Do we truly believe the children are our future?

Jan 29, 2017 Countryman, Features / Columnists

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By Dennis Nichols
When I read local news articles about the plight of Guyana’s ‘most precious assets’ and the

assertion that they are ‘the future’ there is often something missing – searingly honest commentary on the signal beauty and candour, and the grim vulnerability of young children. Resilient, sensitive and fragile by turns, their welfare may be the most truthful reflection of our nation’s overall progress, and no religious, social, racial or other aspect can negate this dictum.
A month ago the story of an eight year-old girl touched me deeply; the accompanying Christmas Eve picture of her wistful face with the hint of a smile, not yet cognizant of the adult themes that had shaped her young life thus far, is one that etched itself in my consciousness. Thankfully, she could not have foreseen the capricious/negligent act that would claim her life the next day in a mockery of the Christmas spirit straight out of a Dickensian tragedy. I’m talking about Neena Blair.
If true, the backdrop to her life-and-death story as reported in the media, may serve as an example of insidious family/social disintegration combined with dire negligence. One newspaper reported that the child’s mother has eleven other children fathered by men who have obviously relinquished their paternal responsibilities making some of them virtual orphans. Three of the children, including Neena, resided at the Alpha Children’s Home in New Amsterdam, Berbice. As of Christmas Day 2016, only two remained.
I won’t recall the heartrending events of those two days; you can read them in newspaper reports over the last week of December, except to underline their uncanny conjunction – a mother released from prison, a media interview that didn’t go according to plan, her no-show at the orphanage where one of her children was ‘celebrating’ a birthday, and the horrific death of another caused by an accident at the institution that very afternoon. You couldn’t conjure up a piece of fiction more heartbreakingly compelling than this reality.
If Neena’s mother has an ounce of maternal fervour in her she must be suffering some degree of mental and emotional anguish. And lest anyone condemn her outright for her and her children’s unfortunate circumstances, we should ponder that she too may be the victim (I’ll keep using that politically-incorrect word) of the culture of deceit, betrayal and abuse so frequently played out in intimate relationships, compounded in many instances by lack of focus on women’s reproductive health and mental instability. Her sister alluded to as much.
Obviously I know nothing of Venus Laloo or of her life story, apart from what was revealed by her sister and the media-reported events of December 24th and 25th last, and I can only presume so much.
Is she mentally capable of understanding her responsibilities as a mother as her sister suggested? Was she taken advantage of by men who spotted some vulnerability and pounced? Did she exhibit a cavalier and promiscuous attitude due to some childhood trauma or lack of education? Her sister is reported as saying she would’ve preferred her sister to have remained in prison and received counselling or, if released, to have taken ‘stop’ as a precondition. Those sentiments speak volumes.
The Neena Blair tragedy, prefaced by a history of neglect and irresponsibility, is one of hundreds of cases where children – innocent, full of life and laughter, lacking in artifice and therefore blissfully naive, have had their lives needlessly and savagely desecrated by some of the very people (not only parents) on whom they depend for protection and nurturing. Here’s a reminder – just a few of the more horrific cases of child abuse, neglect, and murder that have gripped our country over the years.
The story of Lilawattie, the little girl who was killed and thrown into a pit latrine because of a strange dream and lust for money, has haunted my imagination since my mother first told of it more than 50 years ago. In 1969 I was almost witness to the murder of two young girls in Charlotte Street by their father who also killed their mother before taking his own life. I saw one of them, about ten years old, lying on the concreted yard with a bullet hole through her arm and side, still in school uniform.
Fast forward thirty-something years. The 2008 Lusignan massacre, in which children asleep in their beds were riddled with bullets, tore at our nation’s heart. In 2011 at Soesdyke, a man armed himself with two knives and murdered his three children in their bed. In 2013 another ‘Dad’ hacked his two young children to death, devastating an East Bank of Essequibo community. And a few years later it was a 9 year-old kite-flyer tripping happily along until a man, supposedly of unsound mind, did a different kind of tripping, and then performed on him almost unthinkable acts, ending in murder.
At about the same time I heard of the situation in Baramita where girls as young as nine were regularly raped, offered up to prostitution, plied with liquor, impregnated, stuck with STDs, and forced to abandon their education. Suicides were prevalent, and increased to the point where Education Minister, Dr. Rupert Roopnaraine declared that the village was in a state of emergency two years ago. Welcome to 21st century Guyana!
Since then we’ve had the Rozario sisters burnt to death (through arson) practically in their sleep, the George brothers perishing almost needlessly in a fire at the Drop-in Centre, the heinous butchering of a two-year-old by his father, and just a few days ago an eight-month-old baby burnt to death in a fire allegedly set by one or more members of a criminal gang. These examples are just the tip of a monstrous garbage-heap of abuse, neglect and murder perpetrated on some of the most vulnerable in our society.
As I’ve declared time and again I have no real understanding of why life, and adults, seem to turn so harshly and so arbitrarily on some individuals, particularly children, and I certainly don’t have any conclusive answers to the questions this raises. I simply comment, give an opinion here, a suggestion there, help out as practically as I can, and leave the rest to God and the experts. I’ll continue doing that until I die.
Here’s a broad suggestion: We can look at what other countries are doing/have done with regard to safeguarding the much-touted rights of children. Many of us I know do not like the ‘American way’ of bringing up children, but there are some great examples we can learn from, and we don’t want to discard the proverbial baby with whatever dirty bathwater we may perceive there. A biblical admonition may be relevant here; in 1Thessalonians 5, we are encouraged to ‘test all things, and hold on to what is good’
Finally – I’ve never had much in the area of material possession or financial wealth, but what I do have is a blessing I wouldn’t change for anything, and at my age you know I mean what I say. It’s my amazing affinity for children and they for me; at least I like to think so.
Neena Blair, Joshua and Antonio George, Theresa and Feresa Rozario, Joel Ganesh, Belika, George, and Daniel Blanchard, and the Lusignan five (Raywattie, Ron, Vanessa, Seegobin, and Seegopaul) among others, could have been my own grandchildren.
In my undying imagination they are alive ‘somewhere over the rainbow’ oblivious to the vagaries of their short lives and the savagery of their untimely deaths. The child in me badly wants that scenario to be the truth of an alternative reality. Like my caption asks, “Do we truly believe the children are our future?”

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