A Guy’s View: Import or die
Barbados’ inability to sustain its population from within has become a subject for discussion in recent times. This topic has reached the minds of Barbadians largely due to the efforts of The Honourable Ronald Jones. Some persons have taken sides in this debate, but there has not been a lot of attention devoted to the reasons and consequences of this situation.
A few days ago I saw a WhatsApp video of a demonstration in Jamaica against homosexuality. Judging from the video, it seems that thousands of people were in attendance.
The speakers were preaching defiance against the obvious moves by forces outside of Jamaica to force that country into accepting same sex unions. There was much discussion about the contents of books that were presenting this way of life to school children. Interestingly, at least one speaker was from another Caribbean island and he expressed the view that the movement against this development needed to be a Caribbean-wide one and not just a Jamaican initiative.
About two years ago I was engaged in a conversation with a man who was much wiser than I was. Our conversation went to the issue of same sex unions because of a discussion that was taking place in circles of which he was a part. Lending assistance to a group brought me into the discussion.
This wise gentleman drew a clear distinction between law and morals. His position was that one may win the argument against same sex unions on moral grounds, but the same result would be unlikely if the determining factor were the law.
He was of the view that there was no legal basis on which one could dictate who one had the right to love. Societal values might suggest a certain way of life, but, in the absence of direction in the legal code, any sanction could only be persuasive.
Given external pressure and our moral slide, there is no likelihood of any legal development taking place in Barbados that would place a harness on the same sex lifestyle. Truth be told, that race has been run, for better or for worse.
Attention has the tendency to make subjects appear new, but Barbados has been going in this direction for some time. While there has been no serious contemplation of same sex marriages, the relationships have long existed. Like heterosexual relationships in Barbados, there has been a lack of faithful commitment, hence there has never been a need for normalisation. This feature of Barbadian love life explains why there has not been a drive for marriage rights.
Barbadians have been liberal enough to be aware of such liaisons and turn a blind eye to them. Such lack of attention says nothing about acceptance or complicity. It is simply the way we think. You do your thing, that is your business, as long as it does not affect me.
Now that our population decline is almost at crisis point, some attention has been focused on what will happen to our country in a few years, if present tendencies continue. If we pay close attention, we may discover that our country is in a death spiral from which it is too late for us to escape. If we do not import our population, Barbados will soon be at an end.
Without necessarily giving careful study to the causes for this decline, much blame has been dished out. The main culprits have been identified as the Barbados Family Planning Association and its success in persuading Barbadian women not to have children, as well as the new selfishness of Barbadians who have no intention of sharing their lives and resources with off-spring.
The most common argument one hears is that children are expensive. Of course, this is another way of saying that I want a certain ease of living and do not intend to compromise that by undertaking the responsibility of raising children. This argument also takes no cognisance of the reality of raising children, for most of us above a certain age know very well that many children were successfully raised in this country by parents with a lot less than what any of us now possess.
Women’s groups have advised their adherents that their male partners are unreliable and cannot be trusted. As a consequence, they should make their partners, even their husbands, wear a condom “every time”. Well, a condom every time means a child, no time. But we are happy with this outcome. Some men have had to step outside of their marriage to father children.
When young women are in prime child-bearing age, we tell them to put their careers first and postpone committed relationships and children. By the time careers are established, child bearing years are over. But we have no problem with that either.
And, for some, given the unreliability of relationships, it seems better to forget children and partners all together and make one’s way through life alone. It is easier and less stressful to provide for one.
There is no form of same-sex relations that has the ability to reproduce. Nature has a different plan. And when we add all the other reasons for not having children, we will end up with zero population growth. We may choose not to have children but we cannot choose not to die. This give us an interesting equation: no children + plus deaths = disappearance.
In 2017, many of the options that dampen the begetting of children are preferred options. Reading the experts, Barbados’ birth rate may already be beyond to point of no return. So what are we willing to do about it?
Minister Jones’ call, instead of forcing us to think, has made many angry with him. He is preaching a message that we do not want to hear. He will not receive the response he desires.
Rather than waiting for the manifestation of the emergency we face, our authorities should face reality and move to select the external population we wish to draw on in order to sustain the country and move to import now. The longer we wait the more likely it is that the balance of our population will be changed, without formal intervention, for not every group is paying attention to the family planning message.
We must import or die.