"Opportunities and Challenges; Myths and Realities"

Ambassador J. Richard Blankenship

Commencement Exercise of

The College of The Bahamas

June 28, 2002

Nassau, Bahamas

Good Morning Ladies and Gentlemen,

It gives me great pleasure to be here today to talk to you on a very important day for a large group of young men and women. While there are many distinguished guests here today along with family and friends to witness the graduation, it is largely to the graduating class that I intend to address my remarks.

In speeches such as this it has been said to the point of redundancy that youth are the future of the country and the world. The strong tendency in the audience is to immediately assume that this is going to be another one of those speeches, and tune out and start thinking about the parties later this evening. This will not be one of those speeches.

One of the reasons youth are referred to as the future of the world is because it is true, in its basic meaning. Over the next few decades, leaders of my generation will, one by one, leave the world stage, ceding their positions of power and responsibility to a younger generation, to you and others just like you who have been sitting at similar ceremonies around the world in recent months and years, or will do so in the near future.

My address to you today will be about opportunities and challenges, myths and realities. If there has been a pattern in my life, it has been one of unexpected turns, opportunities that come suddenly and change one’s plans overnight. On the day of my own graduation from Florida State, I had no ambitions for public office. If you’d asked me then what I planned on doing, I could have described the next few years in fairly precise detail. However even after a few years, those plans changed.

Many of you will leave The College of the Bahamas today with definite plans of your own. And a clear plan for your life can be a very good thing; it keeps you focused on the future, and gives you a standard to measure your progress. Yet I’ll wager that ten years from now, many of you will find yourselves following a quite different course, all because of an opportunity that came out of the blue. Be on watch for those certain moments, and certain people that come along and point you in a new direction. Sometimes others know better than we do just what our gifts are, and how we can use them. For all the plans we make in life, sometimes life has other plans for us.

Those of us who’ve been around a while can also recall a few times when life took an unexpected turn, but in a disappointing way. You may face some disappointing turns; times when you fall short, knowing you could have done better. And when that happens, don’t let your doubts get the best of you. I have met some very successful people in my day; men and women of talent and character who have risen to the top of their fields. And it’s the rare one who hasn’t had a taste of failure, or a false start along the way. Setbacks in life can stop you dead in your tracks, or they can inspire you forward. Either way, you will look back on them as turning points. They are crucial days in your life, when you see the starkest kind of choice, and know it belongs to you alone.

One of the things I love most about both the United States and the Bahamas is that there are great opportunities. There are places in the world where failure is final, and one early misstep will decide your fate forever. But like the United States, the Bahamas is a country of the second chance. Most of us end up needing one. And when we’ve gone on to accomplish something, we can be that much more grateful.

Gratitude in general is a good habit. More than a virtue, it is usually a correct appraisal of our situation. Most of us are able to succeed and rise in the world because someone helped out along the way: whether it was a memorable teacher, or a boss who handed us a great opportunity, or the person who took a chance and gave us that first big break in our career. A grateful heart is an honest understanding of all that we have been given, and all that is expected of us in return. There is always the temptation to forget this, to carry ourselves with an air of entitlement, as if good things come to us by right. They rarely do. And life has a way of working out better when we don’t take things for granted, when we have a long memory for what others have given us, when we look for the blessings, great and small, that come every day we are alive on this earth.

This day will stand out as a marker of gifts well used, aspirations fulfilled, and hard work rewarded. I congratulate each of you, and hope your future is filled with the kind of happiness you feel today.

Now let’s talk about the challenges you’ll face to go along with your opportunities in very sobering terms, some of the very real challenges that face the United States and The Bahamas in the future, challenges which you will have to meet and overcome.

I'm not one to accept blame for all the world's problems, but I freely admit that the world you will be inheriting from my generation is not a neat and orderly one, full of simple solutions and easy achievements. It is a messy chaotic world, beset by serious problems, some of which have eluded the best efforts of generations before to resolve.

The Bahamas, despite its idyllic setting, has not escaped all of the world's problems. As you enter the working world and assume more and more responsibility, you will be faced by some significant challenges.

I want to focus on just a couple, however, that I feel immediately impact your lives, and that I think you can make an immediate impact on.

Crime has become a significant and growing threat in both the United States and The Bahamas, particularly violent crime. One doesn't need to go back beyond the most recent headlines to find brutal examples of this, such as the senseless murder last weekend. No one is safe from it. Coming from a good home or a good family does not insulate you from the violence around you.

We've also noticed an increase in the number of sexual assaults, including those against minors and against American tourists, in which the assistance of the Embassy is requested. This is a very serious matter. The economy of The Bahamas depends on its reputation as safe and fun place to visit. Tourists will not come if they think their lives, or the safety of their daughters, is in danger.

Much of the violence in The Bahamas is drug-related, a by-product of the thriving narcotics trade that uses The Bahamas as a transit point to bring cocaine and marijuana to the U.S. A prime example is the series of murders that occurred in Fox Hill earlier this year. You know better than I that The Bahamas is not just a transit point, and that domestic drug consumption in The Bahamas is a very real and growing problem. This poison is afflicting your society, in the exact same way it is affecting mine. Everywhere the drug dealers operate they spread corruption and violence, they destroy lives and rob young people of their futures. The Bahamas is no exception. The youth of this nation are under assault from narcotics traffickers. There is the danger that major portions of an entire generation of young men and women could be lost to addiction, or to the temptations of trafficking.

