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Apr 21, 2018 Letters
DEAR EDITOR,
I have always been one who strives to speak the truth as it is, and not refer to a spade as a garden tool rather than by its correct nomenclature, a spade. I know for a fact that the statements that follow may be a hard pill to swallow, but then again pill-taking is always a start to situational or conditional remediation.
Looking at the recent spate of heinous crimes being committed by young people in Guyana, I cannot help but join in the journey towards an answer. Our young people are in desperate need of leadership and for the elders to display guidance in order to navigate through life as it exists in present day Guyana.
Yes, many of today’s youth do not respect their elders, and truthfully I cannot say that I totally blame them as many elders themselves have not displayed behaviours that would evoke respect, other than the fact that they are elders.
Now read my writing and not my lips – an elder does not mean the same as a senior citizen. One does not have to be a senior citizen to be an elder in the community, but typically a person who has more years behind them than they have ahead of them, should be deemed a supreme elder, but there are also younger folks who have experienced things in life and can lend to this discussion and call to action.
While we cannot blame everything that happens on one group of individuals, in similar manner we must also take some responsibility for what we have allowed to happen in our communities, especially perpetrated by our young people. There are several external forces that significantly contribute to and exacerbate these issues, while the external resources that are available are in actuality ineffective in mitigating the problem. It is almost like a Catch 22 situation.
Another factor is that many of today’s elders are totally unlike their predecessors who did not sit by idly and use some sort of back dam or back-a-yard type of reasoning to remain silent about the issues that plagued their communities.
As we speak, there are many in Guyana who see the drugs being sold in their communities, along with knowing who the sellers are, yet instead of dealing with it in-house, the other cheek is turned and things uttered like: ” that ain’t my problem, “let the police do their job”
Many are also witnesses to the crimes in their communities, that have taken lives and are disrupting families on a daily basis, and again instead of dealing with it in-house, the same response as earlier is uttered.
Although we may not like to hear the narrative, nevertheless the truth of the matter still remains that Guyanese are killing Guyanese, committing crimes against one another, and it is a real issue that is negatively impacting communities. Every day the local newspaper or media is replete with news about a senseless killing over a senseless matter; an unsolved murder, armed robberies, home invasions.
Elders must step up and play the role in dealing with this issue, because it appears that the elders are of the opinion that they are no longer needed to educate, equip and empower the young people to prepare them for the current realities of Guyana, and how the country views them.
Pray say, what has happened to the people who looked out for each other, who knew everyone in and everything about the neighbourhood. They were the absolute master and mistress of looking out their window day and night, and somehow or other being able to miraculously report to the parents/guardians everything that was going on.
They literally put the fear of God in all who knew them. Let me make it clear. Everyone who was up to no good knew that so and so who lived in such and such a house would snitch on them the moment they saw something unusual. You never saw the curtains pull, so you never knew when he or she had an eye full.
We were no stranger growing up in Guyana to a neighbour or resident on our street, and although at the time we may not have liked him or her then, we can now come to appreciate what they were doing for our neighborhood and community. The action that he/she took was (although we did not think or feel so at the time) being done because they wanted to protect us and protect the community they lived in, invested in and cherished.
Whether there are those who may think otherwise or find an inability to accept it, the neighbourhood snitch saved many of us from making bad decisions and horrible mistakes that could have harmed others and brought shame to parents and communities alike.
Collectively we have been far too quick to blame the government, the media or anyone that looks like we can blame, instead of looking in the mirror at ourselves. We need to stop lying to ourselves about where we are as a people and face it head on. We need to stop pacifying each other and tell the truth about things so that we can acknowledge those things.
We will need to overlook the wrongs that have been done to us or what has been taken from us, so that we do not allow our young people to grow up with a survival of the fittest mentality as opposed to one where we can work together to solve and address many of the existing problems in Guyana.
Simply put, this is a plea for the elders to bridge the gap. Doing nothing will cause us to remain stagnant or at worse, it will cause us to experience even more crime, disengagement and bloodshed. Nevertheless, I am still sending an impassioned plea to the elders -‘You have seen the acts and have been given the facts–Let this truth ring true – The youths need you’.
Yvonne Sam
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