The Tribune

By DR IAN BETHELL BENNETT

WOMEN are being killed in the Bahamas by men who claim to love them. Obviously something is not working. The government, in its glorious wisdom, fights with the international press about its own poor record on detaining people illegally, but cannot dial back the crime they encourage to proliferate.

They came to power on the get tough on crime ticket. But it has worked the same way the thought it would. Crime is out of control.

Gender-based violence is up, though according to the reports, crime is down. Houses get shot up and people are shot in their sleep, women are killed and young men are shot, but crime is down. They tell men and boys, ‘flex, flex, time to have sex’, and then they expect them to sit back and be nice to those around. They tell them, ‘behave as I say, but pay no attention to what I do. You can treat people who are under you as you like, and that is no problem. We preach about so many things, but how relevant is it to the lives of those around, especially when everything that is done is the opposite of what is being preached.

In fact, when it comes to equality, we preach the need for submission. At the same time, we are surprised by what people see as submission. How can we live with such a disconnect?

It is ironic that the government and society complain about bad press for their policies, but refuse to do anything that would change the country’s international image.

Yes, the Bahamas is a resort where people come and spend time in the sun and sea, but it has quickly become one of the most violent places in the world. People spend hours denying it – ‘There must be something wrong, we are not as bad as…’ Yet we do nothing to stop ourselves from being as bad as. We laugh when Members of Parliament makes fools of themselves in public. Why do we not understand that those same images resonate with their public; the youth choose to replicate their behaviour. So, men behaving badly became a national pastime. Men and boys are told that they can use violence to control, flex their muscles, but only the ones who lose are criticised. It seems awfully like ‘Gladiator’ meets the 21st century.

However, we knew this was coming. In the 1980s, despite people’s wilful forgetfulness, drug trafficking hit the Bahamas in a big way. Illustrious officials were implicated in the trade, but many never did any time.

The country lived high on the hog; the spoils were flowing and people were sticking. The population baked bread with cocaine, unknowingly. People became addicted. Notwithstanding the image that things were better back then; they weren’t. There were youth who were unhappy and became heavily addicted to drugs. What this then produced was a bunch of people who ‘sold’ their bodies for the dreaded white monster. This in turn produced many drug babies.

How odd that the government refuses to acknowledge that too. What does this mean? Well, drug babies, like alcohol babies, react differently, process differently and are less able to focus and to remain committed to any task at hand. Moreover, the seed of prostitution was fully embraced. If I need anything, I can sell my body. Goods became more important than self-worth. This has continued, especially as the country became poorer.

Another aspect of that generation was men behaving badly, as most of the well-known traffickers were men. They killed, pillaged and made loads of money, which most of them spent indiscriminately.

Some went to jail, others died, many were marooned in a post-drug dry up. The economy went into recession. Of course, the addiction was already there. This behaviour then spread to other corners, and became even more glamorised in popular culture. So by the 1990s it was cool to be a gangster. The ‘flex, flex’ song and sentiment hangs over from then. This is all, of course, very simplified. But the rise of gangster culture validated the bad behaviour of the 1980s.

In the Bahamas, meanwhile, there was yet another generation of second-class citizens being created.

In the Duvalier era, people fled Haiti to seek refuges in the Bahamas. These victims of torture and exploitation then became the underclass here. Then came Loftus Roker, and he did his job by the book. Many Haitians and Bahamian-born children of Haitian descent fled to Haiti after Duvalier was exiled in France. All the while we were creating a group of people who were taunted and exploited here because they ‘are Haytian’. We do not accept Haitians. We created a serious problem with a massive group of unequal persons. Inequality breads violence and resentment. The anger started to build and overflow. Many of these young men are disaffected and so react accordingly.

They are also following the lead from the men whom they recognise as their leaders.

By the 2000s, we have groups of leaders who behave as they wish and accept no responsibility for anything they do or say. They promote inequalities and enjoy the chaos they create with their divisive tactics.

They celebrate gender-based inequalities that then lead to even more gender-based violence. They act illegally and expect the world to accept that our sovereignty endows them with the power to do as they wish and be beyond criticism. They boast about violence and themselves being the top cock on a small rock.

What we have now is pandemonium where the future of the tourist product hangs in the balance of a rapidly deteriorating state of affairs, where women are second class citizens and we have produced a violent bunch of people who see nothing wrong with lashing out at people they purportedly love if the need for control is not met with subordination and submission.

We often talk about the equality referendum that has once again disappeared from sight, but should emerge soon so that they can say they did it. At the same time, men intimidate women in public and they laugh at the idea that women could even aspire to be leaders.

Why do we insist that boys cannot play with a car that is purple? Why is a purple car a ‘girl’s car’? What made it a girl’s car? How does society determine that a car is a girl’s car and therefore if a boy plays with it, well, something must be wrong with him? Is there something wrong with girls?

The country seems to be in a serious place where no one is equal.

Young men born to Haitian parents or one Haitian parent are not worthy of citizenship and should be deported, even when their citizenship applications are in. Women are unequal even though they work to keep society running through their hard labour and under-paid status. Why does the country continue to thrive on such crass violations of human dignity? The broken dishes from the 1980s are now being paid for by society.

The ‘party’ is only just beginning to get going as walls grow higher and legal illegality is the order of the day. This is a picture of a crash waiting to happen. This is what happens when all we can do is flex!