Bermuda has to stop running and hiding from the problems causing youth violence, Transport Minister Dr. Ewart Brown said yesterday.

As “Ewart Brown the Bermudian”, Dr. Brown expressed his concerns about violence, youth, labour unrest and the unemployable at Hamilton Rotary Club.

“Statistics are not required to see that youth violence is on the rise,” he said. “This tiny country cannot absorb the slightest upswing in crime without paying for it in real terms down the road.

“There are too many of our young people who are confused, angry and violent toward each other. We can blame it on television, radio, books, and anything else but until we confront the fact that these are our children and we are responsible for them they will continue to drift out to sea, at our expense.

“We do not live in a state in North America where people can move into the next county or state. We live on an island. Therefore we cannot run and hide. We must look at what we see and and see what we look at: too many of our youngsters are engaged in self-destructive behaviour. And the sad part is we know them by name... it is up to us to stop running from the issue and face it head on.”

Asked what he thought the solution was, as the situation seemed to be “right at the point of boiling over”, Dr. Brown said:“Well, I'll tell you what I don't think the answer is. I don't think the answer is: ‘Lock ‘em up'. We've tried that.

“Fortunately in Bermuda we are able to identify them almost by name. There are efforts that can be targeted at the individuals directly.

“We have to stop dealing with the subject as if it was purely theory and get down with some brass tacks, deal directly with the individual.”

Dr. Brown also explained his recent statement calling for an end to “a strike every week”.

Saying he believed in the workers' rights to lay down tools, he said he also believed in their ability to reason with management before resorting to strike action.

“The use of wildcat strikes in violation of the law is not good for the union and is not good for Bermuda,” he said. “I call upon all of our unions to demonstrate the brainpower of their memberships and of their memberships and show that results can be obtained at the discussion table.

“I for one will never accept the belief that Bermuda's unions are incapable of exhausting negotiations before resorting to strike action. In fact, I believe that if a ‘strike first' approach is employed, the strike will eventually lose its sting and the desired effect will be lost.”

Dr. Brown's also called for a national dialogue on the growing number of “unemployable” Bermudians.

“I want us to confront another harsh reality of today's Bermuda,” he said. “The cold but real fact that the combined impact of substance abuse (including alcohol abuse), self-hatred, identity confusion, lack of home and therefore a lack of home training, criminal conduct and violence have brought us a new, identifiable, quantifiable slice of this community - a growing number of Bermudians who are not just unemployed but unemployable...

“We, and I don't mean just we in Government, but we as Bermudians, are collectively responsible for the emergence and growth of these issues and it is our duty to come together ... I am calling for a serious national dialogue on these issues ... We should enter this dialogue with the knowledge that we love ourselves but we love Bermuda more.

“If we can do this, we would have just begun the journey of a thousand miles, but we would have taken the first step.”