Since 2020 when the mutilated bodies of Isaiah and Joel Henry were found, their relatives have been standing on a bridge over troubled waters. The bridge should lead to a place of truth and peace, and the troubled waters should calm if the family ever receives justice.
On Tuesday, while Guyanese celebrated the announcement of visa free travel to the United Kingdom and the fact that many Guyanese are gullible and that their minds are colonised was once again evident, the Henrys were plunged into a state of mourning once more. The wound that was inflicted on that family in 2020, bled profusely on Tuesday night when Patricia Henry, mother of murdered Isaiah Henry, died suddenly of a suspected heart attack at the age of fifty-three. Relatives have said that she died of stress and a broken heart. And why would that be surprising? In this harsh society we call Guyana, the pursuit of justice for the most brutal murders can be slow or go unsolved and the guilty ones behind them can be protected or scapegoats can take their places. How are we to ever be comfortable when we know that our children can leave our homes and never return; that their bodies can be mutilated like a butcher’s kill, their blood drained into the earth, and there can be carvings in their faces to please malevolent entities. We must be reminded of the great evil that was done to the bodies of the Henrys. How are we comfortable and quiet knowing that a family who loses their children, can be treated as if they are the ones culpable in their own demise and justice be slow and not certain?
The injustice is not only that the Henry boys were killed but also the harassment that the family has had to endure. This mother lost one son to murder and the other was accused of a retaliative murder of Haresh Singh, of which the family claims he is innocent. A family simply cannot recover from such tragedy and carry on as if all is well.
People lose their children, and some can live for many moons and rains. After a while their sorrow may become silent, but the grief slowly dims their light.
The death of Patricia Henry began in September 2020. She was a mother who would have felt her baby move in her womb, birthed him, held him at her breasts and watched him grow into a youth with a future filled with promises only to be thrown into a nightmare. We cannot be surprised that the pieces of her heart could not mend. Some would say that mother and son are reunited where the spirits of the dead congregate. Still, how long must we wait for justice for the Henrys?
To be a Guyanese who wants truth, equality, and justice for all is to be constantly angry and in mourning when you realize that in this season it will not be. And perhaps that is why most of our people cope by embracing the illusions and distracting themselves by news like visa free travel to a place their once colony helped to build.
I often wonder if the turmoil in this country is partly because of restless spirits of those who were murdered from the time there was a land with no name, a British Guiana and then Guyana. It is a place where the colonisers’ scorn penetrated the people even as their nations rose while hundreds of years later, this nation hopes to rise with oil though the basic human rights of many Guyanese are still disregarded. How can a country rise to its best while moral decay is evident? How can a country rise to its best when haunted places house restless spirits? How can we know peace when mothers like Patricia Henry die without seeing justice?
Her death like the deaths of her son and his cousin is a tragedy. It is not only a tragedy that demonstrates how inhumane and wicked people can be, but it is also one that exposes our weaknesses. Our protests end at their inceptions. Our voices disappear with the wind. The knees of Guyanese buckle when there are attempts to stand for justice. Sometimes it seems like a spell has been cast over our people to keep us subdued. Sometimes it seems like all that is wicked and unjust is casting a shadow over that which is righteous and fair. Like it is a season where there are murderers, abusers and rapists who seem to be in their winning season. We see that all criminals are not equal here for while some face just punishment for their crimes, others get away with a smile.
We are not angry that what happened to the Henrys can happen to any of our families. We are not angry that the family was harassed. We are not angry when people can excuse murder by seeking to criminalise children who were not criminals. We are not angry about the racial undertones that surround the Henrys case. We are not angry that justice is like a sleeping dragon for many Guyanese and when that dragon decides to wake, we all are at risk of being burned. Are we angry?
Perhaps by not being angry, we are protecting ourselves. But like gold passes through fire, we Guyanese are passing through the fire, but will we emerge fine and valuable like the gold, or will we melt and eventually be a people who could have been great, who once were and who disappeared as we allowed the darkest parts of ourselves to feed the moral decay.
