By the same token and in the same world, there are numerous examples of countries that wallow in their problems.
Interestingly, we are told that Canada has laws, policies, programs and procedures that are designed to be open, fair and transparent – even in this security and fear driven era.
This explains how Canada is on the move, its society is dynamic and its economy is moving along.
The key to it all are people from around the world who want to make Canada their home.
The Bahamas – granted its tiny population – might well wish to take a page from Canada’s immigration play book.
As we understand, their laws are clear and to the point – they welcome nation-builders.
Contrariwise, [we argue] the Bahamas is one of those countries that would have its people wallow in the confusion that routinely attends ill-conceived policies.
One such confusing set of laws, policies and procedures relate to who becomes – how and when – naturalized as a citizen of the Commonwealth of the Bahamas.
Things are in a stew and in quite a pickle; with untold numbers of applications for this or that consideration – all under review and awaiting ultimate disposition.
Some people have waited decades for this or that answer – negative or positive.
Sadly, ours is that kind of country where ‘kisses’ do go by favor.
Sadder still happens to be the fact that ours is that kind of society where double-talk, sweet talk and lies often come from the same mouths of some of the same people who are charged with carrying out certain policies.
No where is this seen as clearly as in all those matters pertaining to settlement, status and the acquisition of citizenship in an independent Bahamas.
What is particularly troublesome to us happens to be the ease with which some people can and do get ‘straight’ while some others are obliged to wait for a year and a Sunday.
Indeed, we know of instances where people would have clearly, unequivocally and quite literally speaking, made the Bahamas their home, applied for status and have been turned down for citizenship in the only real home they know.
In this regard, imagine this scenario: a man visits the Bahamas, meets a woman they fall in love; they produce children [all of them born in the Bahamas]; the man becomes an accountant. The story does not stop there: the man and woman build a family that is rooted in this place.
The man and his family exemplify what it means to be nation-builders. Incidentally, the man is currently in his early sixties; his wife trails him by a respectable five years or so.
For current purposes, this man has applied to be naturalized as a Bahamian.
Sadly, his application has been turned down.
He does not know why, nor do his Bahamian wife and his Bahamian children.
Interestingly, the same man knows another person who has been so naturalized.
Today, he still wonders how this could happen.
Evidently, something has got to be wrong with this kind of decision-making. As to what that ‘something’ is all about is – as the old saying goes ‘a horse of a different color’.
As we have previously advised, these times are such that require the emergence of leadership imbued with the capacity to ‘make things happen’.
There are cases where people who know no other country as home have been made to feel as if – for whatever reason – they do not belong.
This leads – as should be expected – to a sense of alienation.
Right-thinking Bahamians are today convinced that we must – as a people united in service and love- break with business as usual.
Evidently, at the core of such a demand are questions that pertain to identity and what – in truth – does it mean for someone to be considered Bahamian.
Whatever is done should jibe with commonsense, decency and the rule of law.
This is clearly the case in the matter now pertaining to thousands of so-called young Haitian-Bahamians – people who know no country other than the land of their birth.
