The Tribune

By Rev Canon S Sebastian Campbell

“TO YOU is born this day, a saviour.” Good news indeed!

All was not calm and all was not bright the night Jesus was born. The angels’ proclamation seemed unreal, an impossibility, because of the bleakness of the social, political and religious life being experienced. The shepherds, to whom the news first came, had to work through the contradictions of life so as to make sense of any and every strand of the good news heralded to them. The Jews, through whom this good news came, were mere pawns on Caesar’s political chessboard.

We live in a society that is just as confused and hypocritical as the one in which Jesus was born. We yearn for hope down every corridor of our national mansion. We will find none until we come to grips and correct our current hypocrisies while not simultaneously creating new ones.

Too many Bahamians are literally disposed with no system in place to guarantee them possession. The vast majority of Bahamians own nothing of lasting consequence. Everybody is entitled to a piece of the land, but the majority do not own one square inch of the Bahamian soil, while the minority are encouraged to “hog up” everything.

Too many Bahamians are either renting or squatting or leasing land and places to live and work.

Systems must be put in place so as to free enslaved Bahamians and simultaneously usher in a period of greater joy and fulfilment as more participate in meaningful ways in a country that will then practically and realistically belong to them.

An overhaul in the attitude of our banking system might go a long way to help. Necessary legislation must be put in place to ensure this, while at the same time empowering the people financially and psychologically to make it possible. Our people must be made prepared to go in and posses the land.

There is a paralysing mindset that demands healing. It is the attitude of subserviency, where Bahamians generally feel they must be lorded over.

The dark era of colonialism is directly responsible for this. It is amazing how many of our leaders, who are children of the colonial era, hold on so dearly to the very shackles of colonialism.

I was shocked and in a daze to hear the former Governor General recently lauding colonial honours and stating that we will have them for a long time yet.

It is a sickening mindset that continues to believe that anything superior must come from foreign ports.

This is instilled in the very soul of the Bahamian. Our leaders must be our liberators to challenge this enslavement of the mind. This attitude finds continuous manifestation in the overwhelming number of Bahamians wanting not to be entrepreneurs, but want to be servants, whether civil or otherwise. Some even have no desire to move out of rental units and brave contracting their own mortgage. Other Caribbean countries, although not as economically stable as we are, are leaders and pacesetters in forging an indigenous way forward and are more readily shedding vestiges of colonialism than we are.

The country staggers because of the darkness of our moral life. We live in an era that looks at you as abnormal if you don’t have an “outside child”.

We are told to wake up and smell the coffee if we protest against couples shacking up. It’s no big deal to have children and simultaneously have no plans for marriage. Marriage and family making are no longer synonymous; homosexuality and lesbianism are no longer called sinful, but alternative lifestyles.

The message of the angels was “good news”. Today we need more and more of that good news. We commit to being angels of good news this Christmas time as we challenge society and refuse the temptation of conforming to the standards, but like good angels are agents of transformation. Society must continuously be challenged if there is to be change and consequently hope. Jesus came to do just that, through out of his ministry he challenged and brought hope it led to the inevitable cross. But that’s the price we must pay for our conviction in being angels of hope and agents of change. Is there any other way to make God’s Kingdom come on earth as it is in heaven?