Confidence is contagious.
So is lack of confidence.
- Vince Lombardi
Many Bahamians with whom we regularly speak express a disappointing degree of uncertainty and angst about where our nation is headed. There is an uncomfortable and unsettling sense that we are drifting along, day-by-day, without any deliberate determination or decisive direction as to where we are headed. There is a pervasive apprehension that established institutions no longer work in the way that they initially were intended.
Therefore, this week, we would like to Consider this... Why are we experiencing a crisis of confidence in our institutions, and what does this portend for our national development?
Our primary institutions
From the moment of individual awareness, there are primary institutions with which we interact that shape our consciousness, our values and our lives.
Those institutions include our immediate and extended families, our neighbors, communities, churches and schools. We have established other institutions to bring order, individually and collectively, to our lives.
Those institutions include the organs of state, such as the executive, legislative and judicial branches of government; as well as the public service; the uniformed services, including the Royal Bahamas Police and Defence Forces; and our primary, secondary and tertiary educational institutions, just to name a few.
Pining for the "good old days"
Today, many persons pine for "the good old days", when children respected their elders, their parents, teachers and our leaders, spiritual and secular. We yearn for a time when citizens appreciated and openly accepted the importance of higher civilian authority, and when we more faithfully adhered to the accepted principle that we were a "Christian nation" that closely cleaved to spiritual values and cherished proper public decorum that we learned at home and in school.
In the "good old days", men of the cloth were revered for their professed devotion and fidelity to spiritual standards. The moral fabric of society was more tightly woven and more closely knitted. Individuals were embarrassed to be publicly chastised or shamefully rebuked for decorum that was deemed to be discourteous.
In the "good old days", if we were disciplined in school, we could count on the punishment that was meted out by our teachers to be delivered again by our disappointed parents, who were embarrassed by our deviant behavior. In the "good old days", the neighborhood was a living organism, where we were truly responsible for and accountable to the extended family of our neighbors.
Things are not working
As previously noted, many of those institutions are not functioning or working as was intended when they were initially established. So where did things go awry?
We believe that there has been an erosion of epic proportions in our culture, our lives and the institutions that were supposed to provide support systems for our well-being. However, the erosion of our national institutions did not occur overnight.
In nature, erosion is the process by which the surface of the earth is worn away over the years by the action of water, glaciers, winds and waves. It is normally a gradual process that is not always evident as it is taking place, but the devastating effects of erosion are more noticeable with the passage of time. So it is with the erosion of many of our national institutions.
It has taken decades for our primary national institutions to lose their impact and importance. The slow, but discernible decline of the nuclear family, the disappearance of neighborhoods and the disintegration of communities have significantly contributed to the breakdown in many of our primary institutions.
This phenomenon has permeated both the secular and the spiritual realms of our existence, where, in the case of the latter, attendance at church on Sunday mornings and afternoon Sunday School were obligatory features of our childhood experiences.
The result of our spiritual erosion, like that of its secular counterpart, is manifested by a national moral fabric that has become tattered and torn. This is revealed by the absence or deterioration of essential values of respect for others. Courteousness, politeness and compromise have been supplanted by disrespect, rudeness and confrontation for our neighbors, higher authority and for the things that are essential to enhance a safe, respectful and peaceful society.
We have also observed an erosion of the institutions that were established to safeguard us. We have witnessed the gradual erosion of the organs of state, which is demonstrated by some members of Parliament who conduct the nation's affairs with contempt. Consequently, many of our citizens view some elected and appointed officials with great disdain.
We have lost respect for the laws that have been established to protect us. We habitually and deliberately ignore street signs with impunity, demonstrating a total disregard and disrespect for other law-abiding citizens.
Respect for the police and our courts has eroded as well, in part because we have developed an attitude that the administration of justice is inequitably, unfairly and disproportionately applied to all citizens.
Many have lost confidence in our schools, once a sanctuary of scholarship, but now incubators for illiteracy and innumeracy. They are also a breeding ground for youthful deviants, who cannot be disciplined without parents accosting teachers and guidance counsellors whose hands are often tied for fear of caustic verbal abuses or physical reprisals by both parents and students.
A crisis of confidence
The crisis of confidence in our institutions has become paralyzing. Virtually every single primary institution appears to be failing. We seem to be enmeshed in a national funk that appears to be irreparably and intractably irreversible, suffocating our growth and severely impeding our progress.
Unless it is reversed, this crisis of confidence in our national institutions will continue to erode our national fabric. Many Bahamians who are paralyzed by this reality are now considering, in greater numbers, leaving their homeland. Increasingly, students are either deciding on their own, or are persuaded by their parents, that there are few reasons to return home after obtaining an education.
Restoring confidence
To restore confidence in our institutions, we must honestly assess and understand the root causes for their dysfunction. In too many instances and in so many places, we have not challenged the persons who are charged with the oversight of our institutions to deliver their best at all times.
In addition, in far too many instances, there is inadequate or no accountability for the services provided by those institutions. Consequently, our institutional leaders are not penalized when they fall short of the mark. There are few, if any, consequences for mediocre performance, gross negligence or incompetence in the execution of their duties.
As citizens who often feel hopeless or helplessly impotent or incapacitated in the face of institutional dysfunction, we opt to be acquiescent, never "rocking the boat", fearful of reprisals if we criticize those who are charged with managing our institutions.
However, the time has come to respectfully, but candidly, purposefully and directly, confront those in whom we have placed our trust. We must not kowtow or cower to them because we are reluctant or afraid to speak truth to power. Above all, we must unite in our efforts to call those who are responsible for this crippling crisis of confidence to account for their stewardship.
Conclusion
The time has come to candidly confront the crises of confidence with our major institutions that we encounter on a daily basis. If we do not, the level of frustration, disappointment and angst that we experience regarding our institutions will remain a national nightmare that continues to haunt us during our waking hours.
Unless and until we arrest this crisis of confidence that we are experiencing in increasing numbers and with greater regularity regarding our failing institutions, prospects for a brighter future and a better country will remain out of reach. Unless we act now with a newfound confidence in what could be, we will continue to suffocate the dream of a Bahamas that can potentially become the best country in the world.
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