The Prime Minister called on a group of foreign religious leaders yesterday to pray for The Bahamas and the grip that crime has on Bahamians. It was a request that shocked the leader of the official opposition and had others wondering how appropriate Mr. Christie’s statements were for a group of tourists.
“I ask the churches as you assemble here in prayer, in meditation and reflection, to pray for our nation, to pray for our region. To understand its relevance to you,” Mr. Christie told the gathering of religious visitors.
The prime minister’s requests came the day after the country reported its 11th murder for 2003.
He was speaking to a group of foreign clergy he has been targeting for some time. While he has asked religious tourists to pray for The Bahamas, Mr. Christie has also asked them to spread the news that it keeps getting better in The Bahamas.
Addressing at the Full Gospel Baptist Church Fellowship’s leadership conference at the Atlantis Resort, Mr. Christie admitted to the group of foreign religious leaders that the country is not without its problems.
He told 400 delegates of the religious conference who hail from the United States, Germany and Africa, that he doesn’t want to live where young men hold the country hostage with their criminal behavior.
Mr. Christie reiterated the government’s zero-tolerance approach to crime.
“Not only does it rob families of their providers – fathers who are killed – it also damages the entire country. And I’ve come to say to you that I will not tolerate it,” said Mr. Christie, whose remarks were met by applause from the audience.
“I come to tell you that if we have to have a programme that goes into every house on this island. If we have to have a programme which examines every individual who lives on this island, we are going to launch an unparalleled approach on those who hold people hostage in their homes, who would cause the installation of fear…We have as a people to solve the problem.”
The prime minister lambasted parents who cloak their children’s criminal actions. During an impassioned address, Mr. Christie encouraged all present to do their part in putting a dent in the wave of crime in their respective communities.
“This moment in time, when we have our respective roles to play out, I come really to welcome you to the Bahamas, but I come with a lot of emotion and a lot of passion as a Bahamian whose parents had to work hard to get me here. And I don’t accept anywhere, any place, that society should tolerate people who try to take shortcuts to get where my parents worked their entire lives to get…Mothers who know that their children come home with money they didn’t work for. Fathers who are not home,” he said.
The fact that Mr. Christie highlighted the country’s crime problem to a group of tourists “shocked” the leader of the Official Opposition Alvin Smith who told tat Bahama Journal that he does not understand why “the prime minister is trying to alarm everyone.”
“I am shocked that the prime minister would be in such a state of paranoia to be alarming visitors who he has an opportunity to speak with,” Mr. Smith said. “He needs to do something in a tangible way to address crime. He promised an amendment to the Bail Act. He promised to bring to parliament his government’s plan to deal with crime.
“Think about the negative effect of this, because each tourist, when he or she returns to his or her country, he or she would share the prime minister’s paranoia and paralysis with friends. For the sake of the country, [Mr. Christie needs to] start looking for solutions.”
Addressing another forum today, the prime explained why he raised the issue of crime with the tourists.
He said he walked into the room yesterday and saw that several of the delegates were reading local newspapers and commenting on the high incidence of crime. Mr. Christie said he then decided to speak on the matter.
The two-day conference where the prime minister spoke yesterday falls in line with the government’s religious tourism thrust. The event has resulted in the occupancy of some 200 rooms at the Atlantis and Sheraton resorts.
Officials have said that religious tourism is a billion-dollar market. According to Minister of Tourism Obie Wilchcombe, in the United States alone, some $1.4 billion is derived from religious tourism each year.
Religious tourism is of such importance to the Prime Minister that yesterday, he adjourned his weekly cabinet meeting to address the religious tourists. He told those gathered that religious tourism is a segment of the market that has been ignored.
Deputy Prime Minister Cynthia Pratt told The Bahama Journal in an earlier interview that there has to be restrictions imposed, so that the target group of religious tourists would be clearly defined.
“We have to determine what we mean by religious. You can’t leave it wide open because then of course, I think you’re definitely digging a hole…once you lay out exactly what you’re talking about, you won’t have these people who you don’t believe in, coming in because you would have set your criteria,” Minister Pratt said.
By Hadassah Hall, The Bahama Journal
