change – as outlined in their document ‘Our Plan’ – will come to little or nought in the absence of money. This, in turn, is directly contingent on a stable, healthy and growing economy.
The point, therefore, is that with hard times on the horizon, governmental, business and civil society leadership will find themselves extremely hard pressed in the days, weeks and months ahead. They can be very successful in their efforts to assist the community as it tries to ride out the coming storm.
This can, of course, only be achieved if they make deliberate decisions to pull together for the common good. This is what survival in hard times requires. The mantra for the new year should therefore be “team work, collaboration and more teamwork.” Failure to move in this direction will guarantee more anarchy, more social disintegration, more violence and even more destruction.
Editorial, The Bahama Journal
