Something to live or die for!

Mar 06, 2016 Countryman, Features / Columnists

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By Dennis Nichols
Unwillingly yet irresistibly, this week I’m drawn back to the subject of youth and the tragedy of broken lives.

Controversial Irish playwright George Bernard Shaw is quoted as saying “Youth is wasted on the young!” If you need to understand an aspect of what he meant, just look around the country. Look around the world, and cringe at the threshing of our youth; the wastage of their physical, mental, emotional and libidinal energy and enthusiasm by the apparent disregard for the reverence and vitality of life.
Of course you have to make allowance for the many to whom this saying does not apply. The ones I am thinking about are those who, like some young men whose deaths were recently reported in the media, seem to court death and the fracturing of families by foolish, impulsive, or criminal actions, regardless of their consequences.
One was killed from a marksman-like bullet to the forehead by his accomplice during a robbery, another by a bullet from the gun of an intended victim. One died from a policeman’s firearm, another made himself shark bait after jumping from a ferry, and a fifth drank poison rather than face a jury verdict in a rape case. Wasted lives?
Man, if I could have my youth back with the knowledge and perspective on life I now have, I would certainly not ‘do it all again’ as many, impractically in my opinion, dream of doing. But I suppose this kind of thinking is just as impractical, since going back in time probably means reverting to the same kind of thinking that made you do ‘stupidness’ in the first place and led to the accumulation of wisdom that made you consider your wasted youth in old age – an enigmatic cycle!
One of the reasons this kind of loss bothers me so much is the pattern of seeing so many poor, poorly-educated, and misdirected young men and women fall prey to it. And to be honest, race and class, even in this supposedly enlightened day and age, play some part in the cycle, although in many instances it transcends these social divisions. Developed North American and European countries share the scourges of lawlessness and incarceration, addiction, mental illness and suicide centred around youths, with poorer and developing nations in Africa and Asia – the main difference being the economic and social cushions the wealthier ones have in place to help negate the impact.
I, and many others, have commented and made suggestions, mostly in the newspapers, on how this matter can be addressed. It makes little sense to continue rehashing the same old arguments, except to expand on them with new insights that few seem to possess – a frustrating rigmarole. But this bottom line may be worth repeating – the dire necessity to reconstruct the extended family model that once flourished, to incorporate new models that seem to work (maybe in Japan) and to imbue our children with positivity and ‘real’ education, starting at home from birth, or from even in the womb.
Real education for me as a teacher, father and grandfather, is simply making the greatest effort to open a child’s mind to the vast potential in and around him or her (from feeding yourself as a toddler to finding your purpose in life as an adult) with the understanding that this process is a journey that never really ends, even with death. Then English, Math and Science, career, wealth and success, will be bonuses along the way. Laughter and tears, winning and losing, will only help make the journey more unforgettable.
I think of myself as being quite liberal and very open-minded in my general worldview, and there are times when I just exult in the beauty and selflessness of humanity, especially children, I see around me. It may happen when I see school friends walking hand-in-hand on a city street or in a rural village, a group of boys playing cricket anywhere, a youngster helping an elderly person across a busy street, or a hundred other little cameos, all without heed to race or class.
But too often my soul sinks, and my heart drops as I look at, or listen in shock or disbelief, to five and six year-olds cursing one another with the nastiest insults as a matter of course, throwing around the ’b’ word (for anal sex) while playing some childish game. Most are simply copying the behaviour of parents, older siblings, or neighbours. Yet at other times, some of them speak to me very politely, deferring to age as I become ‘Uncle’ to them, particularly when a favour is being asked, like retrieving a kite from a television antenna or a ball from the yard. When I think back on my own childhood of bottom-house cricket and flying caddy-old-punch in the street, I must comply.
Children, teenagers and young adults need something to live for. More and more we hear, and sense, the futility of young men who feel marginalized by poverty, illiteracy, and unemployment, not realizing the avenues open to them for growth and fulfillment, or not willing to take the first rough steps towards them.  Maybe they see the court room and the jail cell as designed to complement the rebel image they project, more than the classroom or the home.
Fast money, attraction from the opposite sex, acceptance by peers, and being someone’s ‘niggah’, ‘dawg’, or ‘bitch’ seem to be powerful motivators for a certain kind of social mobility and inclusion among youths (gangs for example) who are cynical about the way some adults ‘run things’ in Guyana. They appear to live, and die, for this lifestyle.  And even death is glamourized, as observed when the funeral of a young, popular ‘soldier’ looks more and more like the word’s anagram (funeral – real fun) an occasion for celebration with liquor, laughter, and music.
Maybe I dwell on such observances so often because they strike a visceral chord with me. For a time, during and after the wastage of much of my own youth, I felt the kind of social alienation I just spoke of; therefore I still feel a sense of kinship with frustrated youth. Five academically empty years at Queen’s College, three years of menial jobs, and a similar period of barren Saturday-night partying left me stupefied before I had the sense to heed my sisters’ and friends’ advice to make something of my life – something to live for.
I have to digress from my intended closing paragraphs, as (ironically) news about the Georgetown prison unrest continues to capture the nation’s attention, and mock preparations for our May 26th extravaganza. Those who died may have been criminals or alleged wrongdoers, but they were also sons, fathers, husbands, and friends, who were loved and appreciated by at least one other human being.
It is still too early for informed comment on what happened and may still be happening there. But who deserves to die struggling, suffocating and burning in some claustrophobic enclosure? Which blue-collar offender deserves to serve time or be indefinitely detained at ‘Her Majesty’s’ or anyone else’s, pleasure, while some white collar criminals remain unpunished?
We have a stern but seemingly caring president who is a father, a husband, and a brother. There is little doubt that he, like thousands of ordinary Guyanese, is troubled by the degradation and decimation of Guyana’s youth.
The time has come (again) to take a soul-searching look at our judiciary, our police and security forces and our penal system, and to possibly institute their overhaul. Hopefully, it isn’t too late.

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