The Tribune

By Dr Ian Bethell Bennett

AS shell companies pop up to liberate us from all forms of sin, to protect us from evil and to grant us peace in our day, the sad fact is that inequality may not be growing according to the latest studies in terms of the spread widening between the rich and poor, but in reality we are all poorer.

Government opened the year with business as usual: they sold everything to anyone who would buy it. They said they were getting tough on crime by adding more police to the roads, yet sexual violence continues to rise at an alarming rate.

They claim we will be in a better position for business if we are enslaved once more in our own country. Sorry, the country that was once ours has now been flogged off in the flea market of international trade for the sins of the fathers.

Can we continue to talk about national development after we have sold every house on Cable Beach and in Coconut Grove to weary, itinerant travellers who would do nothing more than like a little black child?

And we talk about prostitution being a sin, a crime and an abomination! We speak no condemnation though on those who would sell their souls for a drink of rum or a gram of coke.

As long as you can do these things without being caught, you are safe, and if you can do them without anyone really seeing the evidence that you are doing them, well you are even better. If you are in the dominant class, you have it made, because your power knows no bounds.

However, what happens when you come from the ghetto and ain’t got two coppers to rub together?

As the research shows, we are becoming a paradise for crime and violence as we top the region for murder, rape and robbery. Murder, that we pay such close attention to, hides so many other sins under its huge shadow.

Rape is one of these massive elements that murder simply eclipses. Apparently, though, murder is far more important than rape as rape is simply about sex and usually about women, who society views as less important than men. Tisk, tisk!

Rape is usually left unreported because the authorities are so callous when it comes to dealing with victims. It is often left unreported but the internal and external damage is huge, yet no one sees the scars.

Rape is a horrible, soul-destroying experience that is not looked for, as so many officers often tell the victims. It is not desired, nor is it expected. Rape happens most often with people we know and is not about sex at all, but simply about power. It is about the dominant person’s power to control the weaker person. Usually rape occurs more in situations of conflict and post-conflict; that is to say in war-torn places in Eastern Europe and Africa.

That said, the Bahamas boasts a level of violence that is akin to those countries in conflict. We are like Bosnia or the Congo, yet people in public office choose to ignore this fact. We boast a level of violence that alarms most international agencies, but not us, because we are above alarm. We are raped everyday by our insistence and such alarming social inequalities that promote violence. Rape is about inequalities.

And yes, boys can be raped to and often are. Boys are raped by women and men. Men and women who rape boys are rarely prosecuted, and if they are, they are often given a slap on the wrist. Women, however, are more often the victims of rape than are men; again this is because of inequalities and perceived weaknesses. But this is still not that bad. As the economy hides its true flaws in those shell companies, the inequalities and violence rise. This is not simply about one man one vote or his ability to eat what others eat, it is about a society’s relegation to the trash heap of their country. Inequality is about access and ability to use that access. Most people who do not have access are unaware that they are not able to access services.

How easy is it to access good legal council? How easy is it to get a court date? How easy is it to convict a rapist? We talk about these facts and then say that’s Swift Justice has answered all our woes, yet the situation continues to spiral downward. Who does Swift Justice benefit? Even though the rapist may be sent up on remand, he will probably be out in a matter of days given the massive backlog of cases as well as the lack of importance given to rape.

Also, if murderers are running around murdering again and being murdered adorned with their bracelets, and murder seems to be treated as a greater sin than rape, what of those rapists? Rape is increasing as people’s access decreases. We may not be a poor country, but we are fast becoming one of the most violent countries in the world, which we blame on the Haitians.

We choose to destroy our own people because we see them as threatening our ability to make a dollar. Yet, the Haitian is the violent one. Haitian women have too many children (so the common image goes), yet teenage Bahamian girls are upset when they are not pregnant (this fact comes from research). They use this as a tool to boast as well as a tool to make money. It’s about selling and money, yet no one speaks about that.

We talk about violence as If it were something that lived outside of us – We don’t do that. It’s only them, those people over there, the ones who live eight in a house, who let their septic tank overflow into their yards and throw garbage over their fence into the neighbour’s yard, they are the bad ones.

That only casts blame and blinds the people as the country sells off its essential services to someone who can charge whatever they wish to provide those services because there are no controls in place to mitigate against such exploitation. We ignore human rights and seek to exploit those we can, because they are seen as weaker. They may be darker than us, or they may be of the opposite sex, but it does not matter, as long as I can do better by exploiting you, I am happy.

Many young men see this and live by it. Once one of their boys gets killed they are going to kill anyone related to or close to the gang who would have killed their boy. We know all of this, but we do nothing to address the root problem. There are more young, working-class males in prison than is healthy for such a small society. There are also more young, working-class males who cannot graduate from school.

How do they feel? Gone are the days of aspiring to the great heights. We want to get great things, but we don’t care how. We can dream of being royals and mimic their lifestyle that then winds us up in trouble. We don’t realise that the royals can commit crimes and not go to prison. Perhaps this is why there are so many bracelets out on the roads. But a man can kill a woman for talking to another man, and we have no problem with that. Young people earn $100 a day on the beach and spend $100 a night in the clubs. This is common, sadly. Most of these young people, especially the young men, will not grow up to become old men or even middle-aged men. They will be imprisoned, killed in a drive-by shooting or shot in the head, or die in an accident.

Where does that leave this society?

As we rapidly slide down the slope of privatisation, dis-ownership, violence and crime, notwithstanding that promise to get tough on crime over two years ago, yet the country has been sent out to tender, the population is being destroyed by serious anger and inequality. Rape is only a symptom of serious problems with inequality and domination. Until we deal with some of these larger problems such as class inequalities, gender inequalities and ethnic inequalities in all their glory, what happens to the folks who can’t rub two coppers together? They go the way they see as being the most beneficial to them, they choose to exploit. Shells will not protect us.