The reason for the shooting of Dr. O’Toole and the bomb threats

Feb 17, 2019 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon

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I didn’t use “reason” in the plural deliberately. There is one fundamental cultural, sociological and psychological reason why Dr. O’ Toole was shot and some schools endured bomb threats. First, the man, Brian O’Toole.
It is virtually incredible that someone would want to kill Dr. O’Toole. This is a gentleman whose students adore him. He is a fine educator and a nice human being. I have known Dr. O’ Toole for a number of years now and in the countless conversations we had, the impression is plainly visible – a positive, thinking, concerned human.
A few months ago, Dr. O’Toole called me to ask me to resume my academic career. He wanted me to teach in the Masters programme in journalism at the School of the Nations University will soon be introducing. I liked Dr. O’Toole too much to have said yes. So I lied to him. I told him I have a full plate, which was not true. I thought my high profile as a political activist in a dangerous country like Guyana would cause power holders to target his university (PPP, PNC and AFC power-drunk Leviathans do not play – ask David Hinds and Lincoln Lewis).
The person who shot Dr. O’Toole has not been arrested, neither the person who made the threat to the schools (there has been an arrest for the scare at UG). Will there be more? When there was a mass shooting at one of the schools in the US, President Obama candidly told the American people that sadly there will be more such incidents. There have been many since Obama demitted office.
Guyana will see more nihilistic violence, because this is a tragically broken down country where there is no leader or figure that has risen above the routine insanities, and that the nation looks up to him/her for guidance. This country is being moved by social and political leaders who don’t have strong moral authority and display decisive, transformative leadership.
In every dimension of its existence, meaning of life in this country is vanishing, and people do not have a sense of belonging and a sense of humanity. The current generation has no knowledge of what values this country rests on. And who is this current generation? They are very young people. Almost seventy percent of Guyana’s population is below age 35. Almost half of the citizenry is at the age of 25.
When you have such a young population and they see the unfairness in the justice system; the social sadism inherent in class-divided Guyana; the purchase of anyone and everyone by big money; the perverted exploitation of working class employees; the cruel unconcern and brutal insensitivities of ruling politicians and other types of leaders; the exception from prosecution by people with status and wealth, the failure to get redress for painful wrongs perpetuated by bureaucrats, police officials, magistrates, businessmen, power-holders, these young people become alienated and angry.
They will vent their feeling on the bank teller, not the Bank of Guyana and the Ministry of Finance. They will direct their anger at the police constable, not those in charge of the magistrates. They will hurt a school teacher because they are mad with how the system, not the school teacher, treats them.
Just a modicum of examples of what a shambolic, nihilistic, wasteland Guyana has become will not fill several columns, much less one article. Trevor Benn, the head of Lands and Surveys comes to mind. Three days ago, we had a conversation and he said, “Freddie, I want you to quote me”. Trevor said when his agency, armed with legal authority, stops wealthy people from taking over the government reserves and building on them or hijacking state lands for themselves, a day after his officials issue a stop order, the defiance continues, because money has been passed and his agency cannot do a damn thing about it.
Three years ago, Guyana was the suicide capital of the world. The academics that write on suicide in Guyana are jokers, and I had to chastise one such academic from Holland a few years ago. Young people cannot cope with the breakdown of this country and its failed nature. They do not have the experience to provide psychological cushion for themselves.
I wonder if the desperate, angst-driven young people had read Nietzsche, they would have been more optimistic. Nietzsche wrote that the Übermensch is coming to save total civilization. I believe that. But my criticism of Nietzsche is that he didn’t invest the Übermensch with rational thinking. The Übermensch will come, but he will distinguish which country he will save and which he will ignore. I know which one he will not save.

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