EDITOR, The Tribune.

Allow me a spot in your paper to express my grievance with the direction of my country. As I read your editorial of January 13, 2014, you and others seem to miss the crisis in Bahamian cities.

While I have the utmost of respect for the two Dupuch brothers and their contribution to the Bahamas, I lean more to Etienne’s approach on capital punishment.

If one must die innocently for the sake of saving one thousand, so be it. Even if it is myself or one of my children.

However, what we really need is an analysis of the social disorder in our country and a plan against poverty that exists and is the root of the problem. Thousands of words have been written and spoken analysing the rise of poverty, yet there has been no reasonable explanation of who is responsible and/or culpable.

If the country is left in poverty (chaos), then crime will be committed. The guilty one is not the one who commits the crime, but he who causes the chaos.

The politicians and policy makers since Independence have caused the poverty that is gripping the nation. They are the ones that extended the slums, created shanty towns, and perpetuate the increase of unemployment.

They failed to invest in education and therefore increase ignorance. What they have done is created a derivative criminal society.

The crimes committed are born out of a greater crime of the country’s mismanagement. We ask for Bahamians to abide by the law, but fail to enforce them. The inner cities have become a vicious criminal system that the politicians feed on. The Bahamians living outside of Fox Hill Prison are just as much prisoners of the society in which they live.

If we look at the sum of the meetings of the House of Assembly and compare it to the criminal offences by the harden criminals over the years, I daresay the politicians have created (rained) havoc over the community by enormous portions. The crimes of mismanagement in those few days that they do meet, creates the actions of the masses that would essentially amount to genocide.

Unemployment is one of the major cause of this crime wave. Some thirty-five per cent unemployed by unofficial numbers, the youth range somewhere in the area of fifty per cent.

So it is not accidental that major offenders are youth with no future ahead of them. The anger of opportunities unavailable, have created a generation full of rage and rebellion. Fifty per cent of our future wasted. All of this happening while the politicians are boasting of this country’s wealth and pre-eminence in the western hemisphere.

Where is the change? In 40 years has anything changed? I say it has gotten worse. The Bahamian now has less opportunity in his own country. Empowerment evades all facets of society.

The economic ladder that Bahamians were climbing has been pulled from under them.

Even the few Bahamians that have managed to hold on to a minimised economic security cannot obtain any respect and dignity due to the discrimination being placed in their path.

Many of the doors are closing very quickly, and the excuses of Bahamians being inferior have now been accepted as truth because it has been repeated so often.

This present administration is now spending and borrowing and we are being told it is needed to build infrastructure. How can one starved physically, socially, mentally and financially ever make use of such. This is so the oligarchs can continue to deplete our resources and perpetuate their rule. There have never been a Bahamas so opposed to by its citizenry.

The opposition now include the majority of Bahamians who want a change from the immoral and insane pursuit of political longevity and reelection. The will of the people and the diminished respect for government have made the country ripe for revolution. The amount of disrespect, contempt and cynicism for government has increased so dramatically by the actions of this administration, the country has been placed at a point that it can explode at any time. This administration’s love and admiration for foreign consultants and investors while native Bahamians’ quality of life decays will be worse than the bombs over Baghdad.

This present government won with less than forty-nine per cent of the popular vote and their support has declined ever since. The words of the former leader of their party, Lynden Oscar Pindling, have proven that the PLP have sold a bill of laden for goods that they have not and probably are incapable of delivering. If a ten per cent portion of the billions that are generated by Bahamian labour and resources was to remain with the masses then the country would be filled with contentment.

We the people must rise up and present a plan to end our suffering at the hands of our leaders. We must do it by replacing government leaders with visionaries that want to help. Our country does not lack leaders. What is lacking are leaders with Vision.

RabbiCommonZense

Grand Bahama,

January 26, 2014.