THE recent school shooting in Florida, USA, which claimed 17 lives, compels us to yet again ask some serious questions about the state of contemporary society. Although the incident occurred in the USA and may point to something unique about that country, the rest of the world should not behave as if the root causes of the problem and the consequences of the incident do not affect all of us. And, yes, this latest tragedy represents a big problem that has gone out of control.

Since the Columbine incident in 1999, there have been 25 fatal school shootings in which 122 lives have been lost in American schools. The Washington Post has estimated that approximately 150,000 students have experienced a school shooting during that period.
These are staggering figures by any stretch of the imagination.

Yet there seems to be no consensus at the political level on what needs to be done to stem the tide. In the end, it must be said that the loss of so many young lives must serve as an indictment of the human family. Why have human lives become so cheap? There is something seriously wrong when individuals can walk into a school of 3,000 students and just randomly begins shootin?g at all in sight. But that individual comes from a society which must take responsibility for facilitating such senseless behaviour.

When we look at the volume of gun-violence and other forms of violence against children in countries around the world, we are hard-pressed not to conclude that what is happening in America is not isolated to that country. Yes, it is there that the problem is most pronounced, but it is from there that most of the world draws its behavioural patterns. Globalisation is not just about the integration of finances, technology and markets, it is also about the integration of negative behavioural patterns. Hence the problem of gun-violence in schools and in general is a global problem.

Here in Guyana, while we have not had mass shootings in schools, we have had to contend with other forms of violence — some of which have claimed lives. Schools should be safe spaces, not frightening places. But if the larger society is frightening, then it is a stretch to assume that our schools would be safe. In the last couple of days, for example, we have learned of individuals peddling illicit drugs in schools—a phenomenon that appears to be more prevalent than it appears.

So, the big lesson of the recent school shooting in the USA for us in Guyana is the need to focus on ensuring that at the level of the larger society, we should confront the issue of gun-violence as a form of disregard for the value of human life. All too often we have dismissed individual violence as an individual error of judgement, or as deliberate action on the part of the perpetrator without giving due attention to the socialisation factor— the extent to which the individual act reflects a darker side of our collective behaviour.

The second big lesson is political. Despite the normality of gun-violence in schools, American law-makers have not been able to enact legislation and policies aimed at de-normalisation of the phenomenon. The problematic of having to choose between the imperatives of political ideology and the protection of human lives is real. Politicians are more and more losing sight of the relationship between policy or lack thereof and peoples-lived realities. Politicians have drifted into a politics of abstraction in which policies are constructed solely or mostly on the basis of electoral and other political considerations. In such a scenario, incidents such as the school shootings are viewed as separate and apart from politics.

This lesson is poignant for us in Guyana, where we have often allowed party politics to stand in the way of human progress. The violence in our society must be tackled as an overriding matter of urgency. We should not wait until it gets to the magnitude of America’s, for by then we would not have the capacity or will to confront it. Beginning today, all of us should begin paying attention to the root causes of violence both in the larger society, and in our schools.

Our hearts go out to the families of the victims in Parkland, Florida. They now must bury their dead and pick up their lives after the trauma. In a sense, that trauma would be permanent for those families and the community. But we need more than prayers and condolences—we need a spiritual revolution and a political will to put a stop to the madness. For Guyana, it is a straight case of while your neighbour’s house is burning, start pouring water on yours.