The Tribune

AS Prime Minister Dr. Hubert Minnis led a delegation to Dominica yesterday to view firsthand the devastation left by Hurricane Irma, we wondered how anyone could be so cold, so callous, so hard-hearted as to believe that by helping others we deprive ourselves of the ability to help Bahamians.

Did they forget the most basic fact that giving is not a zero-sum game?

What you give to others does not take away from what you have for yourself. When you give love, you get love. You do not draw from a well and leave less love behind. Giving is not a competition, nor is it a court case. It is neither either-or, nor is it us vs. them. It is not help us or help them.

There is, and likely never will be, a line item in the budget that allows for foreign assistance for an unforeseeable disaster. This is a matter of humanity helping humanity, of being our brother’s keeper.

Because the debate continued to be fueled by fiery rhetoric tapping into baseless raw emotion, we wanted to address the origin of being our brother’s keeper and apply it to the world around us, including the heinous lone gunman attack in Las Vegas Sunday night that left at least 58 dead and 500 injured.

The concept of being our brother’s keeper dates back to Adam and Eve, long before the birth of Christianity. The story is first told of Adam and Eve whose union in the Garden of Eden resulted in the birth of two sons, Cain, the elder, who became a farmer and Abel, the younger, a shepherd. For being the consequence of disobeying God’s wish, the two sons were commanded each to sacrifice a lamb. Abel offered his prize lamb, Cain, the runt of the litter. But at the time of the sacrificial burning, Cain’s lamb smouldered and would not burn. Incensed, he presumably lost his temper, took his little brother for a walk, struck and killed him. God asked why and Cain replied, “I don’t know. Am I my brother’s keeper?” And God replied, “Cain, how can you be so cruel…?” So the story appears first in the Torah and whether written by the hand of Moses or in the 1300s, it predates the King James and Douay Versions of the Bible.

We note this only to say that as far back as religious memory takes us, from Judaism to Christianity there has been a consistent theme that we are, in fact, our brother’s keeper and in today’s world our sister’s. We might speculate that had Cain and Abel been Alice and Arianna, such murderous behaviour might never have taken place, but that is mere speculation, though we suspect probably a good guess.

The theme repeats itself in the famous poem by the metaphysical poet John Donne originally published in 1624, “No man is an island, entire of it self, (sic) every man is a piece of the Continent, a part of the main.”

At this writing, we do not know what the Bahamian delegation will find in Dominica and what impact it will have on those in the delegation like Belinda Wilson, President of the Bahamas Union of Teachers, who had voiced her concern about admitting students from Dominica into Bahamian classrooms. We have seen enough images on TV, in print and online to know that without assistance, the people of Dominica will suffer immeasurably.

The island experienced near total devastation. There is no drinking water, no power, no schools to attend, no economy.

Yet, in the background, the debate still raged about whether or not coming to the aid of our sisters and brothers was the right course of action.

We said last week it was the ONLY course of action and reiterate in even stronger terms today following the attack in Las Vegas when innocent people who were enjoying the final concert of a 3-day country western music festival were mowed down mercilessly in an attack by a single man with arms, ammunition and a grudge.

Did the police officers and security guards whose quick action is credited with saving hundreds, if not thousands, of lives, ask themselves, “Should we come to their aid?” No, they did the only decent thing, the thing they were trained to do. They rushed into action, putting their lives on the line to help others. Dominica is not asking us for our lives, merely a matter of seats in a classroom, a place to lay their head while they figure out next steps, a safe haven in a storm.

We watch the behaviour of American President Donald Trump dealing awkwardly with storm-ravaged Puerto Rico, home to 3.5 million Americans, trying to figure out whether he is Cain or Abel.

Like Dominica, Puerto Rico was devastated and rendered helpless by winds and water of a powerful storm that ripped off roofs, cut off power and communications, destroyed water supplies and uprooted lives that may never be the same again.

May President Trump choose the right path for Puerto Rico, lend assistance that can lead to the economic recovery the bankrupt island desperately needs and may the same charitable and Judaic-Christian action quiet the discord of those in this nation who fail to understand that it is when we help others that we help ourselves. We are, and always shall be, our brothers’ and our sisters’ keepers.