IN all honesty, the traditional male dwells on a challenged platform; it’s not a top subject that our options are at times not of our doing. ‘We’ -society – don’t do much of what this article is doing: Raise a red flag, but there have been professionals, women included, who have addressed the issue.

My godparents raised me, and most of what I learnt in my early life I credit to them, and occasionally to my father.
Who was the parent around that I knew by sight for the first decade of my formative years? That’s how it goes with broken marriages. My mother had left the country. No, it’s not always a situation of sympathy; it’s where fate takes you. It was good for me. Most sons were raised in a traditional mold to take charge of responsibilities; show leadership. And with manhood and fatherhood, provide guidance and support. Full stop.

I’ve always maintained that should the true circumstances be outlined, the rebellions etc., and had become a subject in schools, then there would have been a natural fall in population growth. It must be recognised that in Guyana, two opposing philosophies envelope manhood, that of Matriarchal and that of Patriarchal. Both have advantages and disadvantages, but these differences are not our discussion, because our laws don’t revolve around them.

As a juvenile, I can remember there were ‘School Inspectors’ who paid attention to the prevalence of school attendance, and visited homes to make serious enquiries on severe lapses. I am, however, at a loss as to what were the consequences of violations. Though there were two different philosophies on male upbringing, these were overlapping. I evolved, from birth, in a Matriarchal construct. I refer to this because many of my male schoolmates were taken out of school to help feed the rest of the family, which comprised of siblings.

‘Matriarchal’ empowered the mother figure with the privilege to demand of the male child, or in the case of a female eldest, support beyond his or her own well-being towards the mother, and especially younger siblings. Though most men, especially the elder brothers, ran away and virtually disappeared after comparing their limitations with the expectations allotted to them, yet many were caught in the psychological web of responsibilities from too early, and entered the world with the disadvantage of semi-literacy after becoming ‘a man’ while still a boy. Some edged their way into meaningful livelihoods with a loyal female partner who was strong enough to resist the subtle encroachments of friends and relatives, eliminating and managing in the interest of her-their own family.

But others fell prey to the pass-on predictive scenarios of visitors who come with many agendas, with half-truths told and divisive judgements promoted. If explored, that may lie at the root of many an unfortunate, casually instigated domestic fatality. Today, many a successful businessman can be robbed by his lawyer, accountant, or salesperson with eyes wide shut if he does not have the literacy skills to read and understand the logic of the official paperwork necessary for month-to-month survival.

There’s a school that was burnt down not so long ago. In running my daily chores, I would come across students from that school on the road; we were no angels in my time, yet I was afraid to contemplate the behaviour of these children, especially the males, most below their teens. Where would they fit in the world of the next ten years? Mind you, I have an offspring who is currently a victim of an unforeseen negative development. He is a consequence of likewise negative insubordinate social influences that altered our value systems from some forty-odd years ago that were never checked or thoughtfully responded to by administrators.

Referring to the rise of marijuana, cocaine, TV stations blasting negative HIP-HOP music twenty-four hours with no pause for conscious content, the rest we know well. I saved an Essence magazine from March 2005 talking about ‘dirty dancing video girls’. They referred to this as pimp culture gone mainstream; in Guyana, it was a value system turned upside down that is still asserting its macabre inner self, packaged as progress through conspicuous consumption, and not through innovative stimulation of the mind and spirit. Where does the expected traditional male fit?

For the world of conspicuous consumption is driven by greed, deceit and self-serving handouts, as the unveiled knowledge of the nature of the wider world is revealing its functional inconsistences. Will the sensible male ideas of another age, moments gone, in the context of evolution be able in Guyana to retain its stability to heal what is socially disturbed, towards a balanced normalcy, against all odds, ending the crisis of a wounded generation, by raising principles based on the logic of responsibility, institutionalising the balance and potential of merit over the expectations of random favour? Why not?