The Tribune

IT is not often that we hear the voice of the Prime Minister’s wife in the wake of the violence that too routinely breaks out on our streets.

Nor do we hear the voice of the Prime Minister himself addressing individual shootings or murders very often.

So we welcome the addition of Patricia Minnis’ voice to the condemnation of the gunmen who left a two-year-old girl fighting for her life and killed a ten-year-old in separate incidents.

Too often, the absence of such voices in the face of the bloodshed that affects our streets leaves a fear that we have become numbed to such violence. The absence of protest makes it seem as if we have come to accept the murders, the shootings, the stabbings, the robberies, the house raids and more as part of our Bahamian existence.

“We need to be outraged,” says Mrs Minnis, and she is right.

“We need to march for this. We need to really tell our young men who are killing themselves and who are killing innocent people to stop. They have to stop because they don’t want it to happen to their mother, their sister,” she added.

Her anger is justifiable. The question is, what next?

The trouble is these young men aren’t killing themselves and those around them in a vacuum. Simply telling them to stop as if it had never occurred to them will not be enough.

Many are not on the path to a life of crime, but have been walking that hard road for years now. There are many causes, but once on that path, there are few ways out. Rehabilitation is an easy word to use, but a harder one to convince employers who want to hire someone without a criminal record, or a landlord who wants a tenant without a history. Gangs can become support networks for people left with no other place to turn – and interrupting that and bringing people back into society is no easy thing.

Make no mistake, there should be no tolerance for these criminals who drag our nation down with every pull of the trigger, who horrify us with crimes against innocents such as these children.

A march on its own will not be enough – and while we encourage Mrs Minnis to stand at the forefront of such a march and seek to unite Bahamians in opposition to crime, there also needs to be a more determined agenda to give these young men an option other than crime.

For that, it’s over to Dr Minnis. Further progress on his rehabilitation of offenders project would be welcome, and more teeth on his inner city proposals to give more young men opportunities.

The outrage is needed – now we have to channel it.

Shanty town residents

The issue of shanty towns is nothing new in The Bahamas, and now Abaco residents are sounding the alarm over shanty towns being rebuilt there after Hurricane Dorian.

Word reaches The Tribune of 200 structures built in the Farm Road shanty town and questions are being asked about where is immigration or where are the police?

The question could equally be asked where has the support for everyone in Abaco been since Hurricane Dorian?

Let’s ignore just now the legal wrangles that have gone on over shanty towns and whether people have the right to be there or not – for now there would appear to be 200 or more households in Abaco with nowhere else to go and who have turned to doing this in order to have a roof over their head.

The issue shouldn’t be Abaco residents pointing and saying it’s unfair that these people are building when other residents are being left without help – it should be that all sides are short of the help they need.

Should people be doing things the right way? Absolutely. But 200 buildings don’t spring up overnight, and if there is a lack of feet on the ground to prevent their construction, that probably means there’s a lack of support to everyone on the island.

If the buildings are knocked down again, where will the people go with so much other reconstruction still left to do? Are there enough roofs for everyone on the island?

This seems like a symptom of a bigger problem – and one that continues to affect all of the storm-hit areas of Abaco.