PLEASE allow me, via your letter columns, a quick rejoinder to Ms Samaroo’s lamentations under the headline, “Alarming number of youths being prosecuted for serious crimes” carried in the February 10 edition of the Kaieteur News.Immediately after the chaos emanating from the 2002 Camp Street jailbreak was brought under control, I went on record as warning of the presence of youthful gangs and a proliferation of small arms easily obtainable because of our porous borders. I was not alone.
Indeed, the present tragedy was, unintentionally perhaps, hatched and nurtured years ago by the brains behind the jailbreak. Their present impotence to rein in the children soldiers who have now become the proverbial monsters, manifests itself in the daily assaults on the citizenry, regardless of age, race or religion.
Sadly, the easiest way out for many is to lay total responsibility for what is happening at the doorstep of the Administration. Pontius Pilate is certainly alive! These marauding and dangerous youths do not come from “space”, and neither do they disappear into space. They are not aliens; they live in our villages, in our neighbourhoods. We know them; we know what they do. We helped raise them, and we excused away the petty wrongs they were doing; we hid them when the law came for them; we shared in the loot they took off others; we tell them it is okay to steal and rob, because they are poor.
Today, the petty thief is a robber, a hijacker, a murderer. And we are afraid to speak out against his atrocities. Why? Because he is one of our collective? Where is the guilt of the Administration in any of this? Where is our own guilt as citizens? Schools, Churches, Community Centres, etc., etc., were designed to serve a purpose, the primary of which is to develop and guide our young and impressionable children into becoming responsible and productive adults. Have we, as teachers, ministers of (whatever) religion, community leaders succeeded?
Schools today are venues for making extra earnings through extra lessons; many Churches are commercial endeavours; many community centres and playgrounds are pastures for cattle. Did the Adminstration do this? Or did we allow it to happen?
As adults, whether in school, church or the community; whether as parents or neighbours, we as a society have deserted our youths; we have encouraged and widened the disconnect that naturally exists between generations, because of our own insecurities as adults. We seem afraid to embrace, guide and empower our youths. We are reluctant to allow our youths to take us to their future. Rather, we insist on dragging them to our past.
It is my appeal that our citizenry recognise that crime will overpower us if we allow it to do so. As older folks, we must accept that the fight against crime must involve our youths themselves. Our youths also wish for a peaceful and crime-free society. This combination will work if we want it to work. Any other option is unthinkable.
Written By Taajnauth Jadunauth