The Tribune

By DR IAN BETHELL BENNETT

DO WE ever think to teach the importance of good decision making and the impact a bad decision could have on the rest of our lives?

Of late, the decision to shoot has outweighed the decision not to shoot. Many young men, because shooters are mostly male, are shooting and killing with apparent reckless abandon.

Yet they seem to know why they are doing what they are doing. Most of their killings are in retaliation for someone else who got shot. They are willing to kill anyone in a person’s family or all of them, should that case arise. They don’t care what happens to them after the fact. Indeed, it gives them five minutes of fame. They live in the now, no tomorrow. Life is here and this is what matters. But what could happen if we taught them that there are possibilities beyond this?

We as a society seem unable to grasp their reality, though it so closely mirrors our reality. We live for the most part in the now. Our decisions reflect this ‘nowness’ about our lives. Everything must be instant.

We give no thought of the impact of our actions today on tomorrow’s life.

The leader of an opposition party claims that we need to have a referendum to alter Section 7 of the Bahamian constitution that grants citizenship to anyone who is born here. Well, it grants them the right to apply for citizenship, and if they are reasonable persons, then their application should be granted.

Yet the system can delay as long as it wishes to grant them the right to live here.

Have we thought about the impact of these delays?

Did the same leader support the current highly debated referendum? It is ironic, though, that while he calls for this referendum, the talk of a referendum to eliminate gender inequality and the support for that seem to be flailing. As a society, we have apparently opted not to eliminate discrimination based on sex from the constitution. We choose to live with the consequences of our collective actions. This has been a measured decision taken by the entire country. Or has it?

We have apparently opted to allow people to be discriminated based on their sex.

If one is a man and applies for a job, we can opt not to give that job to him because he is male.

The same can be said for a woman who applies for a job. We have also decided that women do not deserve the same right to pass on their citizenship to their children. At the same time, we have determined that it is good for a married man to pass on his citizenship to his children, but not for an unmarried man to do the same. These are our decisions.

We have taken them and apparently we live with the consequences.

What dollars will the donors send to the country that has refused their recommendations to change the way it does business? They may decide to cut off all lending to the Bahamas, then what? Most Bahamians say,’So what!?’

Well, that means that we can be as sovereign as we like, but the crime and violence will all be out of control. If the international lenders cut off their loans because of our decisions, although they are ours to take, their actions will destroy us.

However, that was our decision that brought us to this place. It is much like deciding not to pay the electricity bill this month but to buy new shoes instead. This is all the ‘nowness’ of our life. We can buy shoes but not send our children to school because shoes are more important than an education. What is the long-term impact of our ‘nowness’?

So, where does that leave us?

Ironically, most of the chaos we are living is based on this ‘nowness’, instant gratification and to heck with tomorrow.

I decide that I hate you today, I can shoot you dead without concern for how that will impact my life in the future – “You kill one a my boys, dawg, you dead. I never learned that I could live a different life outside of this gang and domestic violence video. The same video plays on in my mind.” Perhaps that is because we do such a poor job of teaching our kids that their decisions today can destroy them or make them better people. There are possibilities, options and opportunities. Many young men seem not to understand that.

Young women, too, are more drawn to the instant gratification decision. They care not for the long-term outcome because the short-term enjoyment outweighs everything.

Sadly, this way of thinking is very current with the young men. Many of them feel that it is more important to have a pair of Nike shoes than to pay down on a lot.

They feel isolated at home, no matter how ‘good’ their family, and they behave the way they their friends, their boys, encourage them to behave. When it comes to peer pressure, if families have not created a strong enough identity to combat such huge pull to the wrong side, then the kids are lost.

If they are lucky or smart enough to survive these years, then they often come back to a more even keel. In the meantime, though, many young men will rebel against something and they usually rebel against the good behaviour or lack of love they feel at home. They find a family in the gang. The wrong side feels good; they get acceptance and they feel like they belong; this is worth millions to young people who otherwise feel left out.

They become estranged from family because their parents don’t have time for them and reluctantly take the time to actually show them how important it is to make good decisions.

They leave them to their own devices.

They fall into the ‘bad company’ and then the next thing you know, those boys are our next murder statistic. If they take the decision to shoot today without thinking about the result, they are willing to risk everything for a moment of bigness.

How can we change the way our youth make decisions when we tend to show them nothing but bad decisions?