What is the cause of the callous behaviour plaguing Bermuda?

My friend Kent said to me that it seems young men are being murdered without an ounce of conscience.

He likened what's happening in Bermuda, to the game of marbles that we play around this time of  year – like the marbles are shot out of the ring, these young men's lives are snatched away.

What has caused such cold and callous behaviour?

There is an African proverb that says, “The ruin of a nation begins in the homes of its people.”

The home is the microcosm that fuels society. The values and principles that are taught in the home spill into broader society.

We may well ask what is happening in the homes of Bermuda.

By the results we are getting in the streets — something sinister. By far a number of things have caused the unsettling results we have today.

Many attribute the problem to children having children. To an extent I agree, but children have been reared by young mothers and fathers for many centuries.

The beloved Mary Mother of Jesus was very young when she gave birth. I know of many families in Bermuda who married young and raised responsible, law abiding citizens.

The point I think we are missing is that not so much the parents are young, but the parents are immature and badly behaved.

It was reported by one reader: “ I witnessed a teenage girl pushing a stroller with two children under the age of three.

She was trying to remove something from the storage space underneath the stroller and was yelling and I mean yelling at the top of her voice at them to “get the f*** up”.

 I could see the fear in their little eyes as they struggled to pull themselves up by the sides of the stroller.

If this is how these children are treated what chance do they stand to grow up normal?

This is what happens when children have children. They are not equipped emotionally themselves to deal with the challenges that parenthood presents.

This is how these children are treated on a daily basis. I have seen it many times. They grow up with anger and hatred for people. Children need to stop having children. I would qualify this to say, “Immature and rude children need to stop having children.”

 On the other hand, I have witnessed many young families, whose first responsible act was to get married before having children, to go on to raise well-mannered, wholesome, responsible members of society.

Then of course there is always the Government to blame. And yes, whilst the problem stems from the home, in my opinion the Government is the macrocosm of the home.

The Government to a very large extent sets the trend of how their people live. With the cost of living so high in Bermuda, who is taking care of the children in terms of instilling and cultivating good behaviour, morals and values?

Parents are forced to work two and three jobs to make ends meet and I’m talking basic commodities, such as food, shelter and clothing.

Even Baloo, the bear in the film Jungle Book, sang of how having the bare necessities allows one to forget about their troubles and their strife.

However, in Bermuda just trying to maintain the bare necessities causes our trouble and strife.

Whilst there are spendthrift Bermudians, the majority of us are of the working poor and are very frugal.

Perhaps what has happened in Bermuda can be summed up to a point in the words of Mahatma Ghandi: “The things that will destroy us are: politics without principle; pleasure without conscience; wealth without work; knowledge without character; business without morality; science without humanity; and worship without sacrifice."

Can we change our course? Together, with earnest and honest intention and lots of prayer, we can; we must for our very survival — our present way will take us down long before any earthquake will. As salaamu alaykum.