Choosing life
Editorial
Guyana Chronicle
May 22, 2004
YESTERDAY'S uncovering of a young couple's decomposed bodies in a bed in their home in Buxton, and of their three-year-old child locked in a room, unfed and uncared for, for as many as four days, isn't easy to fathom.
Even a simpleton may have a hard time understanding or explaining why young people continue to harbour thoughts about ending theirs and/or other people's lives, much less accepting that there's nothing to life but living fast and dying young.
In the context in which one connotes crime, why would young people intentionally commit acts "deemed socially harmful and dangerous and specifically defined, prohibited and punishable under criminal law"?
Why, instead, don't adults concentrate more on teaching young people character development, and then have those so trained opt for a lifestyle of motivating violent-prone siblings to go through an internal transformation, on the level of heart and spirit? And why are more of our youths, with apt parental/adult guidance and support, not encouraged to work with their siblings, as we've seen HIV/AIDS organizations attempting to do, to form partnerships at the community level, so that their transformations can be sustained and expanded to otherwise-lost youths in the community?
Many Guyanese subscribe to the belief that people go bad not out of choice but out of the failure of government to tackle the root causes of crime - persistent poverty, marginalization, racial discrimination, social alienation and a lack of educational and employment opportunities. If that argument holds true, then the U.S. ought to be crime free, if only because it's the richest and most developed land of opportunity on earth.
The fact is, violent crime is a major problem in the U.S. Indeed, the violent crime rate rose 61 percent nationwide over the last two decades, making the U.S. one of the most dangerous countries in the industrialized world to live in. And Americans are 7 to 10 times more likely to be murdered than the residents of most European countries and Japan - despite the existence in the U.S. of some 19,000 law enforcement agencies and thousands of correctional and community institutions dedicated to grappling with serious and violent crimes.
The "poverty-causes-crime" argument is even more faulty if one were to examine the background of many of those young people in Guyana who commit heinous crimes; they are not your deprived-from-the-good-life types.
Crime is an unfortunate reality everywhere. It is our task nonetheless not to accept crime as a given but to strive harder and harder to instill in our young people the need for them to see life and relationships as challenges to successfully overcome, not a life of crime to succumb to.
The Guyana Responsible Parenthood Association and one or two other organizations have pioneered a drive to teach young people, particularly men, responsible adulthood.
Young people in every facet of life should be targeted. The great majority of Guyanese are convinced and have declared, if silently, that violent crime has no place in a society that calls itself civilized and humane.
We must therefore not simply take mental note and shrug in horror at the murder/suicides involving young people. We must accept these as challenges to reach out to more of the country's youths, convincing them that ending theirs or another's life isn't the way, that aspiring and working towards a successful life is the preferred route.