By Gerrino Saunders — Journal Staff Writer
Many Bahamians both young and old, those that reside in the country and those that visit home from time to time are becoming increasingly distraught with what appears to be a breakdown in societal norms as the behaviour, mentality and cultural norms are fast becoming extinct.
One of the most glaring factors of this breakdown in society is the frequent and brutal way many of our citizens, mainly young men, are killing and mutilating one another.
This week Tuesday, two men known to each other and who were reportedly brothers-in-law stabbed and chopped each other to death with a sharp object and a cutlass at a home on Mutton Fish Drive. Police classified both deaths as murders, taking the total number of homicides to 104 for the year.
On Monday the murder count sprang into the triple digits when three masked men, all armed with high powered rifles ambushed a group of about 10 men who were sitting in a yard on Step Street in Fox Hill and shot to death three men who have since been identified as Anthony McFarlane, a 36-year-old resident of Nassau Village, Frederick Storr, a 29-year old resident of Fort Fincastle and Christopher Strachan, a 34-year-old resident of Lady Slipper Avenue.
Police say the man who was the intended target and who is wearing an ankle monitoring device and on bail for murder was able to escape. He was later taken into custody for questioning, but police say they could not hold him in custody indefinitely unless he surrendered his bail application to have his bail revoked for the safety of himself and the public.
Psychologists say that one of the most destructive problems is the breakdown of community, and it is this breakdown that has often led to the breakdown of persons. Though we may have persons around us, some people still feel alone. They say that relationships have become superficial and there is no longer concern for the other person, and we are pressed by societal and financial pressures to focus on our own survival. We do not concern ourselves much with the plight of others, except a few who we may call family or friends, and even then, our concern and attention is waning.
Rev. Dr. Anthony A. Sampson expressed concern that the country is losing a generation of young black men to this deadly violence.
He believes more has to be done to stop it saying, “I believe that the current affairs we find ourselves in calls for a declaration of crisis in our country, and such crisis demands urgency,” said Rev Dr. Sampson.
“I must say that addressing this crisis requires that we deal with the root causes that have brought us to this level of social fragmentation. The first cause is the abandonment of the sacred and the elevation of the profane. There has been an agenda in the West to remove God and religious institutions from the center of life and place man at the center. Over the last thirty years our society has been become more and secular and capitalistic,” he lamented.
He noted that one of the benefits of religion is moral formation. “Religion teaches us what God expects from us and how we ought to treat our fellow human beings,” said Rev. Dr. Sampson. “The decentering of God, who is light, leads to the manifestation and sway of the demonic. What we are experiencing in our country is the manifestation of the demonic in all its forms.”
According to Rev. Dr. Sampson this is one of the reasons why he “vehemently” opposed the legalization of marijuana because he believes it will only contribute to social and moral decay.
He said, “A government cannot promote the legalization of vices and expect there not to be a negative impact on society. We are destroying the spiritual and moral fabric of our society for profit making that will only benefit a few.”
Rev. Dr. Sampson argued that a second major factor that has contributed to a society breakdown in The Bahamas is the breakdown of family life.
“Broken homes in most cases will produce a broken and maladaptive human being, as there is a direct correlation between the success or failure of a child and the presence or absence of the father in the home. Any society where over 70% of the children are born to unmarried women (many of whom are teenagers) is destined to have myriad social problems,” he said.
“Too many of our children are raising themselves and live in environments of violence. In fact, they are being raised in a culture of violence, as killing and being killed have become a way of life for many of our young black men and women,” said Sampson.
He said as a Pastor he witnesses this reality on full display whenever he officiate at the funeral of a murdered young man. However, he applauds the law enforcement agencies for promoting the importance of conflict resolution, but he said such promotion is “futile” until we address the rage that so many of us are carrying because anger can lead to rage if not dealt with creatively or channeled properly.
Rev. Dr. Sampson’s third reason for the ensuing society break down is the loss of the practice of neighborliness.
He said, “We have become too individualistic as a society. Such a disposition leads to indifference and apathy. Every Bahamian must be concerned with this level of violence in our society and must each endeavor to make improvement for the good.”
Quoting Martin Luther King, Jr. he said, “We must learn to live together as brothers or we will all perish together as fools” and ” It is indeed the time to get involved.”
In addition to murders, there has also been a disturbing increase in sexual assaults, including by several police officers, five of whom have been interdicted from the Royal Bahamas Police Force after being accused and charged with rape in the month of October. The police reported 61 cases of rape in 2023, up from 55 cases in 2022.
Additionally, the number of armed robberies and car-jackings using firearms are also trending up. While a number of videos have been posted on social media
Another leading clergyman, Rev. T.G. Morrison also took a moment to reflect on some of the reasons for the social ills that currently plague the country.
He said from his personal observation, “I think at the root of our current situation is one, fragmented families and two faltering faith.”
“The Bahamas we used to know was a place where nuclear families had the support of extended families and the entire community in which a child lived and was reared; we are at a place right now where families are fragmented and the support of extended family is almost absent, we do not know our neighbours,” he said.
