Letter: Greed has supplanted the intrinsic values we once shared

FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 4: Dear sir,

In response to the recent comments by Sir John Swan regarding our current economic status, I think his proposals are symptomatic of the malaise that we currently find ourselves in.

Our Government (past and present), along with key business leaders, seem to have bought into this notion that more is better, to the detriment of the country.

This point of view is the underlying cause of why we see and hear so much discontent, stress, and general anger from the populace. The social problems that we have today are directly related to the fact that Bermudians have lost touch with one another, don’t respect each other, and don’t look out for each other. In short we have lost the values that we once had!

By removing term limits, increasing development on open spaces, discarding the 60/40 rule, opening casinos, selling more land to foreigners, all lead to more stress and disharmony for locals, while ensuring profits for a minority. We’ve given up or lost enough already.

All of the developers will have the means to move somewhere else once the island is too crowded, too noisy, too polluted, and too violent, but this is the only home that I have.

At one point Bermudians were self reliant, we knew everyone in the neighbourhood, harvested, fished or raised our own food, shared resources, built houses together, and spent quality time with each other.

There was no need for cable TV, e-mail, BlackBerrys, ipods, child daycare, senior citizens homes, or neighbourhood watches.

With the change to international business, we got greedy and then resentful when we saw what others had. The current model equates success with making money, even if that means less time to spend with loved ones, more traffic, more bills, more hours at work, in general, more stress.

Where are the proposals from business leaders to allow employees to work from home, so parents can be able to take or pickup children to and from school? What about staggered or flexible working times to reduce traffic at key times of the day? Incentives such as for those of us that don’t use sick days, to have extra vacation time?

How many businesses offer paternity leave for fathers? There are so many other things that could be done to generate harmony in the workplace, and hence community.

In closing, it’s great to say that Bermuda was or is the best offshore captive, but without addressing the social ills, we’re just heading for a major disaster!

David Williams

Sandys