Dear Editor,
My brother, Elijah, is the funniest person I know. His wit is quick and sharp and extremely intelligent if at times, like mine, politically incorrect. At sixteen years old, he can deliver a perfectly timed one-liner, or ad-lib, for an uninterrupted half hour, the plot of some epic cinematic trilogy parodying some aspect or the other of anything from the quirks of particular family members to the shortcomings of the OLPF. He regularly turns family time together into an hours long sitcom and has a brilliant career of satire ahead of him if he so chooses.
A few nights ago, he went to a neighbourhood shop to buy something and was stranded when rain began to fall. While waiting for a lull in the downpour, three young men calmly walked into the shop, put on masks and one of them grabbed Elijah by his lapels, put a gun to his head and ordered him back into the shop. A few minutes later, Guyhoc Park resident, Heron Dennis was on the floor of the shop, shot dead, right in front of my brother. I didn’t know Heron personally but I knew his face from the area and it saddens me that his children will be denied their father forever. It could easily have been my brother, a light that would have been snuffed out senselessly and there is no dispensation of justice that could have filled the abyss his absence would have left in all of us who love him.
The spiralling violent crime in this place has everything to with the environment that the PPP has created or contributed to over the past two decades. It has to do with massive disparities in income and the intense poverty that is fostered by the unprecedented corruption of Freedom House and its facilitators. It has to do with the undermining of the Guyana Police Force where competent, honest and professional officers like David Ramnaraine and Paul Slowe are sidelined for speaking out. It has to do with the narco-trafficking that has flourished under the PPP, and the trickling down of illegal weapons as the various cartels enhance their respective armouries.
The leadership of the PPP, as well as those who benefit from the corruption and those pontificating in support of Freedom House from the comfort of their homes overseas obviously see this place in some of abstract and clinical way. It doesn’t affect them directly so everything that anyone has to say about what is indecent about governance and citizen security automatically equates to zero.
Meanwhile, my sixteen-year-old brother was exposed to the sort of experience that grown men go through entire tours of duties in war and still manage to miss, and if they are subject to it, many are indelibly scarred – my nine-year-old son who looks up to Elijah and likes to follow him around could easily have been there.
The Commissioner of Police, in light of the recent spate of violent robberies has given the sterling advice that the general public should, as a safety precaution, avoid whispering men in corner shops. He has failed, however, to recommend what measures to ensure personal safety that a teenager sheltering from the rain should take. Meanwhile, his boss – to whom he has publicly sworn and reaffirmed his fealty – the Minister of Home Affairs sees corruption as a non-issue, as does the Minister’s boss, the President of Guyana.
The reason that the Government of Guyana cannot associate with the reality of the majority of the people here is because the prevailing ethos in Freedom House is a blind and unrepentant freeloading mentality complete with all the logical and moral disconnection inherent.
The only reason and morality that the PPP knows is entitlement, a hyper-nourishment at the expense of the collective body and soul of all the rest of us, including the mass of its own supporters. The young man shot dead in Enmore for a few dollars bleeds the same as the young man shot dead in Guyhoc Park for his cell phone, but that is okay as long as the contracts keep coming, the river of money keeps flowing and the children of Freedom House are safe in their guarded mansions.
More than ten years ago, I made the decision to stay here and write from here because I believe that literature has a role in changing society for the better. But ten years ago, I wasn’t yet a father. I will remain here as long as is possible, but the incident with my brother has made me certain that this country under the shadow of the PPP is not a place that I will risk raising my son. I love my country a great deal, and I have endured tremendous sacrifice to remain here, but that pales in comparison to the love I have for him.
Yours faithfully,
Ruel Johnson