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Dear Sir,

What we have right now with Warwick Long Bay is a conflict of values. Belcario Thomas's company Unite Productions' objective, he says, is to bring diverse people together. If this is a genuine desire it should include that they intend to serve the best interest of all. Right now Unite has invited conflict and division in the community over their plan to build a beach bar and restaurant on Warwick Long Bay. I ask readers to please be careful how you read what I just wrote. I did not write that Unite has caused conflict and division, rather, they have triggered an situation that is already present.

I think we can all agree that there is a pretty intransigent state of division which has operated in Bermuda for far too long. How do we get out of the two boxes - black/white, PLP/UBP?

Let us start fresh with our best view of each other even if in the past one group is responsible for having done irreparable damage to the other. Every few days our cells completely change so essentially a new person is created. Allow ourselves to be the change, allow others to change.

This issue of commercial development on a national park beach is but another opportunity to address the underlying issues in our community that has us in a perpetual state of division.

Conflict is not a bad thing in itself. It is simply a  place where there is more than one point of view. How do we have our needs met without making each other the enemy? I believe that every conflict is a cry for a (sometimes hidden) need to be met. With only two people in a relationship it can be difficult enough; when it is a whole community it can be more so ...but only if we say so.

I think if we all asked ourselves what we truly need we would probable come up with a similar list. We don't have to have winners and losers. We don't have to do battle all the time to have our needs met. And we don't always have to compromise.

We can begin by seeing each other as humans, each with unique histories and overlapping ways of being which defies assumptions.

It is my humble view that we already have the perfect situation at Warwick Long Bay. We (residents and visitors) have a peaceful, beautiful beach that anyone can go to at any time. We can bring food, music on our ipods if we need music, beverages, shelter from the sun, and we can find solitude and healing there.  It is already a fact that no one is excluded regardless of the race, class, income, values, history, contrary to what David Chapman would have us believe.

No one's needs are being infringed upon in the present beach status.  But now Unite has been given permission to impose its set of values on others. None of us want war over this beach. We want and need peace even when we are not conscious that it is peace that we are after.

Bermuda has the second highest density of population in the world. Many people live in congested, often stressful circumstances. Does it serve them to take the peaceful and beautiful public land that is for everyone to enjoy to facilitate one person's or one company's empowerment?  

Yes, there is that problem of economic inequity.

Yes, there is that problem that one sector of society owned most of the land and businesses before the others were allowed the right to own anything. We do need to find ways to empower the disenfranchised or powerless, and yes, we do need to find a way that everyone can have access to amenities.

But do we give unspoiled public land, to every entrepreneur that comes along for personal gain? There has to be other options.

I have been accused of not wanting change. On the contrary, I want massive and dramatic change...in the way we think about our environment and each other.

Wherever there is a conflict there is a potential win/win solution but it requires time, deeper thinking, patience and mutual respect.

More so if we are vying for the same limited

space.

Frances Eddy,

Warwick

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