The Tribune

IT IS a tragedy that crime had to crash through the front door of the acting prime minister’s home as morning broke yesterday to make him and all of his political colleagues realise that crime is not a political problem, but a community problem. And that only a united community can solve that problem.

After being held up at gunpoint, and money, entrusted to his wife for their church, stolen, Mr Philip “Brave” Davis called for greater solidarity from the public in the fight against crime.

“The distressing events this morning prove that we all are in this together,” he said, “and therefore must do even more to help stem the tide of crime and violence in our society.

“We all must lend our voices to building a better nation and remind our youth especially that, through hard work, education and service to others, we together can build a better and more peaceful society.” He added that “fighting crime was a priority for us yesterday, and it is a priority for us today, and it will remain a top priority until all Bahamians are safe.”

We have now arrived at a point — with everyone at last on board one ship, the nation’s ship — that with a united effort hopefully something can now be done about crime.

However, this was not so pre-election 2012 when crime was the big stick used by the PLP to win the government. They falsely promised that they had the secret to restore peace and tranquility to the communities. They won the election, but Bahamians soon discovered that they had no secret cure for crime — in fact, although they still try to convince us that there is a decrease in crime, this is not true. Almost every night at this time — 11pm — while we write this column, a police bulletin is issued with the report of some criminal activity — usually violent and more often than not, involving death.

Tonight has been no exception. A few minutes ago, a bulletin crossed the news desk that there was a shooting at St Vincent Street and Faith Avenue leaving a “well known business woman” in hospital fighting for her life. As we continue to write, a reporter is trying to find out who the business woman is and the circumstances of the shooting. All we know at this time is that when she got out of her car, presumably at her home, multiple shots were fired, leaving her in critical condition.

Regardless of what the politicians would like us to believe, in all of the more than 50 years of being on the news beat, we have never seen anything as bad as this before. Crime has now become so serious, that if we don’t get a crime report around this hour at night, we think there is something wrong.

Therefore, when policemen with straight faces try to say that crime is down, we know that they are being forced to play with figures. Crime has now been broken down into so many different classifications that it is impossible to compare today’s crime with anything that has gone before. It is only those of us who have been on this treadmill for so long — from the days when a murder during a year was indeed a scandal to today when it is a regular occurrence — that we know that games are being played. It is now time for all of this nonsense to cease. People are not fools. It is time to stop juggling figures, and concentrate on coming to grips with the real problem – crime. This includes the courts and the legal fraternity.

In the early part of last year when the PLP erected large billboards that portrayed the Bahamas as a city of crime, and supporters of the FNM government, fearful that such portrayal would destroy our tourism industry, tore them down, Mr Davis protested. Referring to those who were taking down the PLP signs as “FNM goons”, Mr Davis accused then Prime Minister Hubert Ingraham of being a dictator, desperate for power and intent on concealing the truth.

It became obvious that the PLP were determined to climb back into the driver‘s seat on the back of crime.

“I do not know why they would take down the signs with the murder count on them. That’s a fact,” Mr Davis declared. Maybe after yesterday morning’s experience — and the shooting of his body guard in June — he will understand why those signs should have never gone up, nor should they have been used as a political tool to win an election.

As for Minister of State for National Security Keith Bell, who fortunately has been kept very much in the shadows as of late, we hope he now agrees that crime and politics just don’t mix.

When advised in early May this year by Opposition Leader Dr Hubert Minnis that he should stop playing politics with crime, but come to the table in a joint effort with the Opposition to defeat it, Mr Bell’s reply was: “I don’t know how one could take politics out of that equation because it really is the politicians who determine what legal framework would be created to address crime and other social ills.”

We hope Mr Bell and his thinking have matured since then.

We have to face the fact that the PLP does not – and never did have – a solution for crime. Nor did the FNM, but to their credit they made no false claims about it. However, together as a united community, where the criminal understands that there are no cracks to crawl through, and no politicians’ ears to bend for favours, then together we might get our community back to the days when crime — especially murder — was a rarity.

And so today we have a serious problem. If we love our country, then in the words of the late John F Kennedy we should not ask what our country can do for us, but what we can do for our country.

It is time for this nation to unite and defeat crime. We now invite the criminal to give up his guns and his anger, and join the community in making this once again a peaceful, and united country.