5 STEPS TO SAVING SOCIETY
STEP ONE
1) Initiate a National Gun Amnesty for a designated period/s. With government approval, of course.
2) Rotary Clubs and other Community Service groups, business sponsors and members of the public and the government to become sponsors and will offer agreed upon gift cards or similar rewards (not cash) for every gun handed into the authorities at specified places and times and dates.
3) No questions asked. This will give credibility to the programme. All businessmen have a serious stake in this action as they are often targets of much violence.
STEP TWO
1) A National Youth Survey, professionally prepared by representatives from all interested groups and professionals. Gathering data on current problems or situations faced by today’s youth - at schools, at work, in the home, in the community, etc.
Consider a sick person going to the doctor to get a cure for his illness. The first thing a doctor asks is: “Tell me your problem. What’s wrong with you? What are your symptoms?” or “What are your health problems?” When the patient tells the doctor what the problem is then the doctor can give the correct diagnoses and the correct medicine or treatment to cure the patient. That is basic common sense.
But we do not ask the youth, our children, what their problems are. Until we know what is wrong or what the problem is, we cannot find a solution/cure. Otherwise we continue to guess and, more often than not, we guess wrong. We would, of course, develop different questionnaires geared to suit different age levels and dealing with Bahamian issues.
STEP THREE
1) Professionally analyse results of a national survey.
2) Develop a national constructive, achievable and realistic plan in response to the results.
3) Consolidate the structure of the plans and budget accordingly.
4) Evaluate strengths and weakness of the plan with a young persons’ group drawn from all walks of life. Implement it.
5) Re-evaluate plans and its successes or failures at a professional level, including youth representatives.
STEP FOUR
1) Formally identify children with leadership skills in pre-adolescence.
2) Implement long term strategies to counter observed negative leadership attributes/skills. Encourage identifiable positive leadership skills.
STEP FIVE
1) Implement specific and enforced curfews as may be thought applicable.
2) Do this immediately. It just takes political will and political courage.
Terry Goldsmith, who has extensive experience in working with this country’s youth, calls for a national initiative - which would include curfews and gun amnesties - to fight the lack of respect and lawlessness dogging The Bahamas today.
I have lived in The Bahamas for almost 50 years. I am now a very proud Bahamian citizen. I have been married to a Bahamian lady for that entire time.
I am a qualified teacher and I have taught in schools in New Providence, Long Island, Cat Island, San Salvador and throughout Grand Bahama. I am also a Youth Worker and a qualified Education Welfare Officer.
I was also the Executive Director of the YMCA in Grand Bahama for 14 years, working seven days a week and, more than often than not, averaging 12 to 16 hours per day serving youngsters in particular and the public in general.
I was also a member of the Juvenile Panel at the Magistrate’s Court in Freeport. I have worked with the disaffected youth, terminally ill children, under-privileged children, offenders, repeat offenders and also advised and supported ex-adult offenders trying to make a new start .
I personally created a Half-Way House for ex-offenders to assist in the rehabilitation on their return to Grand Bahama; sadly now defunct. I was installed in the Grand Bahama Sports Hall of Fame. I have served as executive committee member of numerous sporting youth groups. Boy Scout leader, Youth Club organiser/advisor and Athletics and Boxing Club Coach. I am the proud recipient of the Rotary’s “Paul Harris Award” for service to Grand Bahama Youth. I was also honoured by the prestigious “International Olympic Committee” for Service to Youth worldwide.
I am not boasting but, given this background one could assume that I have some extensive hands-on experience working with young Bahamians in particular and youth in general.
I was born in London, England. An “Over the Hill”, born and bred Londoner or Cockney. Born in the late 1930s and raised during the Second World War in London’s inner city in the 1940s and 1950s.
I lived in a really tough working class area - the Angel in north London. But I was no angel: I was a rough street kid who often used his fists to settle disputes or just fought because it was the expected response. I sometimes did things I should not have done. Why? Because that was the way things were.
Yet we had a basic respect for the law, respect for our elders, respect for our teachers and respect for our parents.
We may not have liked those who imposed rules on us, and more often than not, we didn’t always do as we were told, but we had respect and respect was taught, not just expected.
It could be said then that I have more than a little insight into what makes young people tick. “I bin dere, dun dat” and I’m still here doing “dis and dat”. But sadly, times have changed. That is what I see, this is what I understand and these are my concerns.
I am now 78. I love my adopted country and its people. Thank you for the privilege bestowed upon me. Yet, my concerns, in part, are the apparent lack of respect for authority in my country, the Bahamas.
The lack of young people who appear in many cases to never have been taught to know what it is to have self-dignity and self-worth. The poor attitudes, the corruption, the robberies, the murders and, above all, the increase in gun violence so prevalent throughout this country … much of it by disrespectful and uncontrolled violent young men. They are, thankfully, in the minorit, yet sadly get the most publicity … on which they seem to thrive!.
Consider this. You respect a Pitbull dog or large Rottweiler. Why? Because it has big teeth and has been known to bite. My point is that there are consequences if you upset one of these dogs. You get bitten.
Our problem is that these violent minorities know that there are few solid consequences which act as a serious deterrent. We fuel this by our failure to demand changes in the law by the powers-that-be to counter such acts of unlawful violence, poor behaviour and bad attitudes. A simple introduction of a curfew would begin to help to reduce or even eliminate many criminal acts.
