The late Oliver Jackman might have termed it Another Devaluation, the title of one of his articles published in the 1990s. This might apply to the latest and hereto unimaginable incident of criminal activity. As reported in the press, three masked men armed with high-powered weaponry entered the Majestic Bar in Bridgetown and sprayed bullets, killing three occupants of the club and injuring, at last count, some eight more.
We may be becoming used to a certain measure of gun violence, but the events on Nelson Street on the morning of Saturday, September 14, exposed a new dimension to the notion of gun violence. Just when we thought it could not possibly get worse, Barbadians are waking up to a new and more egregious level of criminality. Who would ever have thought that the term ‘mass killing’ would ever apply to Barbados? But then there was a time when a drive-by shooting was also inconceivable—now it is not so uncommon. Two weeks earlier, a 12-year-old girl was shot when she and other children were playing outside her residence in Silver Hill. A gunman reportedly sprayed the area with bullets while the children were at play. These events should awaken even the most foolishly complacent Barbadian.
There have been perennial expressions of concern and condemnation. The partisan politics of grievance has again raised its ugly head with the perennial calls for the resignation of various Ministers of Government, as a critical issue that should be addressed in a non-partisan way becomes a political football. There is the usual palliative of creating comprehensive community programmes, but no one is asking the relevant questions. Who is bringing the guns — high and presumably low-powered? Who is renting the guns and who are the masked gun-persons operating in groups of three that are spraying the society with gunshots? The laws must be severely tightened and strenuously enforced. The liberal notion of the neutral role of the State where the State refuses to intervene with effective force in determining all aspects of social discipline is clearly not working for us.
There is clearly an absence of political and moral will to solve many of our internal psycho-social problems. Our attention seems to have been more on issues of global climate change of which much is heard. However, there is an absence of in-depth thought on the changing local social climate with its growing and deepening array of social pathologies. This year, there was more talk about Crop Over than there was about education and crime. We have become a nation of talkative adolescents inordinately concerned with trivia, even as our New Republic seems to face increasing odds.
The Jehovah’s Witness Magazine, Awake convincingly argued that the root cause of crime is moral decay. In Barbados, as elsewhere, we are increasingly inhabiting a moral vacuum as our institutions of socialisation continue to fail. We blame poverty and each political party claims that it will create jobs for the youth even as the economy struggles. An education reform proposal claims to be able to create a bright future for every child even as many of our bright young people are trying to find a brighter future by migrating to Canada. The political snake oil salesmanship should stop the verbiage increasingly filled with buzz words and empty phrases.
Chair of the Democratic Labour Party’s (DLP) Commission on Crime Verla DePeiza has suggested that there is zero confidence in the Government’s capacity to fix the crime problem. If that hope ever existed, after the Nelson Street incident, that confidence must now be waning. Frankly, I think neither political party in this country understands the complexity of the crime issue. Corey Lane, the Minister of State in the Office of the Attorney General with responsibility for crime prevention, is a very well-meaning and conscientious person, but he appears totally out of his depth. Solving the problem of crime in Barbados would necessitate a broader assault on issues of indiscipline and disorder that are now deeply embedded in the culture.
The religiously inclined turn their eyes to the heavens, praying to God for salvation. There are lazy Christians who think that they can say ‘Father God’ or ‘Hail Mary’ a thousand times and the Angel Gabriel will come down and solve our problems as we sit back and await deliverance. Our world is in trouble and everybody is selling salvation. Maybe this is the time for another Benny Hinn crusade. We await the Great Transformation that is to come.
Ralph Jemmott is a retired educator.
