and disease, to cold and to heat, to joy and to sorrow. These days they are being called upon to adapt to a violent society.

While it is fair to say that Bermuda is a good deal less violent than most of the countries around us, that is no reason for complacency. Violence will only grow amid complacency. Basically people adapt by becoming desensitised and therefore are increasingly less shocked and disturbed by violence. Slowly the law abiding people begin to lock themselves away, leaving the lawless and violent people to control public space. Eventually the houses and offices and public places become fortresses and the streets become danger zones.

Bermuda is nowhere near that point but the call for security and alarms and guards is growing. The truth is that Bermuda is not as safe as Bermudians want it to be. We have not hit bottom like some places but we are on a downward slope. Bermuda needs a wake-up call.

Violence has been publicised and glorified by the media. It has become so real and so commonplace on television and in films that it is a part of our lives and thus acceptable in our culture. The ability of people to adapt and to accept violence has become our enemy. We have to learn to say no to violence as a part of our lives just as we should have said a very early no to drugs.

As we should with the drugs which so often foster violence, we have to say, not in my house, not in my neighbourhood, not in my Country.

There are rapid changes and ever-shifting values in Bermuda which leave young people bewildered. It is difficult to respect people and institutions which are not constant and which are under siege from adults.

When politicians and other adults lead the public criticism of our institutions they destroy any hope young people have of stability. Young people need to have hope for themselves and expectations for their future. If their neighbourhoods are full of violence and their teachers are under fire and they are regularly told the Police are useless, or worse, then they give up.

Adults spend a good deal of time pointing out that young people have little respect for school, for teachers, for the Police, for courts and the law and the churches. But adults have to ask themselves how young people in this society could have any respect. Our political leaders are constantly and loudly "at war'' with one another. The churches fight internally and with each other and advocate damnation and discrimination. The Police are a subject of constant public debate and criticism. We are even told that the Police Service is alien to Bermuda. We regularly hear that the courts are unfair, biased and hand out uneven sentences. The school system has been dismissed by those who operate it as flawed and unworthy of their own children. Could you respect a flawed system or a teacher who works for a flawed system? If adults have no respect for the world they have created for themselves, how can they expect young people to respect that world? One generation teaches respect to the next and today's adults, too often absentee parents, are teaching disrespect, negative criticism, a lack of civility, and violence all accompanied by sex and drugs and dirty rap lyrics and guns galore.