This arrivederci class is bad news

Jan 06, 2016 Letters

Dear Editor,
I am reluctant to read the newspapers for a while now. Without fail, there is this now routine litany of fatal car accidents, murderous rampages, domestic violence, political sleaze, or corrupt practices abounding. There is the gory stuff, white collar plagues, and under-the -radar incidents that unsettle those brave enough to peer. I have some thoughts to share as to the source of these horrific assaults; I warn that they will not be liked.
Migration tore an immeasurable hole in the soul of this society: decades of flight stripped this nation of most of its best and brightest from all fields. It also removed those poised at the cusp of realizing their potential. The flowers of sparkling promise wore rent from where they belonged; nothing much was left to build on. The result, in large part, was a remainder constituting the dregs of this society; those locked and lost; those without driving personal vision; those without initiative or means or opportunity. The accumulated numbers and related quality of departures have wounded terribly this land, perhaps mortally, and it shows in the increasing mayhem just about everywhere.
Those left over the years are mostly without care, regard for the law, or the sanctity of life; nothing is sacrosanct. With limited exceptions, this is the vile and violent saga played out in homes, streets, and commerce, whether clean or not. It is about one-upmanship, an entrenched machismo, and nothing to lose. All of this is accompanied by a rank classlessness characterized by contempt for the discipline and restraint of decency, and a cobwebbed, vermin infested conscience, at both the intuitional and individual levels.
But there is another side to the Guyana migration tragedy, those coming in. It is the nouveau riche that returned; those who came with their prior baggage to fill the vacuum left by the old departed middle class. For the most part, it is a returning middle class erected on dirty money, dirty tricks, and dirty stories. Within this arrivederci lot, there is also this same remarkable disregard for things decent, or anything principled. The result is widespread addition to the havoc existing in daily life here, and now further stoked. Quite a few of those with checkered résumés brought those twin evils of narcotics and money laundering along, and therein resided new disasters. Daily the mental ghettoes extend into new territory, claim new followers, and squeeze the already beleaguered margins of what is disciplined and spiritual and positive.
Now I am sure that attribution for causation of our present condition(s) can be laid at the feet of racial division, political malevolence, and individual tendencies. Still, I maintain that the continuing spiral of lawlessness and associated violence in all sectors of life is due primarily to loss of most of the best and brightest continuously, coupled with an influx, to a considerable degree, of the worst of the perverse and the Pandora’s Boxes they brought with them. It ought to be remembered that, sometimes, they are not even here, and still bring massive negative influence from afar.The question is: can the dwindling remnant of those with old school thinking and ways stanch the tide that overwhelms?
GHK Lall

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