The Tribune

By DR IAN BETHELL-BENNETT

As we are flanked on all sides by dire straights, the soaring violence is not surprising. As the economy worsens, prices are raised by an unaware government and jobs disappear people react with anger and fear.

They have nothing anchoring them to civility. They come from homes where there is nothing but anger and abuse and so they know nothing about anger and abuse. Their answer to any insult is violence. There are few if any interactions in their daily lives that are not violent. At the same time we blame them for the violence. We have not stopped to take stock of the decay around us. Government has been giving speeches as governments do; they talk about progress and development but with no real substance. They offer pie-in-the-sky promises, but deliver on maybe a sliver of that pie, and that usually goes to staunch party supporters.

Meanwhile, there is an entire country unravelling. Government’s answer is more policing and more force, build more prisons and higher walls, gate more communities and put more police in schools. But the communities that are starved in all of this are the ones these fellows represent. These communities are where their votes come from and these communities are suffering badly. They are dealt a poor hand, but they demand little. They are given a poor education and an even poorer sense of self. They may seem self-assured, but that assurance is an act. The world is hostile towards them and they are hostile towards the world.

Over the last few weeks there have been few commentaries about mundane violence and more of a focus on murder, yet people are terrified to move around.

Last December, there was a child killed in school. Three teens were charged with his murder. This event garnered some attention but nothing changed. No real support went into school psychology or guidance. We have severely damaged schools and ineffective and inefficient public administrators who do little other than frustrate the students they are meant to be developing.

The best place to see the anger, aggression and general state of the nation is in Oakes Field. Everything is on display.

Thompson Boulevard is a nucleus for acting out anger, and along with Poinciana Drive and Farrington Road show us how we are living. The violence, chaos and anger acted out in this area every weekday is alarming.

If this is what happens now, there is little hope for the country in five years. At the same time, government is promising a better life and the opposition is saying they have the answers. No one, however, is concerned with stopping social decay.

They are talking without really saying or doing anything. We have been assaulted by violence in the streets in Oakes Field for months if not years now, and it is growing and worsening. If one leaves a small lump untreated it eventually becomes a massive carbuncle and explodes with puss and poisons the entire body. Death occurs shortly after. As this kind of ‘low-level’ violence worsens, police are given greater powers to arrest young men.

Society blames the boys for the violence and chaos, but the boys have not acted alone. They are actually egged on by girls, they are also egged on by adults who laugh at them. These hormonally-charged and uncared-for youth are fed up and angry. They are pushed to perform and not in good ways. They are told they will never be anything and pinched, prodded and punched, not to mentioned insulted into action.

The recent death of a school girl after being hit by a ‘stray’ rock on a bus speaks to the trouble we have and the disaster that is coming down the pipeline. This is what we see in Oakes Field daily.

The other week we had a full-on rock and bottle war, but it did not make the papers really; it did not hit the news nor the talk shows. It is too unsensational. People’s property was damaged, rocks flew blind through the air and into people’s cars.

No one in that society really cares anymore. They are simply training up fighters because no one has time to give any love. They give a few slaps seasoned with some goat pepper for good flavour, a few pieces of rock salt, some bitter bile and a good dose of anger. The parents have taught these children nothing, for the most part. There are some really good parents out there though, and their work with their children is undone by a sea of hardened by poverty and inhumanity folks who will let everything go except an insult. The damage is so deeply carved into the psyche of the people that it will take a good two generations to change it. This kind of violence and anger is destroying the country as government claims to be tough on crime and even tougher on young men.

Young men who throw rocks and fight in the streets act out of blind rage for a reason. Many are the young women who provoke these youths into ill-advised action and then standby and watch. Few are the parents who coach these youth and provide them with any kind of love to build a real sense of self. Those parents are too busy sharing their bilious anger and disappointment at life and the hand they have been dealt.

This is not a PLP problem, nor is it an FNM problem (government is too backward to fix it).

It is a national problem and all society needs to work to undo the damage of violent males egged on by even more violent females who throw the first stone and then hide their hands.