by Simon
•Simon is a young Bahamian with things on his mind
who wishes to remain anonymous. His column 'Front Porch' is published
every Tuesday in the Nassau Guardian. He can be reached at
frontporchguardian@gmail.com.
Last week, horrendous reports that a five-month old baby girl died after being sexually abused ricocheted around the country producing shock and horror -- and fear that living amongst us are some who might commit such a heinous crime.
Thankfully, our fears were unjustified, though various officials are still investigating the circumstances surrounding this tragic death. Moreover, while the handling of this matter by health and police officials is under review, both appear to have acted out of an abundance of caution.
The initial police statement on the matter contained several caveats: “It is believed that the infant may have been molested. An investigation has been launched in relation to how the infant met her demise.”
RESTRAINED
Preceding his contribution to the budget debate, Prime Minister Hubert Ingraham issued a statement which was restrained, expressing his concern, while avoiding a rush to judgment.
Where public officials refrained from treading, a chorus of moral opportunists, fear-mongers and the self-righteous rushed in to judge before the facts were fully known.
Amidst the anxiety and fear created by a severe economic downturn and too numerous cases of rape, child and sexual abuse, public outrage over such an incident is to be expected. If we could no longer be outraged, we would indeed have descended into a moral swamp.
In these circumstances, national leaders and the media have an extraordinary responsibility to exercise restraint and avoid playing with raw emotions. Unfortunately, most of the public no longer expect certain elements of the tabloid press to show such restraint.
While this newspaper and others in the media were more circumspect in their coverage, various sensationalists could not resist the urge to boost circulation and ratings through the manner and tone in which they flogged this tragic story.
Unsurprisingly, some of the spectators who flocked to Bank Lane to get a view of the supposed perpetrator(s) were probably ready to brand the accused with either the Mark of Cain or Scarlett Letters. Unfortunately for many baking in that morning sun and sweltering with moral panic, the thirst for swift justice went unquenched.
If the 200 plus people who assembled last Tuesday are typical, a number of them could have best spent that time reflecting on their own lives and repenting for their sins, rather than projecting their moral failings and emotional turmoil on others, whom they can easily scapegoat as their moral inferiors.
Perhaps some in the crowd left disappointed that they could not cast the first stone. No matter, there is always a target-rich environment for stone-throwing, with “too many homosexuals, Haitians and degenerates” corrupting our supposed moral purity.
It’s not that moral judgments and the rule of law are unimportant. It’s that we should be careful in our judgments and allow the rule of law to take its course. If we fail to so do, we will become exactly the morally reprehensible people we can’t wait to lash with our self-styled cat-o-nine-tails.
In this vein, the morally ugly suggestion by a local Rush Limbaugh-like clone and demagogue that people of Haitian ancestry may be more inclined to commit acts of sexual abuse against minors, is reminiscent of the actual Limbaugh’s record of demonizing black people as more inclined to moral turpitude than white people.
ASININE
Substitute black for Haitian and white for Bahamian and you get the same kind of asinine scapegoating that helps to stir up group hatred and individual acts of hate by desperate people seeking to blame others for their own moral failings or social and economic circumstances.
Equally disturbing was the poisonous rhetoric of a television talk show host who, while claiming that he was not encouraging people to violence, observed that he may be prepared to get a cutlass and take certain matters into his own hands – literally.
In the current climate, this barely disguised incitement to violence married to a rush to judgement is the kind of vigilante justice an officer of the court should be resisting rather than encouraging.
Meanwhile, Miss Bahamas Universe also stepped in to express her moral indignation. With many national beauty pageants suffering from a credibility gap, perhaps the organizations running these showcases may advise their representatives to refrain from moral posturing on active police matters.
Unfortunately, the Christian Council now finds itself in the company of the sensationalists in the tabloid press, those who would be happy to join a mob dedicated to “vengeance is mine” and others who would use such a case to bolster their public profile.
Some of those who have hijacked the Christian Council to pursue their own narrow moral agendas with an obsession for sexual matters, while ignoring moral issues such as economic and social injustice, could not wait to rush to judgment on this case.
But that’s exactly what was missing – judgment. Rather than wait for officials to complete their investigations, certain elements of the Council rushed in to grandstand and moralize.
Unfortunately, the Grand Inquisitors of the Council failed to exercise good moral judgment in terms of tone and substance, failing to lead, while capitulating to the rush to judgment they should have restrained.
GRANDMOTHER
The moral response to their moral jihad came not from more responsible religious voices, but from a grieving grandmother who had just lost her grandchild, and rightfully chastised the Council’s leadership for its naked opportunism.
This latest incident is another example of the Council’s loss of credibility and declining importance as an influential and balanced moral voice. More and more, the Pharisees in the Council are becoming irrelevant, speaking into an echo chamber in which their voices, while sweet to themselves, are increasingly sour to a public that has tuned them out.
It’s an open secret that many mainline churches, while still technically members of the Council, do not take it seriously. If they do not wish to continue to be associated with an organization that has lost its moral direction, they should withdraw and form a Council of Churches which is more representative and morally responsible.
Their continued membership in this organization lends a veneer of moral legitimacy to the self-interested who continue to use the banner of the Christian Council to pursue narrow private and public agendas.
If those in the Council who sought to throw stones want to recover some respect they should publicly apologize to the family involved and the nation. If they fail to do so in an appropriate manner they will have shown their true moral colours.
Glad you expose Haitian xenophobia for what it is... racism pure and simple. Bahamians need to change their attitudes about our most significant and influential minority group. We need to tap their energy and incorporate that force into the Bahamian cultural dialogue, rather than ostracizing them and marginalizing them to the periphery.
Posted by: Erasmus Folly | June 24, 2009 at 11:13 AM