Who the cap fits let them draw the string!

A friend of mine abroad after reading about last weekend’s happenings emailed me to ask if we were living in the “Wild Wild West”. {{more}}

I had to admit to him that it appeared so but hoped it would not end with a “Gunfight at the O.K Corral”. You remember that movie with Bert Lancaster and Kirk Douglas! As I sit down to write I wondered what more can be said. There are two dimensions to what is happening here. One has to do with the underlying causes, and the other with capturing the perpetuators of these heinous acts. We have not had any measure of success in capturing and punishing those who have been staining the image of this country. In fact our lack of success in this area makes the criminals or would-be criminals more daring. I have in my own way been trying to identify the factors that I believe help to create a climate that breeds and encourages criminals. Please don’t tell me that there is no relationship between acts of ill-discipline where we urinate in the streets in full view of the public or park anywhere, in the process blocking any other vehicles about their own business, and other such acts!

All of this, I have argued, creates the climate that spawns ill-will and lays the foundation for more serious acts. What more is there to say? In fact this reminds me of a teacher giving a homework assignment to his class on their “favourite pet”. The teacher, a couple days after, called two students before him, who incidentally were brothers. “How come your essays are similar – in fact they are the same”. One of them answered “but Sir it is the same dog.”

Have we not gone beyond talking? The criminals are acting, that is doing something. We are acting but a different kind of acting. We should not separate talking/writing from acting because they are part of a “symbiotic” relationship.

Unfortunately at a time when more than ever we need to talk it is difficult to do so. We are into the “Election Season” where people get locked into certain mindsets. Reasoning and logic don’t exist in this climate. If there is talk it is at cross purposes. Some people are quick to go on the defensive. We keep hearing talk to the effect that Government has no control over this. It happens all over the world. One of the functions of Government, however, is to protect our people. After all, our taxes are supposed to go toward this! But this is only part of the story because all of us have a role. But when there is no dialogue and some are quick to go on the defensive then the atmosphere for action is seriously curtailed. Some of us, of course, live double lives. I am reminded of the novel “The Feast of the Goat” by the Peruvian writer Mario Vargas Llosa who won the 2010 Nobel Prize for Literature. The book is set in the Dominican Republic and is all about the Dominican Dictator Rafael Trujillo. Speaking about one of the defenders of the regime who was reflecting on his life under Trujillo he writes, “…he and many other Dominicans would be condemned to this awful queasy sickness of constantly having to lie to themselves and deceive everyone else, of having to be two people in one, a public lie and a private truth that could not be expressed.”

In this “Election Season” it is difficult to know if some of us believe what we are talking or writing about. In this climate logic is thrown out of the window to be replaced by a blind fanaticism that will eventually consume us. So what is the point of writing and talking? Who is reading and who is listening?

A few years ago a very distinguished Vincentian who I had never spoken to sent to call me while he lay ill in bed. He said he had never met me but wanted to talk to me. We had a very pleasant conversation and he urged me to continue to write. He said that my writings brought solace to him as he lay in his bed unable to move. I made him a promise then. But I have been writing all my life. Sometimes it is frustrating. When I wrote a letter to the Vincentian newspaper questioning the idea of Columbus discovering St Vincent, Strolling Scribler was quick to go on the offensive; “If Columbus did not discover St Vincent, who did?” When I was at the University of Western Ontario doing my Ph.D. studies I shared an office in the history department with a Nigerian friend. Two doors down was one of my history professors who I felt was downright racist and who was opposed to any progressive causes, taking a stand, for instance, against those who wanted to impose sanctions on South Africa. He put newspaper clippings on his door and wrote widely to any media outlet spouting his diatribe. I posted clippings on my door with alternative views and wrote critical pieces. My fate lay in his hands. But I was prepared to do what I had to do. I actually got an “A” in his course! Then more recently when I was at the UWI Open Campus efforts were made from this end to prevent me from writing and expressing my views. This never bothered me for I was a tenured member of staff and could not be easily touched.

So I will continue to write. I try to avoid personalities. That was never my style but when I write if anyone feels that the cap fits them, I will say like Ranking Bash, “let them draw the string”.

Dr Adrian Fraser is a social commentator and historian.