Latest update December 22nd, 2024 4:10 AM
Jul 20, 2010 Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom
Sometimes it takes an illness to open your eyes to what is taking place around you. You can be in a situation and not realise how bad things are unless you can take a step away and look at life from a different angle.
In 1994, shockwaves reverberated throughout Guyana as news broke of a slaughter in the village of Buxton, East Coast Demerara. An insane man called Baby Arthur went on a cutlass chopping spree killing, I believe, six persons and a domesticated pet before being himself killed by the police.
The deadly massacre by Baby Arthur was the talking point in the country for months. Not for days or just weeks, but for months. At the time, it seemed that everywhere that people gathered they discussed the details of Baby Arthur’s rage.
It seemed to mark the turning point for Guyana when it came to violence. Before then there were unnatural deaths that made the headlines and which became a source of conversation for many. Whenever such deaths occurred, it was galvanize public attention for weeks.
Looking back it seemed that in those days there were not as many murders and other unnatural deaths as there are now.
And perhaps this explained why when a death did occur it became hot news for weeks on end.
It may be that there were just as many unnatural deaths then as there are now. Perhaps the police can indicate whether there has been over the years an increase in the incidence of unnatural deaths or whether it is just as case of more of these deaths being reported.
But it does seem as if it is the former, that is, there are far more unnatural deaths occurring today than in the past because hardly a day goes by without some report in the media about some person being found dead.
Yesterday, there was a report about a man being found dead on the pavement. Then there was a report also about a man being electrocuted.
The day before there was a report about another man being found dead. Last week we had a few deaths. One man was found strangled in what appeared to be a burglary over some batteries (why would anyone have to take the life of an innocent man just to steal a battery is itself a statement about the respect for life that we have at present.)
Then there are the many domestic squabbles that we have been reading about which end up in tragedy. Perhaps they were just as many domestic squabbles in the past, but certainly they did not invoke such terrible violence and retribution as we are seeing today.
Something is wrong with our society and we need to put a pin on the sore point. It certainly cannot be poverty. We have been poorer than we are at the present and there was not this level of violence. Perhaps it has nothing to do with poverty but more to do with the fact that we are progressing economically and that the pressures this is creating on individuals to keep up with their peers is inducing violence.
Perhaps, it is our lifestyle that is changing and with it our propensity to find ourselves in situations of risk.
People are not staying at home these days as often as they did. Christmas Day in the days of yore used to be family day. Sunday also used to be a quiet day. Today you have large numbers of persons on the roads on both of these days. People are restless to get out of their house and this is evident on the weekends.
Guyana needs to identify the sources of this emptiness that is creating this urge for us to be constantly on the move.
Being at home should never be a boring experience and yet it seems that it is, judging from the eagerness of so many citizens to get out of their residences.
We need to take stock. We need to slow down. Only by slowing things down will we be able to pinpoint the source of all this anger, envy, greed and hatred that is leading to so many unnatural deaths in our country.
We need to go back to that time when things moved a little slower. We need to find peace in our homes. We need to enjoy the time spent with our family. We need to rediscover again the simple life.
We cannot continue to have thus runaway situation where each day you pick up the newspaper and find that someone has succumbed to some unnatural death. No wonder there are so many unsolved cases. There are simply too many unnatural deaths for our understaffed police force.
We have to start small beginning with our own lifestyles and examine whether we are adopting a style of living that is more suited to the pace of North America.
We need to develop habits that allow us to enjoy the quiet company of friends and the joys of family rather than having to constantly seek these pleasures outside of the home in places that can bring us into conflict with others that could lead to antagonisms that cause violence and death. We need to slow down.
Slowing down will help us to find the problem. But it may also be the solution.
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