Continuing, Rev. Morrison said, “it is in family structure that ethics, values and life’s essence are taught and learnt, the principle of being one’s brother or sister’s keeper, respect for authority, respect for self and ultimately respect for God.
“Twin to this notion of fragmentation of families is that so many children are being raised in homes without mothers and fathers in a committed relationship of love sealed by the bonds of Christian marriage, and while our modern society thinks nothing of it, the truth is no society can move forward with the current status of family life that The Bahamas has because no one parent can adequately rear a child, each parent offers to that child something that is unique and specific to the gender of that parent,” said Rev. Morrison.
However, Rev. Morrison noted that there are families that are making “inroads” and are doing an excellent job in the rearing of their children, but explained that his statement comes from a general perspective.
He said, “on top of that we have children who are having children, persons who themselves need to be properly formed and nurtured and they are now thrown into the world of adulthood, parenthood and they themselves lack the necessary skills to properly rear children.
“And this contributes to that cycle of poverty, that cycle of lack of academic prowess, that cycle of antisocial behavior because if the peace of our existence and the foundation that is needed for us to be strong as a society is absent then whatever else we attempt to put on it will not be able to withstand the pressure,” he said.
Additionally, Rev. Morrison said the notion of faltering faith is dear to him because while we boast of being a Christian nation and more that 99.9 percent of those who sit in the upper and lower halls of parliament testify that they are Christians, we are “suspending our Christian spirituality in the pursuit of progressive agenda. We are signing on to various treaties that have serious implications on how our society is to be ordered and thereby exposing us to liberal concepts and views that are rife with secularity.”
Rev. Dr. Morrison accused many who say they are Christians of only subscribing to the faith when it is convenient and not applying it to all aspects of our daily lives.
“Unfortunately, there is a growing incongruence in what we say and what we practice; we are not translating what we hear in church into our day to day practice, therefore we see the gambling houses experience a flurry of activity because people refuse to put their faith in the God who’s life gives meaning to their lives; they are prepared to take a chance and operate on luck rather than put their faith to the test,” said Pastor Morrison, who lamented the proliferation of liquor stores even in the proximity of schools as The Bahamas becomes a feting country.
Rev. Morrison said, “to me the murders on our streets tells of our lack of respect for life and that becomes evident because of our lack of respect for God, the giver of life. The gang activity in a very real way is a way that persons are crying out for those communal bonds, that extended family we have lost in our modern Bahamas.”
Rev. Morrison also suggested that the unwillingness by many to work for an honest dollar is fueling the drugs and gun trafficking culture coupled with illegal migration and human smuggling which is also contributing to the breakdown in society.
Rev. Morrison also suggested that a fear of the future is generating a sense of hopelessness among many citizens. He said, “when people become hopeless and they cannot believe that tomorrow will be better than today they can throw their hands up in helpless declaration or simply relegate themselves to a state of fate where they see themselves as being doomed and thereby say I am not prepared to do anything not even put up a fight.”
He said, “there are many who feel that there are two sets of justice systems in our country, the haves and the opulent have one set of justice and those who are poor and marginalized another set of justice is meted out to them. And so, there is emerging in our country a kind of vigilante justice where persons are taking matters into their own hands when they feel as if we cannot trust those who are there to make laws or to maintain the law.”
Rev. Morrison said the fact that some people can get around the law is also contributing to the breakdown in society norms.
Morrison recommends a repair of our family life, by going back to the design of the biblical witness meaning a male and a female in the context of marriage raising children in spite of their own imperfections, supported by extended families and the community, in addition to practicing true faith in God we would be better on the way to ensuring that our society thrives and survives.
Prime Minister Philip Davis said recently at the launch of the second phase of the government’s crime fighting plan that the level of crime in particular murders is a roadblock to the nations’ development.
In addition to the triple shooting and the incident where the two brothers-in-law killed each other there were nine murders in the month of October that began on Tuesday October 1st when a man was shot and killed on Montgomery Avenue in Flamingo Gardens. A second man was shot to death on Piper Lane off Palm Beach Street on October 1st just an hour after the first shooting.
On Thursday October 3rd around 10:00 p.m. a man from Pinewood Gardens was shot and killed while in the parking lot of a local laundromat at the junction of Baillou Hill and Malcolm Roads. Two days later around 12:00 noon on Saturday October 5th a young man was ambushed by two gunmen who appeared from bushes and shot him multiple times after arriving at his home in a vehicle. This was classified as the 93rd murder for the year.
Around 2:00 a.m., on Sunday October 13th a 21-year-old male was stabbed to death on Grand Bahama, back in the capital on Saturday October 19th a man was shot and killed while walking on Derby Road in Yellow Elder around 3:00 p.m. in the afternoon. On the same day, two men were shot by two masked gunmen who pulled up in a small vehicle while on Martin Street off Cowpen Road. One of them died at the scene which was murder number 97.
There was also another shooting on Ramsey Street off Carmichael Road on Friday October 25th when a man in his early 50’s was shot and killed while on his job. Before the triple shooting on October 28th two men were shot on Saturday October 26th while standing in the parking lot of a church on West End Avenue off Market Street, one of them died at the scene the other, believed to be an innocent bystander, remains in hospital fighting for his life.
