A predator is an animal that naturally preys on others. Predators can also be a person or group that exploits others. Prey is the animal that is hunted and can also be described as a person who is a victim of exploitation or manipulation.
In our society there are many examples of exploitation and oppression. Sexual abuse in the form of rape and incest are obvious predatory occurrences.
Children
Children are the most vulnerable group in our society. They may not possess the knowledge or maturity to reject or overpower the predators who prey on them. It is no secret that incest is an issue in our society. Our children are also preyed on by reprobates outside their families. The fact that sexual grooming, molestation and rape exists within families is one of the greatest betrayals of the children who are victims and it is appalling that such predators are most often ignored or excused. Degenerates who initiate incest are slaves to the darkness within themselves. In all of us there is good and evil and our mission is to find equilibrium. It is clear that many, if not most, people have not found that balance and maybe do not know how. It would be interesting what revelations would be seen if most Guyanese were to sit with psychologists and share the experiences that shaped them. Children are the victims of the instabilities of the adults in their lives. It is one of the reasons they are often abused in the name of discipline.
Shahida Arabi is a best-selling author who studied English Literature and Psychology. In her book, ‘Becoming the Narcissist’s Nightmare: How to Devalue and Discard the Narcissist While Supplying Yourself,’ she wrote, “A child that’s being abused by its parents doesn’t stop loving its parent, it stops loving itself.”
Intimate partner relationships
Women are also commonly preyed upon. Their predators are those men who believe that women are worthless and must be submissive. They prey on the emotions of women. Some control them with their fists. These are cowards too afraid to be challenged, too weak to resist the urge to hit and too conditioned to believe that there is anything wrong with their behaviour.
But men are also preyed upon in intimate partner relationships. There are those women who believe it is a game to manipulate the men in their lives. Many men suffer in silence while enduring verbal and psychological abuse.
Human trafficking
We have a problem of human trafficking in our country. Young women, especially, are sold into sexual slavery. Horror stories often emerge from Guyana’s interior. Some women are tricked –they are made to believe that they are going to do other work but are instead forced into sexual slavery. There are young women who have also been kidnapped. But it is not only in the interior that these victims dwell. Recently, someone identified a place in Georgetown where victims of human trafficking are said to be held. I thought that if the man on the street is aware of this, why are the perpetrators not being held accountable? And if we know and remain silent, are we too not culpable?
Religion
The prey and predator relationship in some religious circles can be seen as the most detrimental form of manipulation and control. History tells us how religion was used by colonisers and missionaries to control the minds of people, to steal from them and to kill them. Some religions train people to be fearful; people are conditioned to believe that they are worthless and without power to change their circumstances.
There are also many situations where it is clear that some religious leaders prey on their followers. This is seen in the demands some make for money and also how some manipulate their followers for their pleasure. Many poor people invest their money in religious institutions, hoping that their investments will result in an end to poverty, their woes or that they will find lasting happiness, but often that is not the case. They would be told that their faith is not strong enough, hence the reason for their suffering. Some are also told that their riches are not in this world or of this time, but that they must wait until they die. And, year after year, many of these people remain in the same condition, while their leaders prosper.
Political predators
Many Guyanese are the prey who seem to be under the spell of those politicians who have been proven to behave like predators. If we were a nation of people who collectively knew our power, who collectively stood for our rights, who collectively would challenge the people we elected, regardless of whether we liked them or not or whether they looked like us, who collectively respected each other regardless of ethnicity, who could be honest about where we have been, where we are and what it will take to heal, Guyana would be better society.
Many of our people have been abused from childhood and, therefore, have been trained to be victims. Considering the quote from Arabi, once can surmise that if people are broken from childhood and begin to hate themselves from so young, their foundation is weak and, therefore, it might be easier to manipulate them.
It might explain why our people worship some leaders regardless of their transgressions. Many people are the prey to feed the prejudice in this country for the predators who benefit the most. Many of the prey would rather dwell in a corrupt society for they have never known the uncorrupt and any effort to find balance frightens them or is too unfamiliar for them to embrace.
When we consider all the above-mentioned examples of how persons are made prey in our country as well as our suicide rate, the violence among us and the hate, it is clear that many do not love themselves and, therefore, it is easy for them to be controlled.