There is a tendency in some segments of the population and some streams of popular culture, both in the U.S. and The Bahamas, to romanticize the trafficker, to admire the lifestyle he has bought for himself by selling poison to others. The drug thug is much admired and sought after in certain circles, what I see as a clear breakdown in society. Even those who don't admire the drug thugs themselves still envy the lifestyle, the clothes, the cars, and the easy money.

There is nothing to admire or desire in the life of thugs. His type has always existed, parasites on society who make their living off the weaknesses of others. Like parasites, they must be purged and destroyed to ensure the health of the host. They live the same sort of life the 17th century philosopher Thomas Hobbes claimed would be the natural state of man, in the absence of the civilizing influence of laws and government: nasty, brutal and short. Violence, as much as money, is their currency, and they live inconstant fear, not just of the police, but of their rivals and accomplices, whom they know could kill them without mercy to make a big score or in revenge for past deeds. There is no honor amongst these thieves, and those who associate themselves with them may live in the fat lane for a while, but they inevitably end up in jail cells, hospitals, or in the morgue.

The Bahamas, as a small island nation with geography convenient for smugglers, is uniquely vulnerable to the threat of narcotics trafficking. Clearly traffickers have targeted these islands. You must remain vigilant to respond to this threat.

The justice system of this country will be tested repeatedly over the next several years, as traffickers are arrested, either for extradition to the United States or for trial here. It is vitally important that the justice system prove that it is up to this challenge, that it can successfully prosecute major narcotics traffickers and that it can successfully extradite them to the United States or other countries in fulfillment of its international responsibilities. The results of these cases, some of which are ongoing now, will be watched closely, not only by those who are deeply involved in the fight against narcotics trafficking, but also by the traffickers themselves. The traffickers will interpret any sign of weakness in the judicial system, any decision that seems friendly or sympathetic to their interests, as a sign that The Bahamas is open for business, and they will move in aggressively. Traffickers have many options in terms of routes and delivery methods for getting their drugs to the major markets in the U.S. and Europe, and they choose those where their costs are lowest and they have the least risk of interdiction and prosecution. If they perceive that they have no danger of prosecution in or extradition from The Bahamas, they will drastically increase their traffic through your islands, because this is a cheap and convenient way to reach the U.S. And that could destroy The Bahamas. It would mean more drugs on your streets, more murders, and more ill-gotten money available to corrupt your public servants and politicians.

There are some who will take offense at what I have to say about the challenges to the justice system, saying that I am interfering in the judicial process, trying to use a heavy hand to influence judicial decisions. They would prefer their ambassadors to be like good Victorian children, seen and not heard, pleasant ornaments for ceremonial events and not much else. Well, that's not my role here. My job is to represent the interests of the government and people of the United States. Four million Americans visit The Bahamas every year, and the safety and security of each and every one of them is one of my top priorities, similarly, narcotics trafficking is a direct national security and public health threat to the population of the United States, just as it is to The Bahamas. When I feel the health and safety of American citizens is threatened, I will continue to speak out. It is my responsibility, as an Ambassador, to do so.

But in reality it is not just my responsibility, but everyone's. Narcotics traffickers flourish in our societies when we when we look the other way. These thugs should not be idolized, they should be ostracized. We need to make it clear to them that we will not tolerate them in our society, will not tolerate them living in our neighborhoods, will not tolerate them selling drugs to our friends and family, will not tolerate them destroying our society.

I would hazard to guess there are people in this audience, people graduating today, who know narcotics traffickers in their neighborhoods. They know who it is who will try to sell their little brother drugs. They know who it is who will try to get their cousin involved in trafficking. They know who it is who will try to get their little sister high and take advantage of her. My challenge to all of you is to get rid of these people. Make it clear that they will not be tolerated. Support police and government efforts to get them off the streets and behind bars, where they cannot threaten everyone and everything you hold dear. The future of your country depends on it.

I do not mean this message to be depressing, but I do mean it to be a reality check. This is a deadly serious issue, and one The Bahamas cannot afford to ignore. My generation has been fighting for years against the scourge of illegal drugs, and while we have had many small successes and achieved much, particularly in the area of public education, the problem remains relatively undiminished. It will fall to future generations, to your generation, to solve this problem.

I know that now, after graduation, your lives will be dominated with planning for your next steps, be it finding a good job, a place to live, getting married, or going on for further education and training. But I'd also like to put out a call to you to get involved. You have been given a wonderful gift, with the education you have received. It is time for you to think about giving something back to the society you live in. Look around your community and you will see needs. You will also see organizations dedicated to meeting those needs. I'd like each of you to think seriously about putting your talents to use as a volunteer for at least a short period each week. There are many different opportunities: children who need someone to teach them to read, senior citizens who just want someone to visit them and talk to them, people in poverty who need someone to provide them a meal or a safe place to live, addicts who need counseling, crime victims who need assistance. I call on all of you to open your hearts and take time out of your busy schedules to make a difference in your community, to help build a better Bahamas.

I am an optimist. I think you're up to the task. I'm looking out into a sea of intelligent, talented, educated faces, young men and women with limitless potential. The challenges to this country are serious, but they are not beyond your capabilities. I have confidence that you can overcome them and develop a bright future for this country, your Bahamaland.

May God Bless you and may God Bless the Bahamas and the United States of America.