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The ability to forget
Jan 30, 2014 Editorial
The human brain is an amazing part of the anatomy. Some say that it is the repository of life and indeed, all of the phases of life are stored in the brain. The memories are stored there as are learned experiences that help us along the dangerous paths that life throws at us.
This is the part of the brain that keeps us sane because of the ability to block out or store in its nether region, those experiences that are likely to result in trauma. Just recently, a woman, the victim of a knife attack in the National Park, started to tell her rescuers about the motorcycle and the number. Believe it or not, a minute later she could not remember the number. He brain had taken over to protect her during the period of shock.
Most of us have deep seated memories. Some people have to be hypnotized before they can recall incidents, some of which actually influence their present lives. There is a long list of things that cause the brain to go into protective mode. Different people have different pain thresholds so while some writhe in pain, others lapse into unconsciousness.
On January 26, 2008, eleven Lusignan residents were slaughtered in their beds while they slept. The attack on the Eve Leary Police headquarters did not give an inkling of this dastardly act that would be on the tongue of the entire country without days.
Some were so incensed that they posted the most graphic photographs to make the world become aware of the animals that share the space with decent human beings. The police did not respond for hours because they must have been afraid of the weapons the killers had. And when they did visit the scene the people were so traumatised that they could not really recall what happened. Their brain simply went into sleep mode to shut out the horrors of that early morning.
Later, the man who led the attack on the hapless residents of Lusignan admitted to walking into the community with a group of boy soldiers and wreaking havoc. His reason was that he wanted people to feel as he did when the mother of his unborn child simply walked with the child never to let him see the infant.
That was a most vile display by a human being on others of his physiognomy. How the survivors could continue to live in that community is not really a mystery because the mind forces certain adjustments. Few who interviewed the people could forget that they would tell the world that daylight hours are not bad but that the nighttime was the worse.
The killers were identified and before long the entire country knew who they were but not one of them was arrested. Albeit a week later when the killing spree moved to Bartica the police did make arrests. They reportedly arrested the man who provided shelter and transportation for the killers, most of whom are now dead.
A mere six years later and the country appeared to have forgotten those horrible minutes during which eleven people, many of them children and women, died. The day came and went with scarcely a whisper save for a newspaper that carried some historical facts of the event.
The government who made a ruckus when the killings took place must have forgotten January 26. It must be that in the wake of that event the nation is visited by so many events of such criminality that the human stock has become numb.
Something must be horrible wrong with a society in which every individual wants to walk with a gun and in which every criminal has one which he does not hesitate to use. Scarcely a day goes by without the newspapers reporting on a killing, many by gunshots and in a way not dissimilar to that which occurred on January 26, 2008.
The guns are so many; people are constantly arrested with illegal weapons but that does not seem to affect the numbers on the streets. It may do well to randomly search everyone at any time.
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