The Tribune

by SIMON

In his 1995 encyclical Evangelium Vitae (The Gospel of Life) Pope John Paul II wrote movingly of the value of human life, rooted in the Roman Catholic social tradition’s touchstone of the dignity of the human person.

In addition to addressing issues such as abortion and capital punishment, Pope John Paul II spoke to the matter of culture, and how a culture influences attitudes towards life and death. His was a moral and sociological analysis.

In every land, in every time, the cultures of life and death contend for the human spirit. In this time, in our country, the battle is waged on many fronts, but particularly so in a culture awash in criminal, domestic and family violence and an acceptance of and wilful connivance in all manner of criminality by some.

We like slackness here at home. Slackness is deeply rooted in our culture. And culture makes all the difference in terms of the promotion of life or death, violence or peace.

Overseas, we tend to abide by the laws and mores of the jurisdiction we are visiting. But many of us can’t wait to get home so that we can throw trash from the car window, ignore traffic signs, park anywhere we like, behave in an uncivilised or vulgar manner, or ignore basic civilities and manners.

A number of young men see nothing wrong with roaring through this city on noisy motorcycles, without helmets, generally disturbing the peace while the police do nothing.

A 17-year-old visiting the US will be carded if he or she attempts to buy alcohol. Yet many of us have no problem sending someone underage into a liquor store to buy a couple of beers or a bottle of rum.

Many storeowners have no problem selling liquor to minors. Some police and parents often turn a blind eye. We like it so. We like slackness.

A dear friend tells of watching a group of young teens walking around in public late one evening drinking from a bottle of wine. Not only were they up and about way past an acceptable hour, they were cavalierly drinking from an open bottle on a public roadway, which of course is illegal even for adults.

The teens were breaking several laws. But in a culture which tolerates all manner of laxity and slackness, this behaviour is normalised. These boys were learning from an early age that law and order are flexible concepts in a culture which tolerates a high degree of lawlessness and disorder.

There aren’t that many years to graduate from those boys drinking on that street to boys selling drugs on those same streets to more hardened criminals laughing at the state struggling to prosecute them in a criminal justice system overwhelmed with cases and defendants.

The spread of a gangland culture spawned by the scourge of drugs and violence of the late 1970s and 80s metastasised over the ensuing decades into the virulent culture of violence and antisocial behavior which haunts us today with all manner of crimes and viciousness we thought impossible for Bahamians.

Our culture is sicker and more pathological in various ways than we dare believe. In our own slack behavior and tolerance for various types of crime we contribute to a culture of lawlessness and violence.

Slackness is a slippery slope. We have been slack as parents, public officials, businesspeople, religious leaders and as citizens. Our children know it and the criminal class counts on our slackness.

Take the criminal justice system. The courts are so overwhelmed that many criminals believe that the consequences for crimes committed today, may be years down the road, if ever.

While aggressive policing is required to address today’s criminality, there is an urgent need for a program of unprecedented social intervention to address potential criminals, mostly young men, who may wreak havoc on our society in the years ahead.

We have given mostly lip service to the degree and variety of early cum social intervention required. The culture of death must be met by a culture of life-giving possibilities beyond the death dealing of gangs, guns and other avenues and instruments of violence.

Further, as Rev CB Moss has repeatedly and eloquently asserted, having failed many of our young people, our response cannot simply be jailtime and capital punishment.

The Children of Light in our country must summon the willpower, the wiles and the imagination to defeat the stratagems of the Children of Darkness.

There are those for whom life no longer matters, those not satisfied just to rob but who must also maim or kill their victims, because life is that dispensable, meaningless, brutal and short.

A pastor recalls a parishioner who asked whether some criminals who are going about in the day can’t see what they’re doing to the country. His response: “For some who walk in darkness, no amount of light makes a difference.”

A greater culture of life and avenues to help others to avoid or to step out of the darkness may make a difference. Making that difference requires a sustained and massive social intervention strategy with various components.

It appears that much of our political leadership over the years has generally failed to understand and to respond creatively and comprehensively to the nature, degree, and sociology of violence in The Bahamas.

If one asks the members of today’s political and policy directorates about the causes of crime, there is likely to be all manner of garbled and halting responses. The same applies to many of the leaders of the Bahamas Christian Council.

Imagine trying to respond to a matter of economic policy absent a basic understanding of economics.

Correspondingly, most of our political and religious leaders clearly do not understand in ant depth basic concepts of sociology or anthropology. How then can they propose long-term measures to address various forms of social dysfunction?

It would be more useful for a prime minister to sit attentively with prisoners, young people, teachers, crime experts from home and abroad, and others to better understand and discuss the causes and experience of crime than it is to sit in a police car looking at the newest technologies.

By the time the police car or hearse arrives at the scene of a horrendous crime, the sociological and other problems have already metastasised. A deeper dive into the roots of violent behavior among Bahamians would necessary insights and responses.

The Nassau Guardian reported this week comments made by Minister of Security Wayne Munroe at the opening of the school year in the government-operated system.

He indicated “that the government is considering putting in place housing at a school on New Providence to help at-risk teenagers.” He noted the role of early intervention in helping these youth.

Minister Munroe stated: “We understand a lot of these young people, their environment is the problem. There is no point addressing issues created by your environment, because unfortunately, you cannot compel some parents to do some things, and unfortunately, in some cases, the parent is the problem or the surroundings are the problem.”

The minister was making a sociological and cultural reference. What might early intervention look like? What mindsets, strategies, and programs might be developed to help foster a culture of life and hope? More next week.