Yet we continue to demand little of the people’s servants - our government. Some may do what they can but, may I suggest that, many politicians lack the gonads to take a firm, definitive and decisive hand. Why?
Because some decisions may be unpopular with the public and they are afraid of losing votes at election time.
I was shocked last year to see Police Commissioner Ellison Greenslade, who I briefly taught in Cat Island when he was a child, appear on ZNS almost in tears with frustration as he begged for the support of the public after two men were shot and killed and two others seriously injured by gun shots in one night. What is happening?
Why is this happening? How have we allowed this to happen? Where did we all go wrong? Who is to blame for the problem? The youth? Parents? Teachers? The Church? The government? Who? We can no long bury our heads in the sand.
When we point the finger of blame at someone, remember that three fingers point back at yourself. The problem is then ours, not theirs. Ours. Yours, Mine. We, the people, have the power to implement change.
The often well meaning efforts of the Christian Council, the churches, Ministers of Religion, Ministers of State, individual politicians, political parties, the Ministry of Youth, Sports clubs, the numerous sports associations and federations, social clubs, community service clubs - Rotary, Kiwanians, Lions Clubs - all the “Do Gooders”, and not forgetting the complacent but concerned citizens generally. All wonderful groups, all sincere, all concerned, all with their own ideas on how to deal with the current crime situation.
Yet therein lies our problem. They are disjointed but have the same concerns. Yet they have no common, conducive, constructive or realistic collaborative plan or guidance to address the issues. I submit that an entity of any kind that doesn’t plan for its future doesn’t have one. That is why we have made little or no headway addressing the issues as a nation. We are all pulling in different directions.
Consider a large cart. Two concerned men are at the front of the cart trying to pull it up a very steep hill but there are six bad men at the back trying to pull the cart down the hill. The two dedicated and strong willed good men at the front are inching their way up the hill but it is almost an impossible task - not because of the six “good-for-nothing” lazy men at the back but because the cart is full of people who are doing nothing but complaining about the bad guys at the back and asking why the good guys are not making a better and bigger effort to get the cart to the top of the hill.
You see the analogy? Are we, as a people, not like this? How many of us are inside the cart doing little but complaining about others not doing enough to find a solution to our social ills? It’s easy to blame others.
Somebody, some group, someone needs to take the lead and needs to say: “I have had enough and I am not taking it any more.” We need to stop talking and get things done “together”. We need to take the lead when and where it matters the most. We need to be the catalyst that sets things in motion. We must plan, we need to set out our objectives, we need to implement a plan and then successfully achieve the goals outlined, thereby fulfilling our social and community mission.
We as Bahamian citizens need to lead the way on a national basis and demonstrate that by pulling together, in unison, how positive forward progress can be achieved against the continued and rising violent crime in the Bahamas. We all have a stake in this objective. Perhaps then the “powers-that-be” will listen to our jointly raised voices. Togetherness brings greater unity; our mission then has formidable structure and purpose. We all have a responsibility to our families and to the public and to this country.
My challenge then is simple - one step at a time, planned and implemented in unity; that we approach the government as one national group and request - demand - support, create and organise a National Community Action Committee made up of “Doers” with designated powers, not talkers.
But do any of us have the fortitude to implement such an action? Perhaps you’re one of those sitting in the cart.
I suggest a five-step concept as a starter to demonstrate a serious commitment in assisting in the elimination of the rising violence at a national level. It is simple and with all these entities pulling together in a collaborative manner it can be successfully achieved.
And for future consideration I propose that children need to be taught specific life and leadership skills and respect as part of the schools’ formal curriculum. These are skills that need to be taught and learned or we reap the whirlwind. Let teachers spend less time teaching subjects and more time teaching children, let preachers preach less about the words in the Bible and more about Jesus’ basic message as it pertains to this technological and progressive age. Let parents spend more time loving and caring about their children and less time making noise in the “marketplace”.
Children are very simple to understand. All they want is all of your love, all of your attention, all of the time.
Be aware that as a teacher, parent, mentor you have not taught anything until a child has learned it. Respect is taught but children must learn what it means.
There is basic human need for youth to belong to a tribal group, team, family. Sadly, children need to feel that they belong and that someone cares for them. Gang leaders, more often than not, provide this need.
Consider the skills needed to lead a group of several thousand young people (for example the Los Angeles style Crips and Bloods).
Think about the attributes and leadership skills one must have to control such a group. Such gangs are now with us in The Bahamas. If we could have only identified these leaderships skills when these leaders were very young children and we had led them on a positive path. Let’s take out that negative tribal need and replace it with positive alternatives. One only has to look at the early school years of the recent Orlando night club killer. Numerous recorded major behavioural problems when attending grade 3 at primary school and even more at high school.
Forty-nine lives could have been saved and 53 wounded victims could have been spared the anguish and pain if the killer had been helped back then.
We can influence the future of this country by providing the positive leadership role so badly needed, and indeed wanted.
Now is the time to act. If you do not, we can kiss the beautiful Bahamas, as we knew it, goodbye. That is my challenge. Let’s get it done now - let’s make it ‘Better in the Bahamas’ again.
Comments
Use the comment form below to begin a discussion about this content.
Sign in to comment
Or login with:
OpenID