|
Remarks
by
Hon. Fred Mitchell MP
Minister of Foreign Affairs & The Public Service
150th ANNIVERSARY
SERVICE
ST. MARK’S BAPTIST CHURCH
FOX HILL
Sunday 3rd
September 2006
I am pleased as usual to be with
you here this morning to celebrate this important anniversary.
I have said it many times but I
never tire of repeating it. When I came to Fox Hill in 1997, I took my
cue from you, Rev. Dr. Carrington Pinder, in so many things. The
quality of your leadership and that of your wife in the years that I
have known you never ceases to impress the people of the Fox Hill
community. On behalf of them all I wish to thank you and your wife for
all the service you and this church have contributed to the wider Fox
Hill community.
The month of August has been a
good month for Fox Hill and for The Bahamas. There have been no
hurricanes, and the rains have kept the earth fresh and green. On
Monday 7th August, the Fox Hill Community celebrated with the
rest of The Bahamas the 172nd anniversary of the emancipation
of the slaves in what we believe was the largest and most successful
festival in the history of this village. We were blessed on that
occasion by the visit of a former representative who is now Governor
General.
Tomorrow the schools in Fox Hill
will open. In so far as I can tell, the openings should be smooth and
incident free. We have spent the last week trying to ensure that the
grounds are clean and that the classrooms are ready for the children,
who are the real future of this village and of The Bahamas.
I want to use this opportunity
today in the face of all this positive news, but against the background
of an unholy din of inaccurate and ill advised public information over
the past month to reaffirm that our country has never been stronger,
never more sovereign and never more sure footed. Our country is in good
and safe hands.
I started where I started today
simply to say that over the past month I am firmer in the view that
education is the fundamental key to our future. I want to thank your
wife for her Chairing the school board at the Sandilands Primary
School. This year, I am told we are going to start a supervised
homework programme to make sure that children do their homework.
We are still plugging away at
the community centre and I am hoping that the windows will arrive next
month. This centre is being built for the children as well. My time
and resources as representative is spent looking out for the interests
of the children. The children of this village; the children of The
Bahamas.
While some seek to distract the
country by idle and negative talk, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs under
my direction spent much of its time and certainly much of my personal
time ensuring that our children were getting their visas for school
whether in the United States, Canada or Great Britain. Helping the
children, that is our true job.
In the 1980s, this county’s
moral fibre was seriously eroded by the drug trade and the criminality
connected with it. A whole generation of people lost their will to work
because of drugs and its ill effects. Many have still not recovered.
Today we know that almost fifty per cent of the homicides in our country
are due to domestic violence, and the rest due to crimes associated with
drugs and other illegal activities. We know also that child abuse is
reportedly up some 20 per cent.
In the face of all of these
social problems, the role of those who dispense public information
should be clear, not to promote criminals and their activities but to
accentuate the positive and to preach reform, not to stir up strife as
if life in The Bahamas and its public policy is some silly soap opera
when this is real life we are playing with.
One wonders whether some people
have taken leave of their senses. This is a country where a Minister of
the Government was murdered before by vicious criminals.
It seems all too easy in this
present dispensation for criminals to get on the front pages of
newspapers and thereby find fame in the simple act of committing a
crime. It seems to give off a message that crime pays because it brings
infamy and a picture on a front page.
Surely it is unacceptable and
wrong for anyone in this society to promote criminality, whether
inadvertently or not, knowing what we know about how bribery and
thievery, giving away stoves and refrigerators to buy elections. This
kind of thing has cost us our freedom in the past. Today, government
policy cannot be determined by someone who has the potential to bribe
public opinion and pay high priced advocates to make idle public
noises.
The children are the future, and
what we say to our children is that they must go to school. They must
learn their lessons, and if they choose the side of good, the side of
decency and honour; they will succeed. That’s me Pastor Pinder.
You are on the Lord’s side. You
are on the good side. Those who are on the side of good do not need to
resort to crime to get on the front pages of the press. Instead they
live their lives as quiet, contributing and honourable Bahamian
citizens.
My job as a government minister
is to protect those quiet, honourable Bahamian citizens who abide by the
law and contribute to the betterment of society. As a Minister, I made
an oath to freely give of my advice and counsel for the good management
of the public affairs of The Bahamas, and I ended it by saying, “So help
me God!” No one can impugn the execution of that oath by me or by this
government on any score.
I know that you too believe in
that creed as well. It is important for the Church’s voice to be heard
on these issues and not be silenced by those who would confuse us false
logic and immorality.
I am happy therefore once again
congratulate you on behalf of all of the people of Fox Hill and on
behalf of the Prime Minister and the Government. May God continue to
bless you and you work here in this part of the Commonwealth of The
Bahamas.
-- end --
|
