Cotton Tree – what can I say; what is there to be said?

Dear Editor,

I shake. I cry. For two young men struck down in their prime. Struck down by the hand of neighbours and strangers upraised with the wrath of Cain. I cry for them, too, in this land of so many of our mortally wounded in so many ways. A big, great part of me is ashamed, terribly ashamed by the folly of it all.
There is so much I want to say, without knowing anything, even when I know not what to say. Yet, I feel that I can say so much, for there is so much in this place that is bottled up, and which all the angers in this world will neither conceal nor heal. I want to say something to all the involved families that are on the far slippery end of grievous loss. To communities rocked by the turmoil of so much clashing hates, ever-present conflicted politics. I hate myself for easing this into the mix, but how can I not.

What should be the horror of two terrible murders contemplated from a distance and recoiled from, in the routines of human exchange, has resonated across hearts and town and country, and comes into the nearness of home in the pains that are palpable and piercing, at the waste of it all. But this is what now spirals into the atmosphere and in every nook and cranny. There are no secret untouched places left in this society. All are numb with grief, too few with shame or contrition.

If this is about coconuts, then we are all more than nuts, which sounds rather meager, given the circumstances, since we have clearly gone off the deep end. I am still to fathom the degree of depravity and venomousness that filters through in snippets of media releases. Nothing makes sense in the sheer inhumanity of the moments that enshroud those who killed and those killed for a bag of coconuts. This is savaging to the senses. It cannot help but wound some more the already tattered psyche of this stricken nation. I think that we are mortally stricken, only we don’t know it, as we pretend at the best imitation of dead men walking, and fail miserably at even that, too.

Our country was a vale of violent contradicting voices for nineteen long months; today it is transformed into a vale of physical viciousness on the ground, and the overflowing madness of cyber malice run amok, as spewed from one hateful set of lips after another. It is what is today, the mindless, endless cycle of insult hurled, and ire catapulted across electronic space, by people made to feel comfortable by the anonymity of their existence, by the joyless thankfulness of their excesses.

How do we recover from this? How many undiscovered and waiting in the cobwebbed wings of men’s minds are those other Cotton Trees planted so firmly, yet so nakedly shakily in this uneasy, unhealthy, uncaring society? I may not know, but I know that I care. Not of who is right or wrong, but how do we go on to anywhere from here where we have been deposited by our politics? By our now settled and hateful mindsets? By our unrelenting and remorseless commitments to all that is disturbing and dangerous and destructive to our existence?

I want to say a word to the families of those lost, but I don’t know how. I tremble and hesitate when those are not things with which I am familiar. But I must try, if only for my own sanity, my groping for a moment of spiritual succor and from which I gain the confidence to share. I say to the family: your pain is Guyana’s pain. Your loss is ours to bear with strength and dignity alongside in true fellowship, though those feel in short supply currently, and threaten to flee at any moment. A long nightmare that began for this country not just over a year ago came to the doorstep of the hearth. It must not prevail, for there is a God and He takes of everything in His own time, and according to His will. Let Him be.

To those hurt in passing and by reflex, not unpremeditated, there is that shame and pain and regret, too. I wish it were some other way this tribal justice of ours, but this is how we solve the mysteries and challenges of our time and our land. We look for objects and then we desecrate them. To my fellow citizens, I urge, let the madness recede. It must not gain potency and overtake. Not now, please. Not tomorrow or ever. May wiser and more sober heads be found in the midst that check the reckless rush to the abyss that always seem to be just a short step away from where we stand.

Sincerely,
GHK Lall