I HAD a meaningful conversation recently with a businessman friend of over two decades and the conversation revolved around the phenomenon of how difficult it is to attract staff that are honest; even though they would agree with the wages offered, once in, they morph negatively. As devil’s advocate I proposed whether the wages he was paying could inspire honesty? He was puzzled, and told me to elaborate, which I did, outlining housing, education, basic comforts, food, health-care and a reasonable stash for the variables, sudden sickness, visits for medical check-ups, to the dentist, and to the optician. My friend sucked his teeth, threw a few fish-market adjectives at me, and with human reasoning of self survival explained what the expectations of his family obligations were, against the fluctuating fortunes of his business. Recently I paid a visit to a hospital for a medical check-up, it was sponsored. The process was never completed for in a man’s world bills take precedence over himself, that inborn machismo and Kamikaze-like loyalty to the culture of duty in the majority of men, propel us towards self-neglect and the reality of too late. This is also true of women who find themselves in the predicament of being all there is, to the family unit. In Guyana, the emphasis is on the empowerment of women, this is not a bad thing, but an entire perspective of data is relegated, shelved to the file room of indifference. The cause for collective gender empowerment reverberates with profound evidence. The crisis of the male in our cultural environment, hang the statistics of its dirty linen in the open for all to see, if we wish to see. For every one female that is destitute on the streets as a result of mental Illness, drug addiction, or homelessness, there are 10 males, and males at a younger age. For every one female incarcerated in both juvenile and adult criminal facilities, there are at least nine/10 males. In the public service, males are outnumbered by at least 60% females to 40/45% males. There must be no category of career choice that is restricted to any gender and Guyana has gone beyond that. To answer the employment statistic, public service jobs are not considered in a high-paying bracket, so men shy away. We then have to look at the emergence of sub-cultures and standing customs that generate such negative imbalances.
The sub-culture that evolved during the Roger Khan-criminal/political culture has allowed the formation of muscle-based criminalised militias, of two opposing factors. The recruitment targeted mainly males, the philosophy that prevailed was the short-cut to the social accoutrements of success without the work of skills training, illiteracy, or adherence to standard laws and principles, a local formation of the Oscar Dirlewanger Brigade of WW2, [a collection of psychopaths put together by the Nazis whose excesses angered even the SS leadership] in our case, murder became the access to all, with ‘Big Man’ Cartel-political support, that would provide immunity. I was actually threatened by one such late “trunker” thug over an incident when a young man ran to my home seeking sanctuary from this character, who was chasing him. It must be recognised at what period in our current history that the escalation of private persons wanting mother, husband, wife, etcetera murdered, began. 90% of the recruited were male. Then there is the other reality as mentioned in my article on March, 6, 2016 ‘The culture of managing the tribes of this era,’ where I elaborated on the disappearance of mass muscle based semi-skilled employment. In that article I also pointed to the secondment of elder sons [particularly in the matriarchal section of our population] to fill the space of vacant fathers, who did not all leave through nefarious intent. Many such sons never recover, some can’t even analyse their predicament. Because the family they’re creating while being a surrogate father for siblings, end up suffering, and the social definition is the current poster definition of the delinquent father, a term not applicable to 60% of males. For the guilty others, upon a child’s registration to play school, the Ministry of Education’s school welfare should establish biological parents and the support status of each child with a visit to that home, their findings should be handed over to other authorities to hear the father’s story, and act accordingly. That oversight is necessary, because if that work is done, then one will find the custom of practice to take sons out of school early to facilitate the schooling of daughters, who’re considered more vulnerable, and are in many cases more vulnerable, and can be dangerous and inadequate if culturally damaged to the children she must raise.
In closing, I wish to emphasise the need for a facility where cheap rent in comparison to today’s average can be established for men, many of whom have jobs but are homeless. I can’t help but see the old radio station building on High Street as fitting such a purpose.