There can never be rationalization for the utter depravity that occurred in Sophia and Berbice last week. Two men savaged to death in the crudest of ways. The law is lynched, and society dangles helplessly, maybe even exuberantly. And yet, and yet, there is so much to be said, that has been hinted before, at just such heinous developments. Where to start?
Large sections of this nation smoulder with the frustrations of the day. Lawlessness, in so many forms, proliferates: mysterious killings; shadowy dealings; law enforcement disorders. And on and endlessly on… The common denominator is violence; violence chronic and stupefying and mind-bending. We hear of the law characterized by glaring absence when needed, and a steadfast shabbiness and sordidness when present. We watch our leaders (past and present) strutting around in flamboyant exemplification of the coarse and common; it is part of the verbal arsenal dedicated to gut and maim; the machismo of the unlettered.
Truly a fish rots from the head. There is no limit. It is the daily showdown at dismal noon, in a cavalcade of antiheroes of the lowest sort. It is but a short, fateful step for seepage into the larger streams of life. The seepage is now a torrent.
This dirty saturation of the public consciousness and public domain has drifted purposefully into the church. No, there are no sacrosanct places any more. The divisions are raw, naked, and easily discernible. The ugliness knows no obstacles; it recognizes no end. The Cross quivers with a new, strange agony. The merriment continues unabated. The so-called decent hustle to object (yes, they do!): It is not so bad. Get real, brethren. Open the eyes. Free the mind and senses. It is all there on full display: the gamboling in murky hostility; the enjoying of indecency; and the continuing immersion in vulgarity. Let us be honest with ourselves for once – just this one time. It is all there, and yes, it is rank and unspeakably so.
Where are we going? How will we be? Two men died in the worst of circumstances; a part of us died, too. More die different deaths daily; and those are mourned quietly. There is not much in us left to die. But we go on, even as the horizons shrink, as they grow inestimably greyer. Now, a certain kind of madness is the foundation of the sanity that prevails and left to us. We will survive. Just how is the question.
Yours faithfully,
GHK Lall
