POLITICAL ‘will’ cannot easily change or evolve fossilised thinking and extended practices. In the majority, we have decent people administrating this country, but there will always be ‘Shirt (SHUT) buttons’ callous opportunism and ‘de belly full but hungry’ crowd. Nature does not discriminate. There will always be all kinds in our human jungle to invoke every facet of extreme emotion across the expanse in our days on earth. When the brutal beating, then killing of Marlon Fredericks a 33-year-old man and a drug addict occurred, I protested the savagery of that act, without knowing that worse was yet to come. The obvious mentally unstable constable who had shot a man not posing a threat was charged. The consciousness of the Council did not even reflect the social issue of the drug addict problem in the capital city that they are supposed to be managing when they pledged support for Constable Gregory Bascom and reflected no public acknowledgement to the travesty of Fredericks death. Then to read in the June 10 issue of the Stabroek News that the courts had granted the constable bail on the sum of a meagre $800,000. How is the value of Frederick’s life assessed? Wasn’t the full context of the act weighed? Or is the conscience of the court no longer a factor? This is one case study of the task that this administration has before it. The PPP had given up managing the humanity of this country. They threw their hands in the air and let everyone do what they wanted, with themselves in the lead, resulting in severe long-term damage.

This is the closest that we have come to a national Government. The Minister of State pleaded with our senior bureaucrats this past February, that “You’re not pen and paper pushers, ensure Government projects are implemented […]”, but can/will he be heard? The question seems to be the chronic indifference of people who haven’t paid attention for a long time; who are suddenly asked to come up to the blackboard and write in the answer to the question on the blackboard before an attentive class. Back then, we paid attention because the teacher always had a new ‘wild cane’.

There are homeless people, drug addicts and some at an obvious stage of mental deterioration who sleep at the sides of the Post Office. Something is wrong with the Board and Management of that institution to think that a sprinkler will be a deterrent to a human being whose mind has lost the cognisance of its own hygiene and vanity. We’re at a mental stage that the first world was in during the early 19th century when the poor and the physically helpless were by that condition social sinners, and even some churches advocated Euthanasia. We must become more aware and proactive in the holistic reaction to the issue of people, and to effectively do this requires a knowledge base as the pretext to public utterances, especially on the new radio stations.

I use minibuses to travel around town. I’m not sure which radio, but last week, one example was talking about youth not wanting to work, one voice said that they were smoking too much, the other voice trivialised it by saying, “Oh is not that they’re smoking but is what they smoking.” One passenger grimaced; another sucked his teeth. We understood that you can’t sound philosophical by saying foolishness. Another example was again on youth, this time some months ago, a familiar young woman with a nice voice was addressing the topic of youth in trouble. She dropped the ball when she said that young people get into trouble because they’re not loved at home. A woman blurted out, “She ain’t got children.” The driver reinforced, “Yuh ain’t hear nothing yet.”

With a quick reference to the Bible, John 9: 2-3, Christ was purported to have said in a query about a blind man, “And his disciples asked him, saying, master, who did sin, this man, or his parents, that he was born blind? Jesus answered, neither hath this man sinned, nor his parents: but that the works of God should be manifest in him.” Once you’re in mass communication you have got to know your subject matter and equip one’s self with relevant references. A Degree in Communications or the right contacts will not equip you to compete with the competition who with possibly just CXC English or more important, a natural talent for fluent substance packed topics as a presenter, will erase your memory as a lousy has-been. Back in the day, there was a top voice at GBC. His only qualification was English at GCE, but he was an ardent reader, and conscientious of his environment, with a passion for cross investigation. That media voice is now somewhere in North America. These were young talents who paid keen attention to the guidance of their more experienced peers, then improved their ideas along the way. A history of media in Guyana should be written by someone like Margaret Lawrence or Ron Robinson who were there in the period of my reference. The holistic appeal of this article is the necessity that, in persons and groups in positions of authority that affect the lives of others or in media and authorship, you owe it to posterity and necessity to practice diligence. The priority to read across the relevant spectrum and research and cross research shouldn’t be a big thing if it’s what you do as a career rather than add your flawed decisions and obvious need for learning to the stress and misfortunes of others.