The Tribune

By Dr Ian Bethell-Bennett

Dean of the Faculty of

Liberal and Fine Arts at the College of Bahamas

“Banana Boat, banana boat, you want to ride the banana boat?” “Chair, umbrella, coconut drink?”

As soon as one steps out of the taxi, one is assailed by young red-eyed men whose job it is to make one’s stay happy. These young men with their hardened, watery eyes encourage tourists to be happy in paradise. They push, shout, and run roughshod across the entire tourist population. Will Smith’s song, “Wild, Wild West” echoes as these young men inflict their understanding of pleasure and masculinity on the Bahamian tourist landscape. They have learned from the best! They have internalised the lessons from irresponsible masculine role models.

Banana boat ride, Cuban cigars, agua, coke, weed, sex – anything you want can be had on the beach.

They will drive their boats over you, through you, around you, yet think nothing of shouting at you because you are in their way. Get out the way! Move! Big man coming through! As the country becomes more and more like the frontier where gun violence, liquor, drugs and prostitution are the order of the day, he who shoots first wins, until the next time when someone out shoots him; the waters become just as dangerous.

Risk-taking masculinity that patterns itself after the men in charge worries not about the collateral damage of a few women, men or kids caught up in their competition for a few dollars.

They can hit, run over, run around and run through clusters of tourists because they are young Bahamian men, and they have learned that that is what they do. As the driving and the general lawlessness worsen, so does the behaviour on the water. Boats are capsized by big waves because these big men know nothing about real boatsmanship. They know about taking risks that result in tourists opting not to return. They are tough, and “cool”.

What do we expect, given the nature of their lives at home? Long-term abuse and mistreatment as children will result in increased abuse and violence in adulthood.

Popular culture and political culture then work together to encourage our young men to run over as many tourists as possible, because this is where they can prove their masculinity.

They have heard that men should dominate, and this is how they do it, baby.

They perform their rough, toughness at the expense of our struggling tourist industry that complains about coming to the Bahamas because of our lack of service.

They buy private islands to stay away from the madding crowds who sell drugs and themselves to “innocent” tourists.

The violence is not lost on the tourists as they write to complain about their initial experiences when they hit the Bahamas or are hit by it. Yet tourism says visitor numbers are up. The men in charge show their cowboy-like bravado that is above the law, yet they claim to be shocked by male violence.

Locals offer tourists weed, coke and sex, despite poor service record. Men are taught that drug dealing is cool and violence is king.

They are “encouraged” into violence because of their homes. When they witness violence at the hands of their mothers’ partners. Mothers then inflict violence on them through hard-core biblically-condoned beatings — also a result of their own suffering through multiple partners.

The boys go to school and “act out”, as has become clear from research done at the College of the Bahamas and presented at in the Violence Symposium by researchers (Michael) Stevenson, (Jessica) Minnis and others. The study on prison inmates, mostly males, speaks to regular neglect and violence at home. These males feel forced into a life of crime, partly because of their experiences, and also because of their inability to survive on what they can earn given their lack of education and/or skills.

Once they act out in school, they are expelled or simply taught nothing. This exclusion translates into them becoming more angry young men who must perform their masculinity through available avenues.

They steal as was witnessed during the island-wide blackout; they shoot as is witnessed through the numerous drive-by shootings, not to mention those that occurred at this year’s independence celebrations; they also rape, as they have witnessed in their homes; they drive recklessly, because males are meant to be rough. This is how men behave.

We send these youngsters out, following the models of irresponsible masculinity demonstrated regularly in the public sphere, to become our best shoreline executives who provide what they understand to be an invaluable service to tourists. No need for Bahama Host training.

So, “Banana boat ride, Cuban cigars, coconut drinks, coke, grass, sex, boy, girl, jet ski ride – if you choose not to respond I will harass you until you do.”

Isn’t that the masculinity they see performed around them from gangster rap artists and Youtube performers to politicians who call anyone who does not agree with their brand of masculinity a sissy?

The tragedy is that they are too unskilled to do much else and they are unable to reason through what they see as normal and acceptable. What they have is their gun in their pants and their strength. The wild, wild west behaviour of the fastest-shooting, hard-drinking, Indian-killing tough man is here as a result of abused and neglected children who copy the behaviour of those in authority.

The attitude of the cowboy films has come back to us in the guise of rap tycoons, drug lords and gangsters, only this time it is fed and encouraged by politicians, fathers and men about town.

They are taught to treat everyone badly to show how masculine they are. Everyone is a dawg!

What does that do to our tourist industry? What does it matter? Ride the banana boat or buy some coke, get drunk on the beach and have some shoreline executive take advantage of you while his boys ride banana boats all over you. No one says or does anything.

Our actions are speaking volumes to US officials, the same country that acted irresponsibly when they said it was too hard to do business in the Bahamas and were told off by the men in charge, who pretend to be in the wild west where the only law is gun-enforced and controlled by the fastest shooter, hardest drinker, roughest lover and most socially excluded man in town.

Masculine bravado like “Wild, Wild West” is reinforced at all levels of society and copied by young men who see it acted out all around.

Do we really want to be a world-class tourist destination or a frontier town where tough men care only for the short-term filling of baggy-pant pockets and the release of male energy to the detriment of long-term welfare? Who is really being irresponsible?