FACTS ONLY
05-27-08, - 09:21 AM
taken from the Bahama Journal..
This Saturday past we witnessed worlds in collision.
And as we did, we despaired for this sad place that happens to be our home.
For the record and for the attention of all who would hear, see and understand, we emphasize and re-emphasize the point that not only is this land of ours a sad place; but that it is surely also a place that finds itself mired in confusion in what is a dread time of misery.
This Saturday, we saw the two faces of today’s Bahamas, one departing and the other arriving.
One face was worn by some of this nation’s elders, people in their sixties, seventies and eighties.
Today’s more youthful population, parents and their children in various guises and disguises – all of them pathetically vulgar and uniformly garish, wore another face.
One world we saw happened to be epitomized by any number of truly senior Bahamians – dressed in their Sunday best –who made their dignified way to the Church place in Fox Hill where the remains of Khodee Davis rested.
They came to pay their respects and to stand in solidarity with the parents and other family of the murdered boy.
They did what they thought they should. They did it well.
But even as we watched this world as it arrived, there was another contingent of Bahamians, these obviously coming from another time and seemingly from another place.
Many of these types were crude, lewd, vulgar and drunk.While they might have thought that they had come to pay their respects, the results -as we saw them- happened to have been contrary-wise.
They were – almost to a person – thoroughly obnoxious.
Sadder still is the fact that they comprised the vast majority of people who attended Khodee Davis’ funeral service this Saturday past.
The times are surely out of joint.
Something vital has clearly been lost in today’s Bahamas. Everywhere we turn we see evidence of what seems a most pernicious rot.
By way of example, we cite some of what we observed this week end past of the celebration concerning the home-going of the young man – Khodee Davis – whose young life was wasted on Cabbage Beach this Whit Monday past.
To be quite blunt about the matter, many who went to that ‘celebration’ did so with scant thought to the reason why they were there.Some spent the time doing what some Bahamians do so very well on public occasions, they profiled and strutted their stuff.In a handful of cases, full grown women and barely pubescent girls seem to be vying to see who could present themselves in the most garishly offensive manner. At the same time, there was any number of men – some of them decidedly senior men – who came to the celebration fully intoxicated.Not to be outdone, some of the younger youth-men were already tanked up when they arrived at the place where they were assembled in order to give Khodee a good send-off.
There was all that violence which today happens to be implicit in the mix of addled youth, their lost elders, alcohol, ganja and a witches brew of other intoxicants, thus the hurt done to a police officer who just happened to get in one barbarian’s way.
Put simply, there was little that could be described as ‘inspiring’ about the scene we observed this weekend past. We stayed and observed, lamented and distressed ourselves as we witnessed firsthand the disintegration of community – as reflected this time around in Fox Hill.
Interestingly, what we also saw that very many of the people who came to the Church, came already soused up on this drink, that drug or the other.This suggests that very many Bahamians just do not have a clue as to the extent to which their own self-destructive behavior affects the attitudes and prospects of their own children.
What are the youth to do when they wake to find that their parents and other elders are themselves in need of care?
What is to be done when we wake to discover that those who are supposedly leading are themselves deeply wounded?
All we know is that this is a deeply troubled place.
We also know that some of our so-called ‘leaders’ do not have a clue as to how this country can extricate itself from the strangle-hold of street-level thugs, rampant drug and alcohol abuse and that host of other stressors that today undermine social order and community.
So we conclude: in this dread time of misery, the blind are today leading the blind in one disintegrating community or another on the way down.
This Saturday past we witnessed worlds in collision.
And as we did, we despaired for this sad place that happens to be our home.
For the record and for the attention of all who would hear, see and understand, we emphasize and re-emphasize the point that not only is this land of ours a sad place; but that it is surely also a place that finds itself mired in confusion in what is a dread time of misery.
This Saturday, we saw the two faces of today’s Bahamas, one departing and the other arriving.
One face was worn by some of this nation’s elders, people in their sixties, seventies and eighties.
Today’s more youthful population, parents and their children in various guises and disguises – all of them pathetically vulgar and uniformly garish, wore another face.
One world we saw happened to be epitomized by any number of truly senior Bahamians – dressed in their Sunday best –who made their dignified way to the Church place in Fox Hill where the remains of Khodee Davis rested.
They came to pay their respects and to stand in solidarity with the parents and other family of the murdered boy.
They did what they thought they should. They did it well.
But even as we watched this world as it arrived, there was another contingent of Bahamians, these obviously coming from another time and seemingly from another place.
Many of these types were crude, lewd, vulgar and drunk.While they might have thought that they had come to pay their respects, the results -as we saw them- happened to have been contrary-wise.
They were – almost to a person – thoroughly obnoxious.
Sadder still is the fact that they comprised the vast majority of people who attended Khodee Davis’ funeral service this Saturday past.
The times are surely out of joint.
Something vital has clearly been lost in today’s Bahamas. Everywhere we turn we see evidence of what seems a most pernicious rot.
By way of example, we cite some of what we observed this week end past of the celebration concerning the home-going of the young man – Khodee Davis – whose young life was wasted on Cabbage Beach this Whit Monday past.
To be quite blunt about the matter, many who went to that ‘celebration’ did so with scant thought to the reason why they were there.Some spent the time doing what some Bahamians do so very well on public occasions, they profiled and strutted their stuff.In a handful of cases, full grown women and barely pubescent girls seem to be vying to see who could present themselves in the most garishly offensive manner. At the same time, there was any number of men – some of them decidedly senior men – who came to the celebration fully intoxicated.Not to be outdone, some of the younger youth-men were already tanked up when they arrived at the place where they were assembled in order to give Khodee a good send-off.
There was all that violence which today happens to be implicit in the mix of addled youth, their lost elders, alcohol, ganja and a witches brew of other intoxicants, thus the hurt done to a police officer who just happened to get in one barbarian’s way.
Put simply, there was little that could be described as ‘inspiring’ about the scene we observed this weekend past. We stayed and observed, lamented and distressed ourselves as we witnessed firsthand the disintegration of community – as reflected this time around in Fox Hill.
Interestingly, what we also saw that very many of the people who came to the Church, came already soused up on this drink, that drug or the other.This suggests that very many Bahamians just do not have a clue as to the extent to which their own self-destructive behavior affects the attitudes and prospects of their own children.
What are the youth to do when they wake to find that their parents and other elders are themselves in need of care?
What is to be done when we wake to discover that those who are supposedly leading are themselves deeply wounded?
All we know is that this is a deeply troubled place.
We also know that some of our so-called ‘leaders’ do not have a clue as to how this country can extricate itself from the strangle-hold of street-level thugs, rampant drug and alcohol abuse and that host of other stressors that today undermine social order and community.
So we conclude: in this dread time of misery, the blind are today leading the blind in one disintegrating community or another on the way down.