Our youths have been abandoned

May 27, 2012 Letters

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Dear Editor,
Capital News questioned several lawyers on their Monday May 20, 2012 broadcast on the phenomenon of the number of youths before the Magistrate courts on serious criminal charges and comments made at the vigil two nights later brought responses of bewilderment to those questioned and of course hints to neglect on the parental front. But it was the response of lawyer Vic Puran in the first broadcast who simplified the matter by stating erroneously that young people “They don’t want to work ect. “ I take offence to the escapist pronouncement of Vic Puran on the grounds that he must be aware of the process that enveloped this country in a criminal culture that thrashed and corrupted every positive social value system.
The period of ‘Roger Khan’ inserted and legitimized the community of drug trafficking; recruiting hundreds of young men on both sides of the ‘murder fence’, allowing legal counselors and policemen to get rich by imposing a criminal class on the value system of this nation with rights above the law.
The impact of that criminal phase on the human and economic fabric of this society has not yet become public debate and attempts are made to pretend it never existed.
A generation of Guyanese have grown up to ‘sanctioned murders’ , drive by shootings, the arrest and disappearances of brothers, fathers and neighbours; the accepted presence of ‘junkies;’ they are conscious of privileged drug dealers and hit men who are merely arrested and released when they commit murders or any offence, and who work for politicians. To towns and a city saturated with rubbish, human filth and fallen humanity that seems not to be the concern of any authority.
Are we not witnessing the result of the legacy of the Bharat Jagdeo dispensation?
The PPP destroyed the National Service because it was Burnham’s idea, ignoring its skill training centers, discipline and character moulding in the interest of national responsibility. Parents today are hardly able to provide the basics, much less the environment for an education system that seems unsure of the text books they will use for each school term. Assignments have to be done with computer stations meaning computer, printer and adequate software plus inks and printing paper. When I attended school everyone wore the proverbial ‘bush Clarkes’ so there was no taunting or dress disputes. But the State is accountable for waging war on young Guyana. not so long ago the State mandated the Police Force to pick up youngsters from as young as twelve years old in several Afro Guyanese villages and pass them through the criminal process of finger printing and detention, Political/Cartel collaboration ripped into the impressionable imagination of our youth when the method used to murder the relatives of wanted men or burn their relatives houses became public discourse. I can cite numerous cases in which the state cultivated or ignored lawlessness for its own callous prejudices and spite and all through that national nightmare, a traumatized young Guyana was itself involved. How old was the young man whose genitalia was mutilated, or the children of the disappeared cane cutters and Donna Herod, as they stood witness, and in the case of Donna Herod, Clement Rohee justified what had happened by blaming the village.
Parents are indeed culpable. During the late eighties a negative materialism emerged with the new found money of suitcase and marijuana trading and the brand name nouveau riche emerged. In that period I gave one of my children a sum of money to purchase school items. The child went to the Venders Arcade and bought a brand name sneakers. I took my child back, demanded my money in no nice terms while relatives and other acquaintances reproached me to which I responded ‘Yard style’ directing them to do as they wish with their own children. My child was able to get a bag, a strong brand less sneaker and some school accruements; did well at school and today has a significant career. In my day I wore the best, partied a lot, but I grew up. At the funeral of my friend’s father some years ago the pastor lamented that he was invited to bless a new home but was astonished that all the electronic equipment was installed with the latest DVDs and CDs but there was no study space for the children to study and there was no evidence of a bookshelf or books in the home. A philosophy has to be imparted to parents. We must not assume that many of them, rich or poor, understand or know that fashion and advertised luxuries on TV are not intended for public mimicry. Today, that nouveau riche culture has expanded to the extremes of political nepotism, intentionally strangling all else.
Much work has to be done with our Educational system; the last Minister of Education was a disaster. I will give one example of concern with Education, I was asked by a member of the Lions to assist with preparing graphic posters at a primary school. We on more than one morning encountered a youngster who was outside of the class and asked us to buy something for him to eat. Unlike Vic Puran, we recognize the constraints of many homes including ours, and we complied. One occasion he was outside of the class because he had hit another student, a female. We both enquired from the teacher what was his problem and she replied that “Some ah them I ent able with”. We proceeded trying to digest what she had said. After the third engagement with the children we realized that there was no art teacher at the school. I protested explaining that at the primary stage art was necessary to teach them concepts, allow their imagination to develop, because art has mathematical principles which can be activated in young children. This teacher told us that “They will learn that in secondary school, they don’t need art in primary school.  We endured this because we were all in the class room with the youngsters, thus the failure begins in that case with the teacher herself. Vic Puran must know as a recipient of affluent criminal clients that the Magistrates courts are the end result for many whose frustrations incline them to think; wrongfully so, that the evidence around them that crime pays, also applies to them.
Barrington Braithwaite

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