–of pains and injuries experienced and profound lessons learnt

ONE of the most significant recent monuments erected in Guyana now stands on the East Coast of Demerara in the village of Buxton.
This monument was conceived by businessman and Buxtonian Morris Wilson, and with kind-thinking friends, it was designed and constructed. It was intended on the noble thought to erect a memorial dedicated to the over 400 persons murdered and killed from 2000 to 2006, during the most bloodied period in our modern history, from 1838 to the present 2017.
The monument was unveiled on August 3, 2012 in Buxton. The government was invited, but they did not even send a representative. No, it was not acknowledged by the PPP. Perhaps it was their guilt and expectation of some moral entrapment that caused them to freeze with suspicion, even before the concept of closure to the most savage and brutal period in the history of the nation, under their administration.
The concepts of monuments always revolve around the more significant moments in the passage of nationhood, and, in many cases, embody turbulent periods of a people’s history.
The idea of moving forward cannot be subject to historic amnesia in the face of realities not culminated from imaginations created from cultural and religious prejudices and fictional dogmas. The events that resonate from this most current Monument have, and continue to be, impacted on the consciousness of many. Some shy away from the raw ugliness of its implications, and the ‘still worse’ that could have been had its political architects had their full rein, void of resistance, to the phantom horsemen that they had unleashed.
The Monument pleads closure, but the modern parallel of the Monument for such a plea would be its own ‘Nuremburg’, where a public account of the known ‘Architects’ can be placed before the conscience of the nation, rather than allow them to continue to entice on the great pretence of their facades of ‘normalcy’ that do require a tremendous amount of temerity and hypocrisy to walk into the presence of people whom you spat upon and smle and tell them you care about their interest.

NOT ALL EQUAL
Not all humans are equal; some lack shame, empathy, and social conscience. These human realities we must come to understand.
There are medical and social terminologies for such people; psychopaths is one. They have an easy smile, lie easily, deceive, and are incapable of moral choices. Nor can they love. The other is the sycophant. This is the eternal lackey: Void of an ego; willing to please and to be deployed on any sinister errand. They belong to the real world, and knowledge of such derogative aspects of our human world will equip us to fully comprehend that Academic, Legal, Religious and Political certifications alone do not endow the humanity of the person before you.
The ancient criteria of “By their works shall they be known” must always be the yardstick for any analysis that determines to where, and to what extent, must your trust and loyalty be extended. Understand the prop packages and mirages of our human world, and you will escape slavery of any kind.
Loyalty is an extension of the Soul, and Knowledge is its best guide; not feelings based on frustrations and rash comforting perceptions, because, as humans, our self- serving conceit will, in the end, betray us. The disposition of this discourse propels from merely standing before, and seeking to understand what is the content of this Buxton Monument, dedicated to the understanding of closure.
The elements that ricochet from the names etched in stone, most of them young disadvantaged, misguided victims of circumstances and ‘the innocent’, will command us to question, realising that all they have in common are untimely deaths.
Normalcy is good, but it’s counter-productive if it is acquired through self-deception, for self-deceit is an addiction; it does not change the reality. Like addictive substances, it creates hallucinations; in this case, social ‘invisible friends’.

PLACE OF CONTEMPLATION
Reality, however, can be, and should be, adjusted to a strategic calm; and for this calm to exist, a place of contemplation is relevant. Our ancestors well understood the value of monuments to record valuable lessons learnt. From the pre-historic rock art of the Sahara to the Pyramids and the sculpted story lines of Benin, they left us evidence over the ages of their experiences. Ancient records serve as monuments. Until we can have excursions in time-travel, this Buxton Monument serves as the most recent and only humble edifice to ‘The Troubled Period, 2000 to 2010, and is yet incomplete without a museum and archive to support the need for exploration.
The Monument does not accuse; it records the fact. But every monument must have its adjoining temple; in our day, a museum. The addition of a museum and archive will place before young researchers in the future the facts to which they will make their evaluations. Of course, this will take time to develop, but now that it has been said, dictated by the obvious imagination, it cannot be left undone; it is the duty of this generation.