Dear Editor,
I figured that it would probably be expedient to wait until the victims massacred in the depraved and senseless slaughter in Lusignan had been interred, or that process had begun, before expressing my heartfelt condolences and sentiments. I am of the opinion that in situations like these, survivors need space to express their bereavement without an infusion of too much commentary that, regardless of the genuineness of the empathy being expressed, tend to become trite by virtue of constant repetition. That all sober and compos mentis Guyanese reject any excuses or justification for this holocaust of innocents should be a given. The Indigenous American prays for the Lord’s instructions in not judging his brother until he had walked a mile in his moccasins. We in and of Guyana need to fervently pray for such instructions to guide us a short distance in the footsteps of the bereaved in Lusignan, and anyone else in Guyana whose loved ones were abruptly snatched from their midst by illegal and lawless violence. Although it might not be difficult to trace the patterns of history that have gotten us to this point, it is extremely difficult to fathom or relate to the psyche of anyone capable of going out and cold bloodedly killing others, including and especially children.
I have said this before and wish to reiterate it in the wake of this tragic episode in a long line of like occurrences in our nation. We cannot excuse or justify killing our way to solutions for our problems and issues, regardless of the nature or circumstances of such problems or issues. The line in the sand has to be unwavering and unconditional. We are a nation with a constitution and laws, and though the relevance and functionality of both are constantly under suspicion, abandoning them as the prescriptions for how we are to proceed, even under the most trying of times, is akin to lining up alongside those averse to the rule of law and order in any society.
In times of great emotional stress and grief it is indeed tempting to ‘throw out the baby with the bath water’ so to speak. But we have to struggle to keep ourselves from crossing the very lines ignored by those whose hate drives them to callously snuff out human life as if they were routinely extinguishing a matchstick.
Our nation has to summon up the moral and ethical courage to mourn as one when tragedies like Lusignan occur. We have to be unrelenting in our rejection of the use of unlawful violence as a solution to any problem, and dismissive of those who attempt to excuse or justify such violence. Let the memory of those who perished in Lusignan and throughout Guyana at the hands of callous dispensers of violence be a line drawn unwaveringly in the sand, and establishing once and for all, regardless of the differences of our opinions, political or social, our unconditional rejection of this path.
I recognize that it will be difficult for those proximate to this latest decimation of human rights and human life in Guyana, to be consoled by calls for healing and platitudinous exhortations to “do the right thing”. But our destiny is bound together in a mutuality of adverse and dangerous circumstances. We will either swim together, or inevitably drown together.
Yours faithfully,
Robin Williams
