Posted by Kimberly on May 25, 2001 at 09:17:09:
Popular former commissioner for North Eleuthera, Canard Bethell speaks:
25 May, 2001 -- From the mouth of Canard Bethell on Wednesday, the country heard on Thursday through The Freeport News that:
A general apathy among young persons between the ages 20 to 30 years has contributed significantly to the low registration of individuals on the Currrent Register. For the first six months only 25 per cent of the total number of possible voters have registered. [Mr. Bethell is, we understand, Parliamentary Commissioner in the Parliamentary Registration Department.] And from where he sits in carrying out his duties he knows whereof he speaks.
Further information given by Mr. Bethell was: When the voter registration drive commenced on November 6 last year, we anticipated in a six to eight-month period to have approximately 75 per cent of 25,000 persons registered. There were some 22,800 persons registered for the same period prior to the 1997 elections, with some 5,000 persons not registered to vote who were eligible to be registered but neglected to do so. The overall disinclination of the young voters to register has been attributed by Mr. Bethell to a loss of national and civic pride. What we are evidencing seems to point in the direction of a deliberate failure to get involved, to be engaged and connected to the necessity to display national and civic pride. We anticipated a growth of voter registration but the overall apathy has been alarming. With all of the red tape having been eliminated to ensure that the process of registering is made customer friendly, the need for unregistered voters to ensure that they register for inclusion on the Current Register, is a critically important responsibility of each citizen of the Commonwealth of The Bahamas, added Mr. Bethell.
Perhaps those who cannot fathom the current disinclination of the youth to register to vote could be assisted if they were to read just the first paragraph of Charles Dickens A TALE OF TWO CITIES. That first paragraph reads: "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everthing before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only."
The evidence indicates that our country is afflicted by a bad case of uncertainty. Financial
transactions, especially those involving lawyer and client are totally frustrated by the new financial
laws and when the banks cannot function as banks should be able to do they will have to consider
down-sizing and right-sizing or re-engineering or whatever is the current description of that exercise.
That's at one level of activity, a very high level. At the level of our youth they apparently are in the midst of an identity crisis and too many of them rock to foreign rhythms. They, the country should understand, are not checking for voter registration. They are checking for such alien connections as expressed by the current grips and passwords of Jah Rastafari. Of a truth our current state is not merely apathy. We are in a mess!