Assessing 2005 in The Bahamas

by Sir Arthur Foulkes

Was it a good year? Or a bad year? Or is this arbitrary measurement of time utterly indifferent, like the chalice that is filled with fine wine one moment and deadly poison the next?

As the year races to its close many will be doing their personal calculations to deliver a verdict on 2005. For some it will be easy.

Great personal loss, such as the sudden passing of a loved one, or a string of adversities will clearly dictate the answer.

It will be equally decisive if everything went well: the last payment on the mortgage was made, the youngest child ceased to be a dependent and good health prevailed.

For others – perhaps the majority – the year will have been filled with the usual ups and downs, successes and failures, pleasures and pains.

At the national level it is far more complicated and some will make the assessment still based on personal experience. It will be seen as a very bad year for the nation if one were unemployed most of the time. For one who made a bundle of money it will be seen as a great year.

Others will be able to make more objective conclusions. The Bahamas remains one of the best places in the world to live and enjoy life.

The economy may not be performing as well as we might have wished but Bahamians are still enjoying a standard of living that is the envy of many other developing countries.

While we take great delight in berating the political class, we still enjoy the benefits of a healthy democracy and the rule of law which millions around the world have yet to experience.

But there are some ailments and deficiencies in the body of the nation with potential to undermine the very foundations of our society and seriously diminish our quality of life.

Violent crime has plagued us during 2005 and antisocial behaviour seems to be increasing, not abating, among our young people.

Our education system is not yet producing the results that will enable us to hold our own in a world that is becoming ever more competitive.

Some of the negative influences dragging us down emanate from a western civilization that is itself in a state of decay and desperately in need of a cultural and spiritual renaissance.

The lessons of Uncle Arthur’s Bedtime Stories and Brer Bookie and Brer Rabbie are lost to many of the younger generations.

Largely lost too is the great literature of writers like Charles Dickens which helped to shape the conscience and refine the emotions of older generations. Classical poetry seems much neglected and seldom committed to memory.

Instead, today’s youth are bombarded by vast corporate-owned multimedia networks peddling violence and vulgarity and glorifying ignorance and permissiveness.

One writer observed at the turn of the century that one of the worst ideas of the twentieth century was the reversal of roles between parents and children.

Degrees of freedom for children are no longer prescribed by parents but have become a matter for negotiation, if not right.

How children dress and deport themselves is likewise a matter of demand promoted and encouraged by the cretins in the mass media, not directed by parents.

These negative external influences have found fertile ground in our own society which has failed to nurture the values that went into making us a polite and gentle people.

Where once we celebrated good manners, refinement and respect, too many of us now contribute to the unpleasantness with inconsiderate and rude public behaviour.

The end of one year and the beginning of another is as good a time as any for a national examination of conscience and a taking of inventory to see whether we have the cultural memory, political will and spiritual resources necessary to start a renaissance right here in these islands.

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Some adversities are seasonal – like hurricanes – and 2005 saw the busiest hurricane season in history while we were still reeling from the destruction of the previous year.

Others pay no attention to the calendar and can strike at any time. Such was the case when tragedy devastated the little community of Bimini and left the nation in a state of shock in the middle of this holiday season.

Last week Monday 11 Bahamians, including two infants, plunged to their death as a Chalk’s aircraft broke apart and fell into the water off Miami. Nine other persons, presumably Americans, also perished.

The horrifying spectacle took place in full view of persons on shore and the rest of us witnessed it by way of television. It was the worst tragedy to befall the Bahamas in many years, certainly the worst ever aviation disaster.

Most of us can only imagine the pain and anguish of those who have been so cruelly bereaved. Albert Schweitzer, the missionary doctor and philosopher famous for his work in Africa, referred to a secret bond among the “Fellowship of those who bear the Mark of Pain”; and Bahamians like to say, “Only he who feels it knows it.”

The pain of those bereaved by the crash of Flight 101 is exacerbated by the knowledge that their loved ones must have suffered intense anguish in those moments when the airplane cracked and was falling to earth.

There is no remedy for such pain. Not even time can completely erase it. Just as tears come to the eyes of the old soldier who recalls the violent death of a comrade a half century ago, so too their pain is likely to linger, always within reach of memory.

Said Doug Anderson, an American poet who was a doctor in the Vietnam War, when confronted by the overwhelming pain of a mother and father whose child had been torn apart by shrapnel:

“There is nothing to say,
Nothing in my medical bags,
Nothing in my mind.”

There is nothing we can say to alleviate the pain of our brothers and sisters in Bimini. They know that, to one degree or another, we all belong to the Fellowship of Pain.

The celebrations of this holy season will continue but each of us will keep them in our hearts and in our prayers. Life goes on; it is the only thing that will not die.

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THANK YOU!

At the end of another year I should like to thank all the readers of this column for their encouragement during the year, especially those who call on Tuesdays or take time to send e-mails.

I should like to thank also all those at The Tribune who make it possible for this column to appear every Tuesday without fail.

I trust that the New Year will bring many joys and that we will have the strength to meet its inevitable challenges.

Happy New Year!