Despite the gun crimes, Guyana is always calling

Jan 10, 2010 Features / Columnists, My Column

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By Adam Harris

Looking at Guyana can be frightening from a distance, in the same way that Guyanese find Trinidad and Jamaica frightening. More often than not, the good things are not spoken about in the same way that the negative images are readily disseminated.
I met a few people who happened to come home for the holidays. All of them wanted to, despite what they heard, because deep inside they knew that the reality was something else. I have been in that position where while overseas, the reports out of Guyana were frightening but when I came home the situation was so different.
For example, my former in-laws came home because they wanted to have their mother celebrate her eightieth birthday in the land of her birth.
It would certainly have been cheaper for them to stay wherever they were and use the same money they paid as airfares to keep the party. But they knew that there is no place better than Guyana at this time of the year. So they came for Christmas and the New Year.
I suspect that the cold weather in the north might have influenced their decision but then again, I recalled that they have been living with the cold for decades. It therefore had to be something else. It turned out that in their book there is no Christmas like a Christmas in Guyana.
I would go home from work and hear them gushing about the masquerade dancers, the crowds on the city streets, the foods other than turkey and ham and chicken, and of course, the spirit of the people. I couldn’t hear my ears for the things they managed to buy.
Indeed the currency had too many noughts, but after the initial confusion they settled down to shopping in the markets and to remark at the relatively cheap goods.
This past week I ran into a colleague on Camp Street as I was heading to a bank to check on my indebtedness and calculate how I was going to get out of debt before the end of the year. She was last in Guyana five years ago having left these shores more than a decade ago.
The greeting and hug were those reserved for someone who is a sight for sore eyes. She had gained some weight and her complexion spoke of someone who had been living underground for some time. But she was good to see.
Then she said, “Adam, I don’t feel threatened at all.” She had come home expecting the worst and hoping for the best. She got the best. Here she was walking all over the place unaccompanied and enjoying those things that she had left behind.
I told her that where she lived has more crime than small Guyana. The difference is that her adopted country is much larger and has more people. The police response to the smallest crime is much more rapid than in Guyana and of course, the question of personal attacks is drastically reduced because people simply do not walk around with a lot of cash.
My in-laws and my ex-wife who also came shared the same view and then came a profound statement. “If I got to die then let it be in Guyana.”
We have the few robberies and the few shootings but nothing compared to what happens elsewhere. Jamaica started the year with four murders. I don’t know what the figure is at this time. Trinidad picked up where it left off. We have had three murders for the year—two between Friday night and yesterday morning.
This is not to say that such a state of affairs is acceptable, but by way of comparison, things are not that bad. Most of us only know of these murders when we pick up the newspapers. Had there been no newspapers we would have been none the wiser.
Nevertheless, these murders need not happen. I am willing to guess that the perpetrators are either illiterate or semi-literate. They fail to understand that killing only leads to more killing, that simple dialogue could resolve most of the problems in the society. Perhaps they believe that they will never be caught.
In one case the perpetrators went to commit a robbery. They got the money and they should have left. Instead, someone pulled the trigger. They are going to be caught because the society is so small and nothing is really a secret. Somebody is going to be spending more money than usual. There is also the possibility of greed among the group and the story will come out.
Parents are crying and children are without one parent or the other. It is precisely because of the apparent disregard for life that I asked the Guyana Responsible Parenthood Association the other day whether there could be a focus on parenting. This seems to be a dying art and children are falling through the cracks.
In my youth I could not even dream of mixing with the so-called bad company and these were boys who simply stayed out late and who spoke in loud and aggressive tones. I could not even own a penknife. Today, children have guns and parents say nothing out of fear.
I would have liked to drive fear into my mother but that was wishful thinking. She drove the fear of God into me and I was forced to stick to the straight and narrow. That same discipline helped me raise my children and I can boast that none of them are thieves. Other people’s property does not attract them.
Some organizations are targeting children and young people again. They are engaging them in sports and other extra curricula activities. More should become involved, and the surprise that my Canada-based colleague expressed would not even cross her mind.
I was telling a friend about the days when I went to the cinema and walked from Waterloo Street to East La Penitence, walking along Cemetery Road at the dead of night without a fear in the world. In fact, walking all over the city was a pastime. Those days can return and they must.

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