The past week has
been a week of scare and care for the people of Guyana. It was scare, when the
horrendous fire at the Camp Street Prison that engulfed both the physical
vicinity of the prison and its psychological effects on people. It was care,
because everyone cared for each other’s safety inclusive of the safety of the
prisoners. In all this, I was specifically moved by two nerve-wrenching
testimonies of cry of the mother of the slain prison warden, and testimony of
the abducted taxi driver. In the former, a mother lost her promising and
dedicated child and in the later, the taxi driver who was abducted by the
fugitive prisoners would come home safe for the sake of the little child.
According to the taxi driver, the fugitive prisoners let him go for he begged
for the sake of his child. This suggests that the fugitive prisoners do have
some humanity left in them but as we know, it is not properly harnessed hence;
they have taken a path of gloom and doom.
Why does someone
chooses a path of violence that eventually leads them to prison where there
will be grinding of teeth and wailing within the walls? No one has clear
answers, but we have theories such as, parents needs to nip in the bud,
teachers need to ‘don’t spare the rod’, religious leaders need to talk about
morality and government need to be responsible for the bad behaviour of the its
citizens. Fyodor Dostoevsky expressed, “the degree of civilization in a society
can be judged by entering its prisons.” We live in a complicated society, which
has myriad problems and mysteries, and those problems remain long to explode
into something worse as it happened in the Camp Street Prison fire. “Keep in
mind those who are in prion, as though you were in prions with them; and those
who are being badly treated, since you too are in the one body” Hebrews 13:3. Every
one of us must take responsibility for the failure of the society and not begin
blame game, which are naturally the first and the foremost disposition. In
other words, we tend to judge someone else for the failure. For instance, if a light
has to be fixed in my house, do I blame my neighbour, someone right at my
house, GPL or just get the light fixed? How do take responsibility for someone
who has taken a wrong path? In order to answer that question, we need to delve
deep into our own families, education system, job opportunities, church as a
moral watchdog, and so on. Among all the above, family is crucial because what
you sow, you reap. Most families work hard for an integrated growth of a person
and most families succeed and many families also fail. In either case, families
will have the satisfaction of doing their duty well.
Let me inscribe the
poem written from the cell in Germany by pastor, theologian and martyr,
Dietrich Bonhoeffer:
Stretched out
on my cot,
I stare at the grey wall,
Outside, a summer evening
That does not know me
Goes singing into the countryside.
Slowly and softly
The tides of the day ebb
On the eternal shore...
We the poor, the rich,
Alike in misfortune,
The good, the bad,
Whatever we have been
We men of many scars,
We the witnesses of those who died,
We the defiant, we the despondent,
The innocent, and the much accused,
Deeply tormented by long isolation,
Brother, we are searching, we are calling you!
Brother, do you hear me?
