Fighting drugs, saving lives
Date Posted: Friday, January 11, 2008Author: Pastor Maria Seaman
Faith
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Oh, what a battle Bermuda is involved in. For the battle is not against an enemy without, but an enemy within. While we hear the desperate cries of help, we see the despicable crimes of our citizens. What is our Island nation to do?
Let me share. About five weeks ago, I vaguely recall leaving my parent’s home – The Russell Homestead. As I was reversing the car down the hill, I noticed a young man receiving something from another young man. (I have never seen either of these guys before). I noticed that both young men looked so old, so worn out and so unsettled.
Did I just see drug activity? Did I just see poison leave the hands of one black male and be given into the hands of another black male? I watched as they continued down the hill, crossed the street and then entered into the football club.
Are we now to believe that drug activity freely permeates some of the football clubs of our Island? Are we to believe that drug dealers and drug receivers have no fear in carrying out their illegal and self-destructive habits in the midst of community clubs?
Bermuda, if we are to begin to fight this war against drugs, and killings, we have to adopt the NIMBY syndrome. That is, we must together decide that we will not permit things to go on right under our noses.
Admittedly, we will not always be successful when we call on authorities to deal with situations that are occurring in our neighborhoods. I can recall there being complaints made to authorities about a relative of ours. However, we could get no where because he had the right to be on the property. Thus, I do know that there are circumstances where we feel powerless to stop drug activity from occurring in our back yard.
However, when it comes to public property, we must begin to take a stand against allowing activities to occur, which we know are illegal. Indeed, we must begin to hold certain facilities accountable for knowingly allowing illegal activities to occur.
Simply put, it appears that by our neglect, we are actually permitting bad things to brew in Bermuda. How can we encourage little boys to go to training and not realize that they are going to be trained in more than kicking a football or hitting a cricket ball?
Let us begin to be honest and begin to clean up those things which we can. We can stop the young men from doing those things that continue their downward fall and begin the fall of the younger boys. When we do what we can, we will find that we cannot do enough in the effort to save lives in Bermuda.