Streets, Suites and Social Parasites

The Bahama Journal Editorial



Sadly and regrettably – this weekend past was like most we have experienced over the course of the past two decades and more; being dreadfully the same as thugs and other social parasites went out their business of looting, shooting, raping and killing.

For some of these people – the crimes begin on Thursday; are rampant on Friday and come to full throttle on Saturdays.

And so, it was this weekend past; the Princess Margaret’s Hospital was awash in blood; people wailed as their loved ones were rolled in on gurneys and stretchers; and one or two others stood in mute horror as the remains of this or that person were rolled away.

Saturday’s crescendo witnessed the death of a youth in Bain Town and the presentation of a tableau that show-cased Rambo-styled police-officers; armed to the teeth and [evidently] ready for some action.

Thankfully and mercifully, Police Commissioner Ellison Greenslade was in place and brought calm to what could have been a scene of bloody carnage. He is to be thanked for the maturity he brought as he spoke to a distraught community of men, women and youth – residents in that heartland community.

We listened in as he underscored the importance of label and interpretation whenever an event transpires and which attracts the attention of the police.

Here the Commissioner went to some lengths to make the point that no riot had taken place in Bain Town; and that while a youth was killed, there was never any reason for anyone to interpret neighborhood anger and regret [and even rage] as precursors to a riot.

Evidently, it is important to note that the Commissioner himself - as a product of Bain Town- knows the heart and spirit of that community better than most of his peers in the field of policing – and very many others, inclusive of some of our policymakers.

None of this should be taken to suggest that the Police Commissioner is enveloped in a thicket of illusions; indeed, to the contrary – there is every suggestion that, Ellison Greenslade’s calming presence made a major difference to a situation that could have been seriously ugly.

Evidently, this man’s hands are full with what happens to be his mandate; to help rid this society of the handiwork of any number of people who can and should be described as thugs and parasites run amok.

Here we would suggest that, as in any other occupation, there seems to be a species of division of labor in the ranks of those thugs and parasites who bedevil the rest of our society; with that division of labor consisting of those men and women who specialize in selling guns and ammunition; the men who rape; the men and women who rob others; those who specialize in home invasions; the rapists; those who specialize in abusing girls and boys and [of course] those who kill and get away with this most dastardly of crimes against the human person.

And then, there is that very special category of criminals – those medical practitioners and their patients who [as we are told] routinely abort fetuses alive in the womb.

This work is routinely and euphemistically described as ‘a procedure’. In instance after instance, the procedure is little more than a slick way of covering up the deliberate killing of that being who would – in the fullness of time- have become a living, breathing human person.

That this act is invariably illegal in The Bahamas underscores its violence and further serves to illuminate how coarse things have become for so very many Bahamians.

Evidently, these people are fulsomely deserving of the epithet, ‘thugs and assassins’.

This is how they should be described, notwithstanding their elevated social status as professionals.

Simply put, their crimes stink to high heaven!

And to be quite honest about the matter at hand, there are instances where – as we have been told- some of this nation’s most successful criminals routinely out-think, out-maneuver and who are able to baffle the police. These are the criminals who have succeeded.

Yet again, some of these people are well-educated; with some of them being lawyers, doctors, accountants, nurses, teachers and other so-called respectable people.

Some of these criminals work from the safety of their suites; thus having the safest of distance from the ruder and cruder kind of criminal whose work is done –as it were- in the raw.

While these criminals are the ones who are seen on a daily and nightly basis; there is reason to believe that some of these hard men and women are in the indirect employ of some of the hard men and women who do their stuff from on-high.

It is this aspect of that matter that involves thugs and social parasites that should also engage the urgent attention of Police Commissioner Greenslade and some of his officers.

November 22nd, 2010

The Bahama Journal Editorial

Bahamas Blog International