Voices from the Grave

Mar 22, 2015 Countryman, Features / Columnists

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Countryman – Stories about life, in and out of Guyana, from a Guyanese perspective

By Dennis Nichols
‘Blood-soaked earth!’ This phrase lay dormant in my thoughts for a long time. But on Tuesday, March 10th, it erupted, as brutally as did the murder of Courtney Crum-Ewing and the image which flashed across my Facebook page that night. Immediately I knew this was going to be one huge media-fed story.
By now we in Guyana should be used to the cowardly heinousness of this type of killing, but some of us will never be. From the sickening murder of five year-old Lilawattie in the nineteen-fifties, past the senseless bayonetting of Father Bernard Darke in 1979 and down to the Crum-Ewing assassination, such crimes still defy human(e) comprehension, almost as much as they defy true human compassion.
I was in Trinidad in mid-June of 1980, when I read of the killing of Walter Rodney. It was a watershed in my philosophical life, though I didn’t grasp the enormity of the loss until years later. It took the deaths of Vincent Teekah, Ronald Waddell and Satyadeow Sawh for me to relate such clandestine killings to some kind of political activity.
Acts of murder, including political assassinations, are as old as recorded history, and the motives for them as complex as the human personality. Why is it such an easy thing for some persons to do and such a seeming impossibility for others? Or is it? Behavioural psychology implies that this act of violence may not be as far removed from the ‘man of peace’ as some would wish to believe.
Research, and certain behavioural/social theories, suggest that there are specific parts of the human brain (such as the orbital frontal cortex and the amygdala) linked to extreme acts of violence and premeditated murder in some people. However, some psychologists suggest that the ‘social’ theories fail to adequately explain why people murder. Psychologist David Buss is one of them.
He notes, “Theories that invoke violent media messages … cannot explain the high rates of homicide among tribal cultures that lack media access. Theories that invoke uniquely modern causes cannot explain the paleontological record – ancient skulls and skeletons that contain arrow tips, stone projectiles, and brutally-inflicted fractures.” That seems to leave the brain itself as the probable culprit.
I think this would suggest that we still don’t fully understand why people murder violently. Nevertheless we may seem to comprehend the more accepted and proven motives attributed to many such acts, for example in the Lilawattie case, greed and financial gain, and in the Father Darke case, fear and bloodthirsty anger – which takes us back to the primordial instinct.
We all have brains with the parts mentioned earlier; therefore it is possible that we all have the capacity to murder violently. All we need is a trigger, and in a country like Guyana there are many – perceived threats, raw injustice, and revenge, to name a few.
But what about that immaterial element called the conscience? How does a wanton murderer live with what the bible calls a ‘conscience seared with a hot iron’ (not a missing one) or what Guyanese describe more metaphorically as ‘cackroach eat out yuh conscience’? Are the murderers of Monica Reece, Nyozi Goodman, and Debra Blackman still alive and cheerfully sane? Has one of them passed you on the street in pleasant ignorance, or could he/she be that demented, wild-eyed vagrant that just asked you for a ‘raise’?
In each instance through the string of unsolved murders locally, there is or has been at least one person who knows or knew why and how the victim died – the killer(s) or the killer’s hirer. Some Guyanese feel that behind several unsolved murders are two sets of people, the killers and the so-called intellectual authors who hire them. And some ordinary, ‘good’ citizens may know who they are.
I was told years ago that some persons knew exactly who killed Monica Reece, but because ‘so-and-so’ is involved, secrecy and fear overwhelm those who would otherwise have cooperated in finding her killer. And I look at the video footage showing the young man who shot and killed Debra Blackman, and wonder … just wonder.
Quite recently a relative of mine overheard a conversation between two men in which one of them voiced a willingness to ‘pass out’ someone for a surprisingly small fee. (I think $40,000 was mentioned) The man displayed absolutely no qualms about doing what he seemed to consider no more than a job with requisite payment. It probably didn’t matter who the intended victim was, and whether or not the hit could be even remotely justified on any grounds.
Since the murder of Courtney Crum-Ewing 12 nights ago, my heart and mind have been uncommonly agitated. In my thoughts what started out as a mundane protest suddenly assumed tremendous and horrific significance, like some tragic play, particularly in the setting of darkness and isolation that engulfed him, and in the disproportionate conquest of bullets over bullhorn.
Not only in Guyana, but in many even developed countries around the world, it is becoming increasingly dangerous to speak out against political and social injustice. And especially in a country like ours one wonders if it is worth it; whether any outspoken advocate for justice should be considered a hero or a fool.
Yes, there has been a great deal of outrage, anger and emotional outpouring this past week, but what is the prognosis for this sickness? How many of us will attempt to emulate Mr. Crum-Ewing’s actions and risk limb or life in doing so when we feel that injustice, and a spot in Le Repentir Cemetery, will be our lot? Not many I presume.
On Wednesday, I rode into Albouystown to catch a glimpse of the flag-draped casket of the man who some have already declared a Guyanese martyr, as the hearse bearing his body passed through the gates of the Heavenly Light Church on Cooper Street.
I supposed that there would be a large turnout of mourners as well as curious folk. My estimation was an understatement, and for once I agreed with newspaper reports which put the figure in the thousands. Hymns and inspirational songs blared from the sanctum, and were picked up by a multitude of voices in and around the church compound.
But even as I watched, that milling, pulsating mass of humanity, I couldn’t help but notice a creeping nonchalance and air of resignation on the faces of some onlookers, and I couldn’t help but envisage the event as a massive but mild catharsis for many. Soon the cares of life would press in on them, I thought, and the man, the message, and the perceived martyrdom would gradually fade. But I could be wrong.
Because a voice, unlike a bullhorn or a bullet, cannot be physically destroyed, it cannot really be silenced. Once heard, it may live on in the hearts and minds of generations to come, especially when such a craven and violent act helps to define it.
The murderers of Courtney Crum-Ewing and other innocents in Guyana over the years may well find that, ultimately, the very voices they tried to silence will be the catalysts for the change they so savagely sought to forestall.
Voices do cry from the grave; from our blood-soaked earth. And people have listening ears.

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