Latest update June 3rd, 2026 12:40 AM
Mahdia’s tragedy, the pain
Dear Editor
My pain is unbearable, and if this be mine, then that of the Indigenous Guyanese community has to be beyond the blood of anguish that I sweat, the convulsions that wrack. Oh! The horror and agony of 19 young schoolchildren, the flower of indigenous womanhood, trapped in a cage and savaged by fire, then transformed into human pyres. There is nothing remaining of them, but the bitterest ashes in the mouths of parents maddened by grief, and a community struck in the cruelest manner, from both loss and the incredible contempt that came in the wake of their untimely, harrowing deaths.
All the right words and phrases are uttered, but they mean nothing. There will be three days of national mourning, but with a careful eye to complete that inconvenience in time for the usual Independence Day fun and frolic. How can this be, even contemplated, when Guyana has just had the equivalent of a mass killing. What kind of people are we? Of which god do we claim to be? What has happened to our humanity, or does this not extend to the indigenous people?
Nineteen gone, and we cannot even give them our time, our attention, our hearts. Surely, Indigenous life cannot be this devalued, this cheap. One can only imagine the outrage, the explosion of emotion and passion, if it were children other than Indigenous children, who had died like this, as prisoners, when their only crime was wanting an education, hoping to be somebody.
Surely, these dead Indigenous young are due some dignity, unlike what they got, where they met their gruesome end, in a cage of steel and concrete. My heart is wrenching, when the thought comes that the only feature that was missing had to be surrounding barbwire to seal the crematorium that is now their final place of stealthy restless sleep. It was what came like a thief in the night, and snatched their breaths, their life, away, with powerful authority, with fearsome finality. They had no chance. They were as good as dead. And now, the rush is for this to be over and done with, so that the festivities could not be interrupted.
Oh, the urge is to call for ‘heads to roll’, and there are many, and of that there must be at the proper time and place. Presently, the priority is for the Indigenous community to bury these young beloveds, these now forever lost ones. Amid the ugly official formality, I call upon my people, my own indigenous sisters and brothers, grieving mothers and helpless fathers, let us do our duty and bury our dead with love in our hearts and dignity in our steps. It is at times like this that the Guyana Indigenous community, none like those stricken parents, whose lives have been ripped to shreds, know what it is to live the soaring, immortal words of that great Greek philosopher, Aeschylus:
“Even in our sleep, pain which cannot forget
falls drop by drop upon the heart
until, in our own despair, against our will,
comes wisdom through the awful grace of God.”
I pray for the parents. I pray for the Indigenous Guyanese community. I pray for Guyana. Lord, give us the strength and courage. Give us the grace.
Yours faithfully,
Mervyn Williams
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