http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AesM7I4QPxM&feature=related

Bahamian School Students film their class mates fighting...are we a society that glorfies violence? Why are students acting like this and filmng it? Do they crave attention? Recenty the Nassau Guardian reproted a massive school clash involving close to 300 children in New Providence. Nassau's schools are clearly violent places. Violence at home violence in school violence on the street, violence in the news...more trouble in paradise.

THE LOVE REVOLUTION....

The Bahamian/American Singer Lenny Kravitz will soon release an album entitled 'love revolution' resident on on of our islands. i Was asked to write this peice on the need for such a 'love revolution' in our country and glimpses of it seen in small bahamian comunities. The Articl highlights a program Some friends and I ran on our Island home this summer...of Which i have included some photos.

In the Bahamas we need a ‘Love revolution’, a realisation of what we can achieve in accepting the challenges that we face as communities, To raise our children, to work together to protect our heritage, our environment and our rights. In my community Harbour island you have massive wealth significant poverty and everything in between all on a three mile long island. Generational demise, as values slip away and culture and heritage disappears is real and if the young people of these islands don’t take action to preserve what is left we will be a people with no identity.

Today The Bahamas has the highest, murder, rape, domestic violence rates per capita in the world. We have one of highest Aids infection rates outside of Africa, our national educational average is D and more than 70% of children are born out of wedlock. Between 40 and 60,000 Haitian migrants are believed to live here, most in squalid Slums without light or sanitation, new sloops are intercepted almost every week. All this a far cry from the rich mans play ground that graces the pages of tourist brochures and fashion magazines. Thousands of acres of Land have been ceded to foreign developers, gradually destroying the most pristine eco-systems in the Caribbean region. The Bahamian economy generates billions of dollars annually very little of which remains in the country or trickles down to our people. The Situation in Bahamas today is a result of this rapid change occurring in our islands. The stress of transition from a subsistence fishing and farming society to a materialistic consumer society has manifested itself in the tide of violence and social decay sweeping through the urban centres of Nassau and Freeport and spreading into the out islands( two brutal murders occurred in North Eleuthera this year along with two stabbing incidents all involving young men) Exposed to the full force of the American consumer machine through cable T.V, and the lavish behaviour of our visitors, our culture, and value systems which took centuries to develop have little chance to stand up.

Reclaiming community is essential to the future of Eleuthera and the Bahamas. Government economic policy will lead to the inundation of small communities with thousands of wealthy tourists and yet more migrants from our impoverished neighbour Haiti as there is a labour and skill shortage here in the Bahamas. That is why in regard to the resort projects intended to revive the economy of Eleuthera we must not compromise these essential things, our heritage as it feeds our souls and our eco system as it has fed our bodies for generations. We all know that trees with deep roots stand tall. That’s why we can’t forget where we come from

S.P.A.C.E. to Create, is a summer program I started in my community this year,( S.P.A.C.E. Stands for Sports and Performing Arts for Community Empowerment.) It is very simple, and similar things have been done in communities across the Bahamas. But It is in these simple programs that the healing of this nation takes place. I got an old school mate who is a student/singer/dancer and an old friend who can strum a good tune on the guitar along with several young adults from Harbour Island with an interest in the kids and our future, and started a three week program of classes. We taught reading and math in the morning, and dance, music and drama in the afternoon, mixed in were sessions on local oral history, art and craft, garbage collection tree planting, Soccer and Capoiera given by various local volunteers. At the end of the program a short variety show was preformed, in the back yard of the commissioner’s residence, including old local calypso songs, short skits based on Aesop’s fables but translated into Local Dialect and a song and dance from a popular Musical. After the show we had a party

The effect is also simple, children some starved of attention who seldom get to have centre stage in the community and many who had never preformed before, found in themselves the courage to sing, dance and act in front of about 120 people …no easy feat. In Addition the various people who either visited the camp or watched the show were touched because it was a simple reminder, that no matter who goes through Harbour Island or how much money we do or don’t have, we are a community and together we have a past, a present and a future. As the government approves another 40 condo units and a 50 slip marina on Harbour Island, further burdening the islands crumbling infrastructure and t, such reminders will become increasingly important, particularly given the influx of strangers that results from such large construction projects. By keeping in touch with each other we can find solutions to the pressing challenges we face. It may be that next year the S.P.A.C.E. to Create Camp will do mangrove restoration or a more extensive oral history project; but through interacting and involving our young people I feel we are one step closer to reclaiming community.

While the many settlements that dot the archipelago of The Bahama Islands face different challenges than Harbour island, changes and challenges lie in the future reasserting our togetherness and taking the time to pass down to our children what is left of our culture and preserving our environment, will be crucial to raising a generation of Bahamians capable of holding on to what matters most regardless of what lies ahead. Eleuthera and The Bahamas are at a cross roads, we must stop and think what type of nation we wish to be in 10 to 20 years. What is most important- the people and the land or quick cash no matter the cost? Be it from drug running or speculative development. Education and community should be top priority. Those wishing to invest in this country must have the interest of these small communities in their hearts not in the empty words of their fancy brochures. This takes time, planning and an effort on the part of the natives and the developers to examine their priorities, pocketing cash or building a sustainable economies and communities here in the Bahamas where Love will truly rule. Embrace the challenge Bahamas, It is Possible .

BACK ON BLOGGER

After Months of slumber this blog is back...i have lots and lots to update readers on so stay tuned.

