We live like prisoners in our own homes

May 25, 2023 Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom

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Kaieteur News – When a Guyanese is surprised that a friend or colleague has only now discovered a fact, they usually say, “Boy, you are like Christopher Columbus!” This is our way of expressing surprise at another person’s surprise discovery of some fact.

The Portuguese sailor who it is said “discovered” the New World sailed to these parts more than five centuries ago. But it seems as if today we have a lot of sailors who, like him, have made earth-shaking “discoveries”.

People are still in shock at the recent disaster in our country. And all manner of questions are being asked as to why the school’s female dormitory was so heavily grilled and why the doors were locked.

This is Guyana and this is how we have been living for the past 50 years. This is how the majority of the population lives; we live like prisoners in our own homes, our windows heavily grilled and our doors grilled and shuttered. So why should we be surprised that the windows of the school’s dormitory were grilled?

Don’t most of us on the coast live under similar conditions? Do most of us not face the same risk every night when we go to sleep? So why are we behaving like Christopher Columbus?

The ones who should be surprised that their children were forced to sleep behind heavily fortified windows and doors should be the parents of the children who perished in the blaze at Mahdia. The country’s Indigenous communities are not accustomed to grills on their windows and doors.

But urban residents and even persons residing in rural Guyana should not be surprised at all. On the Essequibo Coast, most homes now have either wooden bars or grill work reinforcing the security of their windows. In the urban areas, anyone building without steel grilled-work or reinforced doors is at risk of burglaries. This is how we have been forced to live since the 1970s.

It was not always this way. Every community, every village, every town, every ward used to have wicked persons. They used to have persons who would raid your farm and your livestock. But your home used to be considered off-limits. Home invasions were extremely rare.

In fact, it was so rare that before the 1970s, persons could retire for the night and leave their doors open. You could leave your bicycle unlocked under your house and be sure to find it there the next morning.

Don’t risk that today! Not only would the thieves cart off your belongings, they might even cart you off in the process. This is how we live in this country.

When the economic hardships struck in the 1980s, things got worse and home invasions increased exponentially. Then the terror was unleashed.

The ‘kick-down-the-door’ (KDTD) banditry erupted. Heavily armed bandits would invade your home, rob you and the rape your female family members. Persons were even killed in the process. It was an era of unprecedented terror.

This triggered massive outward migration. Tens of thousands of Guyanese sought and acquired asylum in foreign countries on the grounds of being victims of or being afraid of criminal attacks. Just read some of the immigration cases on the Canadian Citizenship and Immigration website and you will appreciate how this crime wave led to droves of Guyanese leaving the shores and successfully petitioning for foreign residency.

Prior to KDTD, poor households used to place drinks bottles behind their windows at nights so that if anyone came through them, the bottles would fall to the floor and the sound would alert the owners. People started to lock their bedroom doors and those with outdoor toilets used to have posies under their beds to urinate in so that they would not have to go during the cover of darkness to the outdoor toilet.

The KDTD banditry made all of those security measures redundant. Armed bandits would come and using their feet kick your door open. Wooden bars of drinks bottles could not protect you from the KDTD bandits.

And this is how the use of iron and steel bars and grills increased. This is how the metallurgical revolution originated. Artisans made a ton of money in Guyana by constructing grills for windows and doors.

People have died before in Guyana, unable to escape when their homes were on fire. We hear about the famous case of cultural icon, Laksmi Kalicharran, who was roasted alive in her home because she could not get her grilled doors and windows open in time to escape. But many others have suffered such a fate.

This is how it has been for the last 50 years. We are all potentially in the same position which those children found themselves in last Sunday night. At nights, we become prisoners in our own homes.

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