"Friends turn enemies, we lived together, grew together, shared many dreams … but now you want to see me die by any means…" Vybz Kartel

We live on an island nestled snuggly atop a platform of coral reefs which are teeming with the full vibrancy and colour of life. Our pristine shores are replete with beautiful beaches that are the envy of the world for the unique pink sand which covers them. We have a thriving economy and an industrious workforce. We have one of the lowest unemployment rates and one of the highest standards of living. We sit here surrounded by resources and talent which many other nations envy if they don't have it, or manage it better if they do have it. But despite all of this there is one sentiment which rings true throughout every kitchen, bedroom, living room, coffee shop, barbershop, and street corner in Bermuda. Paradise this is … but there is real trouble in paradise right now.

For many Bermudians these recent events have had the effect of challenging everything they have come to believe and love about their island home. There are those amongst us who did not or would not see the events which are now transpiring looming on the proverbial horizon. And then there are those of us who saw the writing on the wall a long time ago. Be that as it may, what is now upon us is a crisis of massive proportions which, if we are not careful, can alter all of our lives forever.

I once heard a group of people having a conversation about guns and violence in Bermuda in the context of when and how it began to escalate and develop to the point that it is becoming common place. One of the participants was of the opinion that a shooting incident in a crowded nightclub on Court Street in 1994 marked a significant change in the gravity and depraved indifference with which guns and violence would be resorted to. Maybe they are right. If I had not been so hurt and ashamed by the truth they spoke, I might well have joined in and agreed. But I didn't.

If what they say is true then I must accept my share of the responsibility for the wrongs I have done which have lessened the ability of my society and its people to remain immune to the effects of gratuitous violence. But that also means that I have a concomitant duty to contribute to the discussion and efforts to resolve it.

I have said it before, and I will gladly say it again, I am deeply sorry to everyone in this country for the contribution that I have made to our now ignominious history of such events. Times like these are hard times for me because I feel the weight of my contribution with each shot that is fired.

But what I ask right now is: Are there any others amongst us who are willing to take responsibility for what is happening in our community?

We are quick to condemn and judge these young men as hoodlums, thugs, gangsters and the like without giving even a moment of reflection to the process of socialisation which has created them … the pool of hatred and resentment and anger which we have all filled and then left our young people to dangle their hungry roots in.

What we are seeing now is the devastating culmination of decades of erosion upon our core values and standards of behaviour. The young men … Sorry … young black men in this country have been misunderstood for a very long time. I remember being in an education system which functioned like an assembly line, processing its product with automaton-like concern for the esteem and emotional stability of its charges. I remember the frustration which was inherent in watching all of the other people who did not look like me advancing through life by leaps and bounds whilst me and mine stood still. I will never forget, however, the love and the power that I felt from those streets. All of the things that mainstream society seemed to hold sacred for everybody else came to mean nothing to me and those streets. And nothing has changed.

If we continue to apply conventional solutions to unconventional problems we will never solve the equation. Today's young people see themselves, as I did then, as outcasts, outlaws, and citizens of an underclass with its own rules, its own borders, and the right to assert and defend its own sovereignty.

Unfortunately, the war within is beginning to spill out into environs that it never before affected. Once upon a time this was an isolated problem that only touched and concerned … so people thought ... a clearly defined class of people. But now its tentacles, the fear and insecurity that are engendered by graphic violence, this has invaded the space and psyche of all Bermudians. Now everybody wants to know why?

Unfortunately, the male ego is a very fragile thing. Perhaps even more unfortunately, the black male ego is often more easily bruised than any other. This may be a result of the universal deprecation and denigration that black men have had to endure over the centuries. Here and now in the 21st Century, where black men have come to understand that they are not the inferior beings they were once thought to be, in an era where added to this internalised complex is the personal shame which is applied by perception to any person or group which appears to allow itself to be "punked" … any attempt to belittle or take advantage of a person or group is inevitably met with a rage and retributive anger which appears to be completely out of proportion with the slight done or "disrespect" which acts as the trigger.

This conflict we see is not about turf or money or power. It is about slights done and retribution. It's about one group of people refusing to let go of the anger and desire for revenge that flows from things done in the past, and sadly, if you were to place the combatants into one room and ask them how this conflict got started they will answer in a way comparable to the reply of many Germans during the attempted extermination of the Jewish people: "I don't know why … but I know we are supposed to hate them for what they done." But no one can tell you what they done to deserve extermination.

Contrary to popular belief, the very people involved in this conflict want it to stop also. They are tired of ducking and hiding, tired of being unable to travel to parts of their own island home, tired of looking over their shoulders and flinching at every "crack" which rings out. And they want to stop … they really do.

However, just as the United States and Russia realised they had to abandon the cold war and cease with the threat of nuclear annihilation, so too do our warring factions here in Bermuda. The Russians and Americans had to accept that the only final result would have been the death of us all. And so it is with our local difficulties. But just as with those opposed nations the problem is trust. The Americans would not give up their weapons without the certainty that Russia had given up its weapons too, but none could trust the other side to keep their word when they say they have put down their arms. The same phenomenon was observable in the dynamic of the British and Irish conflict involving the IRA, UVF and other so called terrorist groups. Trust.

That's my take on it. How to rebuild the trust, that's our problem. If we can figure out how to do that, we may be able to staunch the flow of blood which is running through our streets, and which is threatening to leave a rather ugly stain on the pages of our history.