On July 9, 1973, six and a half years after the Second Emancipation of majority rule, a jubilant crowd of approximately 50,000 descended on Clifford Park to usher in and to celebrate the first light of dawn of a new Bahamas on July 10, 1973.

There was a stillness in the air and in the hushed crowd as the Union Jack was lowered. When the new tri-colored Bahamian standard finally climbed the flagstaff, the citizens of the new country roared with exuberance and expectation.

There were expectations of hope, prosperity, excellence, a fairer land, of a successful predominantly black country possibly destined and certainly reaching for first world status.

Already, the government-operated school system was making the promise of universal education a reality. There was a rising black middle class. The colony was receiving generally good international press.

At Clifford Park there were the expectations of a 26-year-old woman, a teacher in a government-operated school and a mother of one, and her husband, a public officer.

There was anxiety about a small country now responsible for its defense and foreign relations. An economic recession was gripping the world. But the anxiety was no match for the expectations and hopes of the citizens of the new commonwealth.

A boy of nearly 10, also on the park with his mother, had spent weeks at school like thousands of other children, learning the new national anthem, part collective dream and part vision statement for Bahamaland:

"Lift up your head to the rising sun, Bahamaland, march on to glory, your bright banners waving high. See how the world marks the manner of your bearing;

"Pledge to excel thro' love and unity. Pressing onward, march together, to a common loftier goal. Steady sunward tho' the weather hide the wide and treacherous shoal.

"Lift up your head to the rising sun, Bahamaland, 'til the road you've trod lead unto your God, March on Bahamaland."

The founders and champions of the freedom movement who ushered in majority rule and liberated Bahamians, white and black, dreamed of a multiracial society committed to racial and social equality. They also had a vision of a successful mixed-economy and stable two-party parliamentary democracy.

Consensus
Though the freedom movement was already split politically, which proved a healthy occurrence for the developing democracy, its leaders shared an ideological consensus and the dream of moving 'steady sunward to the rising sun'.

There was the expectation that we would build one of the more successful predominantly black countries in the world, an example to a global community that we believed would mark the manner of our bearing.

Forty-three years hence, seven years away from the 50th anniversary of independence, "the rising sun" of our dreams is dissipating. We are staggering toward a setting sun of lost hope and dwindling expectations.

In the minds of many Bahamians there was something exceptional - and admittedly at times arrogant - about The Bahamas as a small independent state blessed with certain geographical advantages, including a stunningly beautiful archipelago strategically located in the Americas and along well-located sea lanes and air routes.

Though we still enjoy these geographical advantages and have achieved much since 1973, we have tragically squandered extraordinary dreams and opportunities in the past four decades. We have often shackled native creativity and talent.

We have lost our way in so many ways, in considerable part due to the regressive and corrupt political leadership we had in the formative years of a sovereign Bahamas.

There is a dwindling sense of being exceptional. The national drive for excellence died some time ago. We expect and accept substandard service.

The value of civility has atrophied dramatically. We have become crude and crass in terms of basic social mores and public conduct.

We do not have the resources to be first world in terms of certain facilities and advantages. But we can achieve first world standards in certain areas and with certain attitudes.

Value
The fact that many of our children in the government-operated school system leave high school barely literate and numerate does not outrage scores of parents. Education is not a value for many Bahamians.

Sadly, today, few Bahamians still believe the dream of becoming first world in terms of certain standards and practices. We have settled into an acceptance of poorer standards for our country. We accept our public spaces looking tacky and run-down, and often filthy.

We are in a downward spiral: The Family Islands, New Providence and Grand Bahama are in desperate straits on so many fronts.

The new reality that we have accepted is that of high crime, low public standards, high unemployment, mass incivility, acceptance of political corruption and lowered expectations of ourselves and others.

The irony is that while many high-net-worth individuals from abroad are buying luxury properties in The Bahamas, the Bahamas middle class may be shrinking, unable to afford a basic Bahamian dream in terms of housing, education for their children and other social goods.

We are a shadow of what we could have been or might become. But few have the hope or expectation that things will improve. Many expect things to get worse. So the flight of talent and of enterprising Bahamians is likely to worsen.

And the Bahamas elite is even more disconnected from the reality of an ever-growing number of poorer Bahamians.

Bahamians know that it will take more than political leaders to move the country in a better direction. Still, such leadership is essential.

Few have any confidence that Prime Minister Perry Christie or Opposition Leader Dr. Hubert Minnis have the desire or the vision desperately needed to offer hope and direction to a country that has lost its way.

o frontporchguardian@gmail.com, www.bahamapundit.com.

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