The Bahama Journal Editorial
Death, crime and despair now pervade areas like, Bain Town, Grant’s Town, Pinewood Gardens and other heartland communities in our land.
In those once thriving communities, we now have a situation where the common denominator has to do with young men and women who are seemingly prepared to do whatever is necessary in order to get over in this consumer-drenched society.
As a consequence, the trade in guns, drugs and sex continues apace; with boys, girls, men and women all engage in the brutality and carnality that comes whenever a society is put on the track to debauchery, idol worship and paganism.
In this regard, we cite but one untimely death of one young man – namely Sharmoco Newbold - to help us illuminate the point we make.
Here we are today quite certain that, in the fullness of time, Sharmoco Newbold will only leave behind the barest trace of the fact that he once lived; this due to the shortness of the life that was his.
Had it not been for his violent death and the riot that followed in Bain Town, his name would not –as it were- ring a bell.
He was allegedly felled by a police man.
This young man’s funeral was one of many that took place over the weekend; and so as we note it for our own reasons; we note also that, over the weekend, some of our nation’s Church families got together in solemn praise and worship to bid their farewells to this or that neighbor, family member or friend who had died.
This is as it should be as the living affirm both their connection with their dead and assert their faith that though we all must walk the road that leads from womb to tomb – yet shall we all be raised again in the glorious Resurrection.
But even as these commemorations are routine in this so-called and self-styled Christianity suffused land; there is also one other matter that is today especially poignant – this being the nauseating extent to which this community or that is called upon to bid adieu to this or that young man cut down on the cusp of manhood and civic responsibility.
Herein we find the beating heart of what is a terrifyingly nasty statistic; this being the high extent to which young men are killing each other.
And for sure – at the cankered core of this dread phenomenon we find young men confused to no end about what it means to be a real man; and thus their dread demeanor; their alcohol and drugs laced braggadocio and for sure – in at least some cases- the guns and the knives and the idea that they must get rich quick or die trying.
Tragically, very many of these youth – for no fault of their own making – sometimes grew up in homes where they were for all intents and purposes fatherless and motherless.
And since the rot goes so very deep, practically none of them would have had even the semblance of a praying grandmother; and so, by default, very many of these errant youth were dragged into adolescence and fury by the street and by this or that other malign force.
And while we are at it, the point must be made that there are so very many youth who are being born to men and women who copulate as if they were animals in heat – creatures that could care less about their young.
This is not to say that the rhetoric about how this or that ‘bouncing baby boy or girl’ was born to this or that woman on whatever day, invariably the fact remains that, this child is loved as if it was some kind animated doll – and soon thereafter once it reaches its rag-doll state, it is abandoned.
The child grows, goes to school, trudges along the dusty mean streets in its decaying neighborhood where it quickly learns the ways of that world; itself a place where hustling for money is the order of the day and a human market-place where the human person is itself merely one other commodity up for barter or sale.
And thus and thereafter, we come across children ailing with venereal diseases; youth being introduced to alcohol and drugs; youth in savage mimicry of their elders fighting like dogs and dying like them.
On occasion, some are shot dead by the police; on other occasions, this or that young man or woman is stabbed where it hurts most – in the heart.
But no matter how they die, the fact remains that the untimely and violent demise of even one human person in our land is a chronicle of a death that should not have been.
December 6th, 2010
The Bahama Journal Editorial
A political blog about Bahamian politics in The Bahamas, Bahamian Politicans - and the entire Bahamas political lot. Bahamian Blogger Dennis Dames keeps you updated on the political news and views throughout the islands of The Bahamas without fear or favor. Bahamian Politicians and the Bahamian Political Arena: Updates one Post at a time on Bahamas Politics and Bahamas Politicans; and their local, regional and international policies and perspectives.
