Pas­tor Clive Dot­tin

?Last year at a press con­fer­ence in Bar­ba­dos, I made the fol­low­ing ob­ser­va­tion: To­day our teenagers can be placed on the list of en­dan­gered species. They are killing and be­ing killed.

They are re­cruit­ed by the net­work­ing mob called the mafia. Our girls are be­ing abused in var­i­ous trades rang­ing from hu­man traf­fick­ing, drug traf­fick­ing and pros­ti­tu­tion. Our schools in the re­gion have be­come en­trenched hot beds of crime and vi­o­lence. You may be aware that some prin­ci­pals are un­der siege. Then I pro­ceed­ed to list sev­en ma­jor fac­tors that have placed the Caribbean com­mu­ni­ty in a per­ilous con­di­tion: The cold re­al­i­ty that we have two gen­er­a­tions of miss­ing fa­thers. This has huge im­pli­ca­tions for the fam­i­ly and the so­ci­ety. Some men are ei­ther MIA (miss­ing in ac­tion) or DIC (dead in the ceme­tery).

The col­lapse of val­ues. The me­dia and Hol­ly­wood have be­come the lat­est colo­nial mas­ters. We claim in­de­pen­dence but we are in­ter­nal­is­ing their twist­ed val­ues. Break­down of dis­ci­pline in our homes and schools. We are swim­ming in the bac­te­ria–in­fect­ed wa­ters of dis­re­spect. Look at the road hogs. If you speak to some dri­vers they are ready to threat­en you with knife, gun or a clenched fist.

Role mod­el bank­rupt­cy. The gang lead­ers, not par­ents and politi­cians, are their he­roes. They are bet­ter at re­cruit­ing and mo­bil­is­ing youth than the Par­lia­ment and re­li­gious groups. Pol­lu­tion of our re­gion­al se­cu­ri­ty or­gan­i­sa­tions and po­lit­i­cal par­ties. Many of our in­sti­tu­tions have been com­pro­mised and are more ac­ces­si­ble to the crim­i­nals than to law-abid­ing cit­i­zens.

Lack of courage. In at least 12 Caribbean ter­ri­to­ries the crim­i­nals know that we lack the courage to fight crime. But the most com­pro­mis­ing mo­ment is around elec­tion time; that is when the busi­ness elite spreads the but­ter on the po­lit­i­cal bread thick, thick, thick.

Lib­er­al po­si­tions in the halls of acad­e­mia.

There are many Caribbean ex­perts ap­ing the call of the de­vel­oped world, be­liev­ing that the so­lu­tion to our prob­lems is to le­galise de­struc­tive sub­stances and habits in­clud­ing drugs–mar­i­jua­na, co­caine–and abor­tion.

The for­ma­tion of sev­er­al gangs in our schools and com­mu­ni­ties did not spur us to ac­tion. Re­mem­ber the Bloods and the Crips? Now we have the Gaza and the Gul­ly gangs who have a more com­plex phi­los­o­phy and a crit­i­cal struc­ture. Nour­ish­ing this sav­age, gang sub-cul­ture is the fas­ci­na­tion with the oc­cult. Check the gang an­them and prayer:

Gaza an­them

Dev­ils and demons are re­al, they are work­ing hard.

But our on­ly choice, is to choose Gaza.

So we have some­thing to say, I say "Gaza meh seh"

You say, "Gaza meh seh," we say "Gaza meh seh"

I say, you say, we say, "Gaza MEH SEH"

We have our door­way, rock mu­sic, dance­hall, Gaza tunes, horo­scopes, drugs and more.

Gaza prayer

O lord cul­ter, I pray that thee love me

As thee loved cul­tress, let me shout it out here

Singing to you, O bless me, help me

De­liv­er me from the plans, My en­e­mies are hatch­ing

To de­stroy Gaza. Help me to over­come my en­e­mies

And live re­joic­ing for­ev­er in thy name. "Gaza meh self"

Let us view the Gaza rules.

Wear black and red most­ly. Al­ways en­ter the cult with your equip­ment and stuff you re­ceive from the prince. Your hair­style have to be a Mo­hawk or set like a Mo­hawk. The cult is the on­ly source you can re­ly on, so re­ly on it. The cult is your fam­i­ly. Re­spect the ones high­er than you. Al­ways med­i­tate. Do what­ev­er you want to. If it feels good, do it. Evil is good. Your on­ly re­spon­si­bil­i­ty is to do your will. Don't lis­ten to any­one out­side the cult. You have a right to kill any­one who op­pos­es you. The prince has wis­dom from Vy­bz Kar­tel. Vengeance is yours, so take it. Cul­ter is kind to those who de­serve it and doesn't waste love on the un­de­serv­ing. Man is a high form of an­i­mal, there­fore there is no eter­nal life. You must grat­i­fy your­self even if the world says it's wrong. Al­ways share love and first base but nev­er get sex with the mem­ber of the cult. If you are go­ing for a boy and he doesn't want you that night, take a girl from the Gaza for the night.

Rules have been giv­en by Vy­bz Kar­tel's strict or­der. If dis­obeyed, one mark will be placed on your skin with a knife. Be­fore you en­ter Gaza you have to take a tat­too on your back of "Prince rules Gaza" and prove your loy­al­ty.

Cul­ter is the god for Gaza cult and Cul­tress is the god­dess. Vy­bz Kar­tel is the Gaza king and a rap­per al­so. Very good on rap­ping.

Lin­da Bean makes a star­ling pre­dic­tion: "Any time the dark side of the su­per­nat­ur­al world is pre­sent­ed as harm­less or even imag­i­nary, there is the dan­ger that chil­dren will be­come cu­ri­ous and find out too late that witch­craft is nei­ther harm­less nor imag­i­nary." One pas­tor de­clares, "Haunt­ed hous­es are places where demons live. The whole idea of chil­dren dress­ing up like ghosts and vam­pires is ac­tu­al­ly a mask worn by Sa­tan to make re­al­i­ty seem like the ridicu­lous." So why are we so con­fused? Chil­dren are en­gaged in such risky stuff that they feel the need for pro­tec­tion and Gaza promis­es that. It was on­ly a mat­ter of time and that time has come, and the gangs are still with us. We live in the Caribbean and not on Venus, and we must have known or heard bone-chill­ing sto­ries of gangs leav­ing prin­ci­pals pow­er­less and in­ef­fec­tive. We must have heard of Gul­ly mem­bers ter­ror­is­ing schools and chas­ing away teach­ers, van­dal­is­ing school prop­er­ty and threat­en­ing the po­lice.

The in­iq­ui­tous shift sys­tem nev­er helped be­cause when the dis­ci­pline is weak, AM shift stu­dents hang around to bul­ly the PM shift. What a frus­trat­ing sce­nario! One young leader re­lat­ed to me that she was so scared of her ex-boyfriend that she had to join the Gaza crew for pro­tec­tion. Oth­er­wise she might have been killed. The ex-boyfriend has a car, gun and a knife and is just 18 years old. Where is all this mon­ey com­ing from?

Are we dream­ing? Or is this for re­al? Lis­ten, it is as re­al as sun­rise and sun­set.

�2 Next week we will try to

ex­am­ine pos­si­ble so­lu­tions,

be­cause we can no longer laugh un­less we love to laugh at our­selves