WE HAVE SURVIVED 2010 with its voracious appetite for disasters.
A seeming unending recession, unexpected but devastating weather, a resurgence of high energy prices, a decline in tourism receipts, a reduced attractiveness of a respected, yet uncontaminated financial sector and a worrying threat of increased commodity prices seem destined to be our unwanted companions through 2011.
The above challenges have brought with them their own prescriptions of a struggling economy and a rising crime rate, fuelled, no doubt, by high unemployment. Unless we grapple with these issues decisively, we run the risk of causing our tourist industry irreparable harm and, as a consequence, unwillingness by foreign investors to see Barbados any longer as a low-risk domicile.
There can be no doubt that gangs exist and are becoming more attractive to the youth – unemployed or underemployed. The hunger for large earnings, born of the pursuit of instant gratification, has bred a growing appetite for and an attraction to drug use, drug pushing and gun running.
To contemplate the existence of those evils within our schools, coupled with a propensity for illicit sex, is not only frightening but destructive of the morals of our youth to whom we must look for leadership tomorrow. If the slide is not arrested immediately, we can expect to lose a generation with its repercussions for Barbados ceasing to be considered an attractive place to live, work or invest.
The burning question has to be, where have we gone wrong? We held our heads high in former times in the knowledge that our country was seen as disciplined, hardworking, noted for respect for law and order, promoters of an education system second to none in the wider Commonwealth. Today we pause with a backward glance to see who is listening anytime we dare to tout those erstwhile traditions.
Opportunities for higher learning, for technical training and exposure to high standards and competitiveness as prevail in the global marketplace have been made available to all who yearn for excellence. Yet we witness daily a relentless decay in the morals of society, an aversion to giving good service and a growing dislike for hard work, which we prefer to liken to slavery.
The importance of the notion of family first, a legacy of our recent late Prime Minister David Thompson, must not be forgotten. The strength and unyielding fibre of our country was almost imperviously locked in the cohesion of village, community and family life.
These are no more.
Teachers, the local constabulary, the church and the clergy, community leaders and politicians have all fallen from the high pedestal of respect formerly shown to them by the citizenry. Arguments and disagreements are no longer resolved by discussion but rather by the gun.
Good manners, respect for the aged, love of country, flag, our Pledge and National Anthem, bear evidence of the makings of a callous people for whom the ways of the world seem to have ordained a diminishing value of and purpose to human life.
Are we prepared to call a halt?