Last week the world celebrated Diwali. Diwali is a celebration of light over darkness, good over evil, and knowledge over ignorance. In this period of Earth’s history, we need an abundance of light. We seem to have sunk into darkness – moral depravity and despair – surviving what is and fearing what is to come. Many are longing for the order of the past refusing to accept that the world we once knew no longer exists. Some may describe what we are experiencing as a time of evil; that the dark forces of the world have taken the reins, steering mankind deeper into hopelessness and death. For most of us, there has never been a more trying time since we have been alive. It was unexpected and we were unprepared and we have been forced into surviving rather than living. Yet, this is not the darkest period that the world has ever experienced. We know imperialism and slavery, wars and genocide, and famines and pandemics of the past. Racism is still a global crisis. Poverty is still a global crisis. Mental illness is still a global crisis. We must work on opening our third eye to experience different levels of consciousness; visualize a world where we are all free, equal and healthy. Regularly escaping this reality even for a short time is how many of us will survive.
The global darkness has of course penetrated Guyana. On Diwali last week, I spent time reflecting on the state of our country. I could not get into the spirit of Diwali. Not when our country is divided more than it has ever been in recent history. For too long the darkness has been overshadowing the light here; for too long ignorance has been bliss and many of us have kept lying to ourselves; for too long we have been looking into the faces of evil but cannot seem to overcome.
I could not get into the spirit of Diwali when our leaders continue to be divisive and what seems most important to some of them is debating and debasing each other; being vindictive and shamelessly displaying what many of us already knew about them—that it is not good governance and sound leadership that is most important to them, but self-aggrandizement, revenge and displaying how hollow and indecent they are.
I could not get into the spirit of Diwali when people are being fired without just cause by the government, a government that said there would be no witch-hunting. But I am never surprised when governments lie to the people. They are masters of this. We have an opposition of mainly reporters, it seems. They will report on the ills and mistakes of the government but it seems to stop there.
I could not get into the spirit of Diwali, because Joel and Isaiah Henry and Haresh Singh are still the ghosts the guilty and their cohorts are trying to forget exist. They seem to be wishing also that they could erase the memories of all who are aware of what happened to those boys and continue like things are well in this country. Things are not well in Guyana.
I passed a small protest on Brickdam a few days ago for the Henry boys. I could see the despair in the faces of the few protestors. I wondered why it was not a larger demonstration; if I had not passed there at that time I would not have known. In some other countries, crowds would take the streets daily calling for the killers of those boys to be found; the protests would not end until there was justice. But a culture of docility continues here and it has nothing to do with the COVID guidelines.
Immediately after the deaths of the Henrys, we saw the protests. Our leaders here are quick to quell the people. We must be peaceful they say. But how are the parents of murdered children supposed to rest and find peace and be whole again while those who butchered their children walk free? The minority we have in leadership assert their power because they are afraid of the people rebelling and overthrowing the system that has suppressed them for too long. But still, the majority, which is us, the ordinary people, seem too timid to challenge them.
I could not get into the spirit of Diwali because I was fighting the sorrow. It was only last week that I wrote about the sixteen-year-old who was killed by a predator. A few days ago another woman was murdered by her husband in Berbice. Amrita and Sanesha, your names will not be forgotten.
There is also the daily suffering of Guyana’s children. Only this week we learned of the seventeen-year-old being shot in the head at a sleepover and dying a few hours later. And the sixteen-year-old who was found dead after drinking with her mother. There are also the deaths by suicide being buried quietly. This weeping we have been enduring as a country we have been enduring long past the night. The joy that comes with the morning is not enough to sustain us through the day. I will not allow it to consume me. How long must we grieve for Guyana? The prevalent social ills and the growing COVID crisis in our country are disturbing. Being an empath could be a difficult path to walk in a society where depravity is abundant.
We cannot deceive ourselves into believing that it is an abundance of light here because we think we are not enveloped by darkness or are being haunted by the fiends. We cannot ignore the suffering of our brothers and sisters, support blatant discrimination and wickedness with our silence and believe that good is triumphing over evil in Guyana. The evil that affects one will eventually affect all when it is allowed to spread. We are broken because we have chosen to be ignorant instead of seeking knowledge and exercising wisdom; we have chosen to remain docile; we have chosen to remain unchanged. How long will we continue to pretend that all is well?
