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Colwyn Harding – a societal debacle

Jan 28, 2014 Letters

DEAR EDITOR,
The story of the maltreatment of Colwyn Harding, allegedly by complicit police ranks, has elicited something akin to an explosion – of indignation, rancour, accusations, condemnation, hostility, and all the other negative emotions one can conjure.
There has been a cacophony of legal arguments, non-legal posturing and media commentary. We have been witnesses to parliamentary outrage, inquisitorial denouncements, to the emasculation of a force mandated to serve and protect; not to mention manipulated medical obfuscations.
But it is uncertain how many have paid attention to the loud rumbling silences that have resounded across the usually vocal genuflective agencies and institutions.
It is just possible that some might have missed, for example, the sound of any prayers for the well-being of the abused victim, the aggrieved and grieving mother, siblings and for that matter, extended family. It cannot be that none of them is a church-goer; and even so would at least be acquainted with some devotees in the afflicted community, who would empathise, and wonder about their own fate, and possibly their faith as well. Is it for them to seek their pastor, or for the latter to turn towards them? Must they ask to what extent their Sunday prayers could provide solace for the Harding family; and reflect on the fact that the church has kept its distance, and that no bells have been tolled for the explicit destruction of the human spirit?
For while medical doctors would talk mundanely about a wound they know, but cannot yet heal, and the prosecutors might win their day (or night) in court; leaving the assailants but barely embarrassed, if not incarcerated, none would have attended to the real damage that has been inflicted, less perhaps on the virility, but much more profoundly on the manhood of Colwyn Harding. The psychological wound is certain to run deep; and the pain of the experience could permanently benumb any feeling of humanity. A soul would have been lost, irretrievably, but not only from the inert, indifferent if not inhumane, preachers.
In the midst of the sound bites and silences, few would have recognised that the Colwyn Harding tragedy is very much our own. It is a condition beyond a single mental aberration, an intemperate act of violence; an extreme indiscretion by the indisciplined, a brazen show of insubordination – evidence of palpable mismanagement. It is more than an ethnic confrontation; than a legal transgression, or a contentious political topic.
It is but a physical manifestation of a pervasive state of decrepitude; a reflection of the insensitive, uncaring, selfish, arrogant, materialistic environment which we feel proud to advertise – like alcohol, polluted uncultured shows, and other addictives. It is the mark of the bestiality which we have patented for the concrete jungle through which we now prowl.
But perhaps, just perhaps, even at this late stage, we can pause to ponder how much our collective deficiencies could have brought the society to this cliff-edge called Colwyn Harding; could have contributed to the slide into a digitised society in which virtual reality has overtaken spirituality, to the apostasy of which even the televised preachers must be ashamed.
Amoral as we have become, is it too late to hope, and pray, for the prospect of an apathetic leadership transforming itself into at least the mirage of a Moses – to salvage us from this engulfing morass of depravity?
Think of the legacy we would have bequeathed to the generations to follow.
E.B. John

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