Barbados is definitely experiencing questionable changes in our once treasured style of living.
We seem to have lost the balance and direction that we were known for at every level of our society, whether church, politics, business, education, family or parenting/PAIRenting.
Daily we are encountering practices that do not fit the culture we once boasted of, the characteristics that placed us in demand by countries looking for people – from labour to executive from constabulary to competent judicial management, from maids to nurses – to complement their in-need-of-balance workforces.
Today we are seeing the acceptance and advocacy for lifestyles that were once totally unaccepted by a society that stood for certain values and because of this, by extension, we are seeing a decline, causing what is right to be effectively challenged by what is wrong.
The problem is that our once touted level of education is being misused, abused and even confused by those whose logic is mainly lifted from brain-armed invasionary book cultures, originating from establishments in and out of our country.
Yes, we have made significant strides in our positive social balance, but we have also suffered some frightening developments in our negative societal evolution.
Our men have made a conscious decision to use the workforce only for immediate financial needs. They have chosen to redirect their sexual needs as it becomes necessary, creating confusion among the developing youth who once were directed along a path in the right direction.
Our women are slowly replacing our men as the leaders in business and the professions. Nothing is wrong with taking advantage and entering doors left open, but the spirit of competition must never be abandoned at the altar of convenience. Recent reports are suggesting that ease of access can lead us to losing the desire to excel.
More women are becoming involved in the frightening drug culture habit, which has wrapped itself around youth and adults at every level.
Bread (money) and head (drugs) have joined hands to create an environment that is conducive to exploiters using the need to create a lucrative supply as a means of developing a money laundry, but at the expense of values, controlled motivation and well organised ambitions.
Yes, we are experiencing a decline and at the expense of what our children and children’s inheritance will be, whether strangers in our own land or needing an entry visa to return home.
Then there is the matter of violence, which is slowly becoming an integral part of our overall existence, spreading again through all ages and genders; the availability of firearms and the increasing competence and fearlessness of these armed men and women, aided and abetted, not intentionally, by an almost snail-like judicial process that seeks to correct the judiciary’s difficulties by changing the system to accommodate the molasses-like uphill journey being experienced by everyone using this means of redress . . . .
Yes, Barbados is facing some serious challenges. Thank God they are not yet terminal, but we need now more than ever to return to old values, not with the intention of stagnating the pool of progress, but to once again establish or re-establish a clear understanding that right even spelt wrong is still right.
Maybe our intellectuals and politicians will stop speaking to themselves and once again embrace our listening masses who today are judging them in a way that is also foreign to our culture and is a cause for concern.
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