Descent into the dung heap

Mar 29, 2019 Editorial

It went viral, shocking hundreds of thousands of viewers. It was the cellphone videos of a robust, younger man repeatedly kicking a cowering 78-year old woman on a New York subway train. Much ugliness goes on daily on those carriages that move millions. Much of the disturbing went unpublicized before, in what could be, on occasion, a nightmarish underground labyrinth. Not anymore. In a world of cellphone technology and instant communication that is the past, this is now.
The now can capture the brutalizing and inexplicably inhuman. Like this subway kickdown. Like unjustified police shootings and lethal road rage incidents. But on this New York subway system, which so many Guyanese use daily, the incident captured on film is noteworthy for several elements that say so much about the new ways and new world in which we live; the new times, too.
With each kick delivered, the perpetrator performed with ruthless efficiency, through the power and rage of a brutal smackdown. Two persons were too busy filming to intervene or sound any alarm. Some were even having a good time.
Straphangers were too occupied with jostling each other to get a better camera angle and shot so that they could post for public consumption a horror show (a good thing), but also so they can attract some attention to themselves (not such a good thing while someone was being attacked).
All of this was taking place, while an aged, homeless (now revealed to be mentally ill and allegedly armed) woman was being mercilessly pummeled and savaged. Taken together, this is the new monstrosity. But that is not the worst of the story.
While this unbelievable episode was unfolding, “a crowd of straphangers could be heard cheering and “oohing and aww-ing” each time a kick was connected, as if at a boxing match” (NY Post, March 24th). There were six powerful kicks.
When collared, the 36-year old kicker, a man with a police record, essayed defending the indefensible: She had it coming; she was occupying a row of seats, refusing to move, and threatening his family repeatedly with a knife. Some threat that must have been. The best to be said about this troubling and degrading affair is – though threatening, and there is a community history – most times discretion is wiser than aggression. But there are some other things that can be said, and rightfully so, of this world in which we live nowadays, and which is observed right here in the teeming spaces of Guyana.
There is sharp, hard, impatience and psychological cruelties inflicted daily locally. This encompasses even the regularly law-abiding, the circumspect, and the mature and decent.
Here are some frequent examples: First, there is this dangerous rush and squeeze at traffic lights and intersections; the blaring horns are quicker than Burt Lancaster did draw at the OK Corral. Second, sober, responsible citizens behave thuggishly and park anywhere; including in front of residential driveways.
Next, accident scenes evidence bullying arguments by those who violated safety rules or traffic laws, and caused damage. Then, there are the now repeated exhibitions of the intrinsic cowardice interwoven in domestic abuse and domestic violence, brutalities and barbarities writ large.
Fifth, there are the louts operating as touts in crowded public spaces to the anxiety and detriment of disgusted commuters. Others extending the continuum, are those males who slide ahead of pregnant women and the elderly in banks and offices; and road users who discard precautions near pedestrian crossings.
It is of a world largely mad. The self-promotion of the egotistical; the obsession with the self-seen everywhere – even in the sanctuary and before God. Look at ME! I am The Magnificent. The pathos of all of this is how revealingly and completely pathetic are the pictures. Leaders live it; followers imitate in a paradise of fools and a growing army of barbarians; at least, mentally. The qualitative deteriorates into the feloniously destructive; and confirms the descent into the dung heap.

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