Bahamian activist grup to take protest to the U.N(Nassau guardian article)

The Save Guana Cay Reef Association (SGCRA) took its two-year old battle with the Baker's Bay, a multi-million dollar resort to the United Nations Commission on Sustainable Development in an ongoing effort to protect the eco-system surrounding the development and eventually the entire Bahamas. According to SGCRA, the project that the group is protesting, which will include an exclusive resort and gated community, along with an 18-hole, 585-acre championship golf course, will cause significant damage to the coral reef and the mangroves on the tiny island in the Abacos. The group's attorney Fred Smith presented the legal and cultural side of the story at the UN session on Monday. And in a press statement he said: "It is imperative that Prime Minister Hubert Ingraham's new Free National Movement (FNM) government not simply talk about environmental legislation. It must fulfill its pre election promise to enact environmental protection legislation for the land, air and marine environments, and create an environmental protection agency with teeth; with environmental marshals and an environmental court." During his communication at the UN presentation he claimed that the former government's quest for the "Holy Grail" of development has resulted in wholesome abandonment of the rule of law, due process, abuses of human rights and terrible destruction of the marine and land environments. "It has destroyed much local culture, society and heritage." Explaining that anchor projects were introduced with an aim to create economic relief in many of the undeveloped Family Islands, Smith told UN member nations, UN agencies, major international funding agencies, the private sector and the press, that while they want to bring development to The Bahamas, they want environmentally savvy developers. "Most of the time locals in the Family Islands are not trying to stop development," the statement continued. "They recognize the need for jobs and economic opportunities. Frequently, however, these anchors have been dropped most inappropriately in areas that do not need them or cannot provide the necessary labor, skills or resources. "Locals simply want a legitimate role in participating and visioning the future of their communities, as stake holders. They want a place on the bargaining table. They want to help to mitigate the extent of damage to the environment. "The locals feel that the dictatorial centralist powers exercised by Cabinet destroy their culture, society and heritage, and it takes away their crown land. More to the point, it makes most of the locals feel like foreigners and second class economic citizens in their own communities." Continuing to blast the previous administration, the group claimed that a "development-at-all-costs policy" was promoted and paid little or no regard to environmental protection along the way. "This allowed for a proposed shoreline golf course to make it through with omnibus approvals. The threat of severe situation and the ruin of one of the healthiest coral reefs in the region is very real. The people of the Bahamas have said that they were not happy with the status quo and given a mandate to a new government, the Save Guana Cay Reef Association will be watching this new administration very closely," the group warned in the statement. According to the release, the SGCRA will continue to battle the proposed Baker's Bay Club on the grounds that the development's footprint is much too large and destructive for this small island whose economy relies on small-scale tourism and fishing.

due to much bussiness i have been neglecting this blog but will soon produce a massive update, given political changes in the Bahamas one is due.

The PLP and FNM want Bahamians to vote in their favour in May but neither of them are even talking about THIS!

End of the century? No, think 30 years, yes devastation within our life time, the Bahamas and other vulnerable nations should be going nuts after a series of reports on the rapid rate of climate change, instead we are talking about Anna nicole smith, rest her soul, but this is one of many images showing how much is at stake, considering the island of Grand bahama was basically submerged during the recent huricanes, imagine within the next thiry year as the ice caps an ice sheets melt! good bye sweet country.

You might say well, what can we as the Bahamas do, well Caricom and south pacific states and other lowlying countries collectivly have a lot of institutional voice in the UN system and could very easily organise and lobby for stronger regulations on fossil fuel use and carbon offe=setting, and our consumption of fuel in The Bahamas is even unsustainable, many of us are fat and lazy and drive distances that could be so easily wlaked, the creation of a functioning public transport system in new providence would be a huge start as well. Engry effiecient light bulbs, could save bahamian consumers huge amouints of money and save BEC from the neccesity to 'load dump'.

Rastafarian movment in the Bahamas speaks out.

Finally a group that represents the interests of YOUNG,BLACK, MALES, speaks! The Rasta movment could play ahuge role in the future of the caribbean, coordination and communication between rasta groups in diiferent islands could spark a true organic social change, with intergrity and deep roots in our history and culture!
(Photoraph from bahamas uncensored .com)

Don't it always seem to go...that you dont know what youve got till its gone...they've paved paradise and put up a parking lot! - Joni mitchell

Destruction on an Epic scale( for our tiny islands) Ginn sur mer development

The PLP government of the bahamas has negotiated with ginn sur mer for the construction of a resort that is honesty the biggest i have ever seen, on the scale of atlantis and Baha mar. This instead of presuing its promise of sustainable tourism and environmentally sensitive development. these photos are from the company's website, you can even send them as e-cards, the reduction of caribbean pine forests to a lunar landscape with the displacement of thousands of species that make their habitat there! Grand Bahama Island is the second city of the Bahamas, recently the effects of two hurricanes and closure of a major resort property have brought economic hard ship on an area of the Bahamas, that has been acustommed to standards of livig close to those of the U.S. recognising the need for jobs in this area i cannot say that this Ginn proposal will solve the problems, we know tourism is a fickle industry the last hotel to clos in Grand bahama, gave no sevrence payments to any of the people laid off, the government had to foot the bill. do we want to repeat this? Grand bahamas is one one the few islands with scope for alternatives to tourism. High end agriculture and other exports is ideal given the proximity to florida and the huge shipping facility. I guess you dont get bribes as readily from local small and medium sclae entreprenneurs as you do from massive tourism conglomerates. Bahamian forest has been clear cut to make way for this touristic development. i am going to do further research into this to discover the generous concessions given to the developers by the government. The resort looks like fantasy. I bet the company may even run out of money and leave us with a massive environmental disaster.What will happen to these places in 50 years is what I wonder. THink Bahmas Think!

The Pillage of Rum Cay, the 'sleeping jewl of the caribbean'