The Tribune

RIGHT now, today, 45 promising students with ambitious goals and a determination to succeed need a hero.

They need a bridge to their future.

Literally.

They are the students admitted and ready to go to LJM Maritime Academy.

It’s the largest class since the nautical institution opened its doors in 2014.

It’s also the first class that has no way to get to class.

That’s because the bridge leading from Arawak Cay to LJM Maritime Academy, housed primarily in a modern glass, wood and steel structure built on the grounds of the old Coral World, has been condemned.

Literally and figuratively condemned.

And the boat that the Academy used in the past to ferry students back and forth when necessary is broken down and beyond repair or not worth what it would cost to do so.

So here we stand, on the precipice of a new school term with 45 young people who want a future at sea or connected to the maritime world, willing to give their all for courses that range up to 39 months, parents who are willing to sacrifice so their son or daughter can get the nautical orientation, experience and education they need, and they will stand there in a few days and look at the buildings and grounds and not be able to get there.

There is an effort afoot to find a vessel since the bridge is a far more expensive investment. Whether it can even be repaired or must be replaced is an open question. For a government to condemn a structure, especially this government that does not do so unless human life is endangered, it takes a lot. But it only takes one look at the underbelly and the side of the bridge to agree with the decision. Looking at it makes you queasy.

Rebar hangs out unashamed of its protrusions.

Parts of the old bridge that must at one time have been attached to something now float loosely, so disconnected that if innate pieces could fly, these just might flap their wings.

Wood railings are split or missing. Rusty metal pipes mesh with conduit of some kind forming a winding, random relationship. There’s hardly a piece of concrete that looks like it would pass a strength test. I can’t see the welds. They’re too rusty.

The bridge was rickety the first time I drove over it five years ago. No one has repaired it since and decaying concrete and metal are not fine wine – they do not improve with age. Part of the problem is no one seems to know who, exactly, is responsible. One source says the bridge was built by a well-known hotelier who had a strong presence in Nassau for decades. Another says there was an issue with the construction of the bridge when it was built.

Whatever the past, the present is where we stand and the future is what is at stake for the students who just need to get from Point A to Point B where the path to their career begins. The academy itself – a gift from Lowell J Mortimer who leased the land and built the school which is held in the arms of a foundation -- is in no financial position to make the repairs. While it has done a yeoman’s job turning out trained cadets prepared for work in the lucrative and short-handed maritime industry, it has faced an ongoing financial struggle.

LJM Maritime Academy may be one of the most important tertiary education facilities a country made up of 90% of water could ever conceive of having. Cruise lines fund scholarships and their executives and specialists applaud its work loudly, one even saying no maritime education facility in the Western Hemisphere compares to it.

Yet without an infusion to purchase a secondhand vessel or fix a falling bridge, the future of the academy and its waiting student enrollment is, at best, uncertain.

The lack of a bridge or a means to the future is not just a mystery, it’s incredibly wrong. LJM is not just for students who want a career at sea whether cruise, cargo, merchant ship or other or a job in one of those industries. The academy works with the Royal Bahamas Defense Force. It handles first aid training and certifications for nurses, offers firefighting training and lifesaving certification for lifeguards and tour operators.

It makes a difference in the lives of hundreds every year.

If you want to ask about how meaningful LJM Maritime Academy is, ask Shante Pearson or Tre’von Ferguson, if you can locate them. They’re both second engineers on the bridge, helping to run two of the world’s largest cruise ships, living and working their best life somewhere in the world for Royal Caribbean.

Shante and Tre’von started out at LJM Maritime Academy where the education they got was strong enough to propel them through Caribbean Maritime University in Jamaica where these two young Bahamians graduated as Valedictorian and Salutatorian of their class, number one and number two, and you can’t do better than that.

When they started at LJM, they, too, had a dream. Unlike today’s students who wait, literally, for a bridge to their future. Or a boat that will get them the first few hundred yards to the start of the rest of their lives.

A MOTHER’S VIEW OF MARITAL RAPE

THE discussion around marital rape – whether it exists under the law or not – has divided the country one more time. But the divisiveness, it seems to me, while focused on the rights of a man to a woman’s body when he slips a ring on her finger misses the point.

(Yes, I know technically a wife could rape her husband but let’s be real, for obvious reasons it’s far more likely that the woman is going to be the victim).

The point is this. If a man cannot beat his wife without being punished by the law, in fact punishable by up to 15 years in prison, how is it he can rape her? Sexual assault is assault. The prime minister recognises it as a crime. Rape is rape, he said bravely. If you saw a woman being assaulted by a man in public, you would do everything in your power to stop it or call for help to stop it. So why would we, as a country, condone rape in a marriage and not condone a good beating? If a man has a right to his wife’s body whether she wants him at that moment or not, he might as well have all rights to it, put his burning cigarette out on her arm or break her little finger for kicks.

Sound preposterous? Of course. Just as preposterous as being able to rape her without paying the price. If rape is rape outside the marriage but not within it, then assault should be treated likewise by the law. If he has permission to violate her rights, then how can he be denied permission to pound her skull, burn her face? If rape is a crime outside the marriage, how is the same act not a crime within the sanctity of what is supposed to be the most loving, trusting relationship of all?

Or think of it this way – how would you feel if the person being raped, the person crying, ‘Stop, you are hurting me,’ crying, weeping, begging, were your daughter, the little girl you raised and loved and walked down the aisle, trusting she would be safe with the man you gave her away to.

Then ask, is marriage a state of being in which human decency is no longer required and rights suspended?

Is it a place where your daughter is enslaved after you thank God every day that you are free?