My Guyana El Diablo y el mundo

Jul 10, 2016 Countryman, Features / Columnists

By Dennis Nichols

My headline this week (My Guyana the devil and the world) is more a gimmick to grab readers’ attention and make a point, rather than to imply what Guyana and the world have become. The Spanish is just a whim, but the play on El Dorado is intentional, in part because the gold of our shining arrowhead seems to be directed to greed rather than greatness; lining the pockets and bank accounts of a few Machiavellis rather than those of the languishing souls pining for a piece of gilded pie.

The caption additionally seeks to underline the horror factor of the slaughter that continues to batter our senses, and maybe shift the blame to Beelzebub – the satanic lord of the flies, like those that buzz bloody corpses. Love of money and prowling death, in Guyana or globally, seem to walk together. And they also swim with society’s big fish, some of whom engage the services of minnows to execute evil on their behalf.

Something inside of me, and in many of us, badly wants to see justice done; so much so that I sometimes wonder if some countries are not heading in the direction of a French Revolution kind of uprising. (God forbid) It’s a dire analogy, I know. But how do you answer the provocative questions of wealth and status inequality in countries where millionaires lawlessly become billionaires, ‘thousandaires’ stay rutted in a cycle of poverty, and have-nots live a 24-7 nightmare of dispossession and death?

My naiveté still amazes me. Other than in a dream, I cannot fathom someone in a country like ours siphoning off billions of dollars in the course of his duties as a servant of the public, particularly when it is obvious that he couldn’t do it without the collusion or approval of other parasites. It is that same thought process that exploded when my mother first told me, as a child, about the Lilawattie latrine pit murder, or when I read about the diabolical scheme to oust the Rozario sisters and their father from a building by burning them alive in it.

It is even more perplexing when money-fueled or power-fueled atrocities are committed by those entrusted to uphold the law, or by those who see themselves empowered to act as vigilante judges, juries, and executioners. I guess the most obvious examples are the ‘police’ shootings and killings of civilians who pose little or no threat to armed officers. The ones that happen across the United States may be the most well-known.

Yes, there are among us monsters of cunning, depravity and evil, and some of them wear law-enforcement badges. We normally don’t see them for who they are, and can’t read their thoughts. Even if we could, we’d either realize our impotence to challenge them, or prepare to become martyrs for a cause without a cure. We may even see some of those monstrous traits in us, and allow ourselves to tolerate the cancer rather than excise it.

The issues and the criminal acts which have been raised and rehashed over the last few years are known to most Guyanese. They are a confusing mix of political and economic graft and corruption by politicians, businessmen, and all sorts of agencies operating in the shadowy areas between what is perceived as legal and what may or may not be. In those grey areas even the courts of justice are prone to manipulation, and to ironically perpetrate injustice.

Here in Guyana I continually think about the scores of young men and women who have met what may be referred to as untimely deaths at the hands of policemen, death squads, and individual hit men, from Monica Reece to Courtney Crum-Ewing. I also think about the possibly scores of white-collar criminals roaming free, living high, and not worried too much about being prosecuted, knowing that prosecution as well as persecution is reserved for the smaller fry.

In the United States it’s something else. Right now it’s all about two young black men, Alton Sterling and Philando Castile, shot and killed by police under questionable and troubling circumstances, and the subsequent execution of five police officers in Dallas, Texas. It’s about the outrage over the idea that even with a black president, a black man is far more likely to be stopped, searched, assaulted, and killed by a police officer than his white counterpart, all things being equal apart from skin colour.

Marches and demonstrations have erupted from Minnesota and New York in the north to Louisiana and Georgia down south. Protesters and activists, city officials and politicians, including President Obama and Minnesota Governor Mark Dayton, have all recognized and denounced the injustice meted out in the black suspect-white officer killings and those of the five policemen. Incidentally, it shows that it’s not always about colour and power, but just plain, unadulterated murder. And grief! Black suspects and white police officers both have families and loved ones.

So what does all of this have to do with El Diablo? Ask fundamentalist Christians and other religious believers who have no doubt that this world; this earth, is Satan’s kingdom. They will quote from the bible that he roams the earth like a roaring lion, seeking to destroy and devour, and that his victims as well as his followers are many.

They will tell you how subtly he possesses the souls of those who allow him entry, even unintentionally. Some of them resignedly await the end of the world; others seem to be fighting a losing battle, while some hopeful souls see a revolution of peace and prosperity around the corner. But remember, some of them say, that the same being who dispossessed and tortured the righteous Job of the bible, (with God’s approval) is the same today, with an appetite for inflicting misery and death that has not diminished.

So where do we go from here? Not many of us will attempt a comprehensive answer, unless we can peer into the murky depths of the human psyche. I know where I want to go though – to Kaieteur, Lethem, Kamarang, or Imbaimadai, or any place where my spirit is more enmeshed with the things of nature than the machinations of man. So far, I haven’t found much of that in Georgetown, New York, or Nassau – the three places where I’ve spent most of my life.

I think that deep down most humans are equal parts pragmatist and dreamer, a healthy combination that however seems dominated by innate greed, pride, and egotism. Gold, money, wealth, status, privilege, and power may have their place in the grand scheme of things, and may be used effectively to lift humanity out of the mire of stagnation. But when they don’t, my Guyana El Diablo y el mundo burden rather than uplift my spirit.