(Published in 1999/2004)
Dear Sir, please allow me the space in your paper
It is with regret years later that we now see if implemented what may have been today the “Saviour of Our Nation”.
During its first introduction and put forward as a Parliamentary debate in April 1988, the National Service idea was met with great opposition. It was not limited to the FNM, Human Rights organizations, or any political activist at that time, the former Prime Minister Hubert Ingraham at that time called it “a crazy idea”.
Many Bahamians who were finally realizing what money felt like in their pockets for the first time, some who saw their children too “better” to serve a young nation governed by a Pindling whom they hated for their own personal reason, and some who only used the Bahamas as a “convenience” bitterly opposed the idea, implementation, and purpose. Well now we have overcrowded jails and the rest is history. Although many of them saw it as nefarious and subterfuge by the Government of that day, it today speaks to us as if saying, “Here I am Lord”.
Now that our Nation has had to endure years of growing pains and many of our citizens have died at the hands of many young men and women, maybe it is time for a Government, or a young Bahamian politician of substance and not just form to reintroduce this National Service program again. I have had the privilege to spend time in a Reserves Officers Training Corp (ROTC) and fortunately was able to be a benefactor of its teachings through discipline and hard work. Although as a Bahamian of blood, those teachings began in my home “Over-the-Hill”. Unfortunately, not all young men and women are fortunate to have been corrected and encouraged when they did wrong.
It is strange that our nation as small as it is cannot feed itself because it has abandoned its “real” Agricultural and Fisheries Program. While our nation is putting much effort and emphasis on trying to save another country which I can understand because all Bahamian Governments past and present have failed to deal with the immigration at home first, we should be putting the same effort and emphasis when dealing with many other national problems which invite the illegal immigrant to come. Some of our countries Government Officials seem to have not realize today and from events just recent, that when you have no guns, no bullets, no troops, equals you may have the microphone but you have no say at the United Nations. It is imperative that we must and should structure our country in a way that aids itself in every way possible. This should start with our young men and women being guided through and from a National program geared toward harnessing young talent and minds that will eventually go on to be the leaders of this nation. We may not save all but we would have saved some. Some who would not have even have a chance, and one that can go on to be a murderer or a Prime Minister.
Our Politicians must look at where we want our nation to be fifty years from today and not just for the time present. I would say had National Service been implemented we would have less men in jail and more empty spaces in jail, less unemployment, a more skilled work force with some national patriotic pride, character, and purpose. Imagine Customs Department would finally be able to have more Officers to properly collect government funds in remote places and in Freeport at the new Container Terminal, which we know is grossly undermanned for whatever reason. Immigration would have more youthful man power that keep up with the changing times of the illegal immigration dynamics. All the quasi Government Corporations can have a chance to introduce young men and women to not just a “Government Job” but a job that can change their social behavior, thought process, and way of life. Maybe our Defense and Police Force would have enough manpower to properly protect our Nation from crime. It is time to steer our countries future through harnessing of young men and women through proper implementation of a National Service Program.
Anthony Bostwick
March 2004
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