I am stealing your money. I am robbing you. I am ripping
you off and there is not a thing you can do about it. In fact, policy permits
me to do it.
Is this or is this not a good opening paragraph to launch
this little essay urging me to write it for about a year now? Laziness in the
face of this kind of writing or something or other has kept me from embarking
upon getting this down upon paper until now.
Here I am in Jinja, Uganda, in a house I am renting on
the campus of Nile Vocational Institute. Yes, I am minutes away, on foot or in
“taxi” or on motorbike, from that very same River Nile we read about in the Old
Testament.
Well, electricity is off. It is often off, just like on
New Providence, where I normally reside. I have been here in Uganda though for
3 months. Before travelling to Uganda, I was in Kenya for 6 months. I have been
away from Nassau, Bahamas for these 9 months.
What I am here in the dark – with searchlight in hand –
writing about I had this very strong urge to write about just before leaving
The Bahamas for Africa.
When heaven summons- what you are by heaven summoned to
do is or becomes a moral responsibility. It is the thing you have to do. It is
the way you have to go like Moses did or like Jonah tried not to do and ended
up, as we know, in the dark belly of a whale.
I am happy that being locked as it were in darkness and for
whatever else have me writing this or conveying what I am writing here after
all.
From columns by Felix Bethel, written recently, I have
learned that violent crimes in our capital have not abated. I read one of Felix
Bethel’s columns recently and after reading it, I asked, “Why?” It is what The
Bahamas has been asking and still is asking. I recalled then this article that
I was long overdue to write.
We focus upon mostly young males, snatching chains and
other types of petty and not so petty theft. We think of crimes committed with
guns or other weapons, by persons after or over some possession or other and
people are injured or lives are taken: all quite mess indeed, throwing the
society and everyone in it into chaos – causing us all to worry and to fear and
to wonder when might these crimes and these criminals touch our own lives? When
might we as well- we ourselves be in their clutches? We are all already and are
always, in criminal- or, should I say, similarly criminal clutches.
What I was caused to ask after reading one of Felix’s
columns recently is – is there no way out – is there no end to violent,
criminal activity, on New Providence especially, in our Bahamas? Can the
persons perpetrating these crimes not be spoken to directly? Is there no way of
addressing them directly – writers like Felix and me and others – journalists –
poets – novelists like Keith Russell and others? Can these persons not be
reached? I suppose, readily, it would be said that such persons certainly would
first have to be educated before they could be expected to read.
There is a level of crime though that is being committed
by an element in our society that is educated indeed.
Oh, the sun is rising. The light of day is beginning to
dawn. Birds are awake and are calling musically and persistently. Still not
light enough though for me to put off and to put away my searchlight. With the
coming of daylight, I feel the urge to rest my pen down and go into the kitchen
and, with maize flour, cook porridge but, instead, I must finish.
What does concern me and what has concerned me for a long
time are the crimes that government, banks and other such institutions commit.
I am concerned about the crimes that such institutions commit with no one at
all to lay hands on – with no one at all whom the police can arrest.
There are all of these persons employed and what they are
carrying out is POLICY. When I challenge something that the bank does –
something that if it were done to you by someone on the street, you’d run for a
rock or a conch shell or you’d call the police – they’d merely say that the
computer had done this or that or had taken this or that.
“Is there not someone who has programmed it?” I’d ask,
angrily. Trying to get at, you see, the question that is at the heart of it
all: who is morally responsible? When it is policy though to do it like this or
to do it like that, what is to be done about it? What is to be blamed? Who is
to be held responsible?
Unlike the crimes that are committed on the streets where
– apprehended or not – who is to be arrested can be singled out – who is
culpable is clear. The police is made aware or can be made aware as to who to
go after.
Are these crimes though on the part of institutions with
their policies and contracts with fine print, and on the part of government,
the inspiration for criminals and crimes that happen on our streets – which are
– unlike these institutionalized crimes – no longer neat? They are messy. They are
bloody instead. They result in mayhem, police with sirens blaring, chasing criminals
through our streets. The question is though, is it not the very same
immorality?
You see, there are two very specific matters responsible
for my wanting- for my needing to write what I am at long last getting around
to writing here. It feels very much the same you see as someone demanding with
a gun drawn that you hand over something that is yours and not theirs but
because they are armed you are without choice.
The first of these involves what is now BTC – that is if
it has not changed hands again since I left home 9 months ago. I mean I had
really suffered having to live without telephone and Internet service for about
an entire year. That was certainly for me like some severe handicap. I popped
into one of their outlets one day wanting to know what I’d have had to pay to
have telephone and Internet service back again.
What I discovered was that what I was owing was the very
same amount that I’d have been paying if I was for this same year receiving
these services. I got very angry indeed. That I thought had to be criminal. No way,
I thought, could that be a moral decision or requirement. Treated like that on
the street, you see, you run for a bottle or a rock or you go get your gun. No
way though to single out who to hit or shoot or maim.
I recall seeing someone in a video someone posted on
Facebook – attack an ATM with a big rock. The stone he cast though bounced back
and hit him hard in the face.
What a sacrifice and how like another severe handicap it
was, living without driving for about the last 10 years. What seemed like a
freak accident resulted in my most recent car being written off. I felt
fortunate though to have gotten off with but the slightest personal or physical
injury. I chose to see it as a sign from above to abandon having a car and
driving. For 10 years therefore I caught buses everywhere or walked –
oftentimes extremely long distances. Because I was never behind the wheel of a
car, I saw no need to- or I did not think to have a current driver’s license. I
was certainly expending a lot of money otherwise – on buses especially – to get
about. My driver’s license had always been a convenient form of ID but I had
taken to going about always and everywhere with my passport.
Just before leaving home, 9 months ago though, I thought
to have my driver’s license current to use as ID as well so I went in to
inquire. I discover then that I was required to pay for the 10 years that had
passed since I had last had it renewed. I was told how much and it turned out
that it was not a frighteningly large sum, fortunately. But, no, I was not
going to pay this. It was still not my intention to drive there at home or
anywhere else in the world. After all the walking over 10 years that I had done
– after what must have, over the course of 10 years, amounted to a very large sum
that I had paid to catch our not at all inexpensive jitneys about New
Providence, I was required to pay for a privilege, over 10 years, that I had
not at all used? That seemed immoral and redundant.
The man I spoke with claimed to be in charge of that
department and it was policy, he said. These though are the very same kinds of
unfairness that, on the street, are reacted to violently. Here though are these
policies about which you can do nothing. Who do you strike at or strike back
at? Who do you tell the police has wronged you?
If we are going to have a moral society – if we are going
to have a crime free society – if we are going to have a society free of
violence, we must insure that upon every layer and level there is fairness –
justice.
Where unfairness is a matter of policy, we might not be
able to do anything about it. It does not mean that in response we do not get
angry. We get angry though with who or with what we cannot attack. This though,
I assure you, is all part of the anger that is being expressed on our streets.
It is upon our streets where all these frustrations, accumulated, are being
vented.
The man who is angry with his boss and dares not strike
him or strike back, I understand, goes home and kicks the cat and kicks the dog
– beats his wife and beats his children without them being at all clear about
what it is for which they are being punished. We are lashing out though at who
we can, when and because who we need to or wish to lash out at is unavailable
or because it is entirely inconvenient.
by Obediah Michael Smith
Bahamian Poet
7:43 a.m., Tuesday, April 28, 2015
Jinja, Uganda.