Dear Editor,
The first shock is that a 16-year-old school girl was brutally murdered. The second shock is that she was bludgeoned beyond recognition. The third shock is that Guyana society has become so deformed it can produce the kind of individual or individuals who would commit such a crime. Our reflexive instinct is to search for someone or some institution to blame. Tighter parental or guardian control; more vigilant and proactive schools; more intervention by the police and the intermediate organs of the state. All may help at the margins, yet even their most ardent advocates know that the next child could slip through the cracks just as Neesa Gopaul did.
As I have written before, real protection demands a profound change in the character of Guyanese society and culture. Individuals as well as families – especially the growing number of dysfunctional ones – need to be integrated better into the networks of social interaction nurtured by shared values, interests and behavioural norms on which a well-functioning society rests. Then at least there may be some chance of making the deviants recognize the consequences of breaking basic human rules on such a scale, and of embedding them in social relations that can act a constraint. Neesa’s gruesome murder highlights what we know in our guts: Guyana’s social capital is fast diminishing and unless it is replenished there is no long-run relief in sight. As a civilized country we must now re-examine how we live our lives and how we view community life.
In earlier times we were all our neighbour’s keeper and made it a point to mind their business without being intrusive. As a teenager when I missed school not only neighbours would enquire but teachers, classmates, the domestic help and sometimes even the milkman or postman. Times have changed and we no longer live as friendly communities, but as small inward-looking units no longer critically aware of our neighbours or the immediate social environment.
A group whose members routinely look out for each other can achieve more and survive butter than clutches of fragmented, self-centred families and persons can. Social capital along with a strong civic society and clusters of caring social neighbourhood networks can prevent a recurrence of this heinous crime. Looking out for each other can make the difference. Nothing else can. Nothing else will.
Yours faithfully
F Hamley Case
