tribune242 editorial
WHEN WE first joined The Tribune more than fifty years ago, there were no files that contained a business contract anywhere in the then small building. All transactions were the result of a gentleman's agreement sealed with a handshake. It seemed to work fairly well.
Today progress has brought written contracts, but there are times when they are not worth the paper they are written on. Recently, when we spoke with someone on behalf of a person who was having difficulty collecting payment for work he had completed, we were informed by the person who was dealing with the payment that if the matter went to court, the company would be closed and the complainant would get nothing. That's justice and honest business dealings for you, but it is also progress ... after all we do have written contracts. However, in the interim we have lost integrity, honesty, and a sense of responsibility.
We have graduated from the age when children were "seen, but not heard" to a society of vocal, often rebellious and destructive youth. They respect no one -- not even themselves-- many believing that whatever they want they can steal from a hard working neighbour. After all during the narco years, when drugs were the going currency, didn't a cabinet minister in the heat of a public gruelling, blurt out that it was nobody's business how he made his money -- whether he worked for it or t'iefed it? School essays expressed the ambition of many children that they wanted to follow the career path of their fathers, uncles or brothers as drug dealers. In those years drugs seemed to open a magic door to wealth and upward social movement. Man's lofty spirit was debased by materialism.
Need we wonder why crime is out of control. Today we are being held hostage by the products of those years.
We have problems in our schools, and we wonder why. Discipline, common courtesy and respect have all but disappeared from the schoolyard. Why, we ask? We remember a time when if a child were disciplined at school he took his punishment and made no complaint at home, because he knew that more punishment would follow for disrespecting his teacher or breaking school rules. Not so today. The precious little darlings trot home with a tale of woe and the next day a rowdy parent marches to the school to beat up the teacher. No need to wonder what's wrong with today's youth -- just look to the parents. There are no longer rules for them, discipline has gone out of the window, the child gets what he or she wants.
They looked down on honest labour. We recall a day when a mother telephoned asking us to do a story about a hotel whose manager had the effrontery to ask her daughter to scrub a dirty floor. She had called the wrong person for sympathy. The only way that we knew how to get a dirty floor clean, despite all the modern gadgets, was to get on hands and knees and give it a good scrubbing. Having done it ourselves while at school in England, we saw nothing wrong with it. No wonder in those years the government-owned hotels looked so distressingly shabby.
The late Sir Lynden Pindling lived long enough to accept that his beliefs in making life too easy for the youth was their undoing. "We are falling backward with sophistication, because we have got slack and we've got lazy and we've got sophisticated over these last 20 years and that's our fault. I accept responsibility for that," he said.
He might have accepted responsibility, but today we are suffering from those years of over indulgence when good manners, hard work, honesty, and discipline was undermined.
Sir Lynden lived long enough to understand why Haitians had to be employed to do the work that Bahamians once did. He was distressed when told by the "new" Bahamian that "Haitians supposed to do that."
"We told them that they were too good to be gardeners, too good to be sanitation men, too good to work with their hands..." Sir Lynden admitted.
"But, I didn't know then what I know now, that any work breeds character. Too many young men lack character today; too many, too often shirk responsibility because they have never been held accountable for their actions at home, in school or in society. Therein may lie the heart of the problem," he admitted.
The only way that we can rid ourselves of crime is to get back to basics -- discipline, good manners, hard work, respect and love for our God, our parents, ourselves, our neighbours, our community.
We have to dust off the Ten Commandments and teach them to our children from the cradle.
In other words our misplaced progress has led us astray. As a community we have to start all over again.
We cannot afford to wait. Now is the time.
August 09, 2011
tribune242 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.