When outsiders take a look around this beautiful country of ours, they often marvel in amazement.
Scientist come from near and far to study our environment, marine life, and unique ecosystems.
History enthusiasts and treasure hunters fly in and out and dive down and around our islands in search of mysteries of the past.
Investors flock to our shores with plans and schemes and dreams and visions of this country so invigorating that ordinary people around the world repeatedly wire their life savings to be a part of without ever having set foot here.
With all this constantly going on in The Bahamas, why does this jewel of the sea most days feel like a paradise lost?
For a long time I’ve been pondering if I would have to admit this, but what my small amount of experience and equally small amount of intellect tell me is that the only thing wrong with The Bahamas is Bahamians. Maybe it could be said that the only thing wrong with anywhere in the world is the people who live there, but in The Bahamas we seem to have a signature combination of traits that make us uniquely self-defeating.
It has always amazed me, the way that almost nothing actually works in The Bahamas. The majority of our entire society’s functions are performed at highly inefficient levels.
We buy or borrow all of the latest systems and processes from the seemingly successful places around the world, we legislate our bills, draft up our policies and procedures and then, nothing.
Happens every time – only in The Bahamas.
This is the season of The Bahamas for Bahamians, and there can’t be anything wrong with that.
Except, for at least the last 40 years this country has been a Bahamas by Bahamians, and what do we have to show for it?
A carbon copy system of government crippled by nepotism and corruption; a public service that doesn’t serve the public; an education system that can’t successfully educate our youth; an economy that contributes very little to the actual development of its people but merely allows them to work hard enough to eat for the day (at least some of us); and worst of all within the Bahamian psyche there seems to be an unshakable proclivity towards the status quo; a recipe for disaster.
It’s no surprise that we always seem to be looking for a jackpot to save us.
The ingenuity, determination and the sacrifice necessary to solve our problems are simply missing in Bahamians.
They’re not a part of our pedigree as a people. Certainly we have some bright spots and some exceptional individuals, but those seem almost exclusively the special personal productions of God and nothing to do with being products of “The Bahamas.”
It should be understood that making “no decision” is a decision indeed, and we as the holders of the “no decision” tradition need to wake up and recognize that time and the world go on whether we’re prepared or not.
Depending on what you believe, humans have been on earth for a few thousand or a few hundred thousand years.
Either way, recorded history speaks of countless civilizations that faced eventual collapse because of a failure to rise to the occasion and solve critical problems.
While it might seem unthinkable that Bahamians could vanish off the face of the earth, by simply looking around it would appear (for better or worse) that the laws of natural selection have decided that the “traditional Bahamian” just can’t get the job done.
Wayne Wilson
The Bahamas
September, 2012
