Yesterday I made the mistake of reading the newspaper headlines as I passed by a table in the lunchroom. It read: “Man Kills Himself After Beating Woman To Near Death”. I could not help but read the entire article. I even watched footage of the incident caught on security camera when I got home later that night. The video showed a man trying to shoot a woman but as the gun malfunctioned he took to beating her on the head with the gun butt over 100 times while people on foot and in cars could be seen in the background. It was blood-curdling, depressing and infuriating all at the same time.
Apart from the gruesomeness of the incident what really caused my melancholy outrage was the fact that NOBODY intervened. Even after the man threw the gun away and walked off to his car, NOBODY rushed to the woman’s aid. Not a soul. The video shows cars driving by… normal normal.
I wondered if I would have done the same. I am ashamed of the people that we have become. We are at that juncture that Edmund Burke spoke of; “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.”
Then a friend messaged me. She and her family are migrating. Another blow to my patriotic heart. Another family joining the exodus from my beautiful but troubled land. Who will be left?
I am disappointed, but I can also understand the fear; the primal instinct of self-preservation that causes the bystanders to do nothing and the migrants to leave.
I have a feeling that it will get much worse before it gets better. When the only ones who remain are those who have no other option and those who are willing to risk their lives for their country, then maybe we will get serious. When there is no safe community left and we wake up to the raging war for the soul of our country, then maybe we will deem the sacrifice a necessity.
Yet still, I have hope. Ever the optimist, I believe that many times it takes the black of midnight to bring the dawn. It was the darkness that wrought the civil rights movement, the anti-apartheid movement and the unification of Germany. Just as necessity is the mother of invention, so too desperation is the mother of revolution.
This is true on a personal level as well. I know this only too well from my own experience. Sometimes you have to hit rock bottom before you recognize the urgent need for change. The wake-up call could be a heart attack, a divorce or an eviction. Whatever it is, we would like to think that we would see the writing on the wall and course-correct long before we meet with destruction, but evidence suggests otherwise.
I do hope, though, that we wake up before the entire house burns down. Please my fellow citizens, don’t give up on our country yet. Don’t leave. Be brave. Let’s be our brothers’ keepers. Let’s love each other courageously, especially those whom we are quick to blame for our societal ills. They need our love the most. There is so much beauty and good here still. Trinbago is our home. Let’s fix it.
Copyright 2018, Matik Nicholls. All rights reserved.
When I hear of persons leaving Trinidad and Tobago to a “safer” place I often wonder how that is measured. If you are leaving to study, to take up an opportunity, because you need to take care of business in a that other place then fine. We see random shootings in school and malls, random bombing in city centres, occurence of natural disasters and acts of violence everyday in places far away. Are we running from the frying pan into the fire?
I agree with you Matik that we have to make the difference in Trinidad and Tobago by focusing our efforts on the common enemy of evil instead of being distracted by the issues of race, party politics and religion that divide us.
NO government can’t save T&T nor can the police save T&T if the population is prepared to sit back and ask what everyone else doing about this decline.
I cannot agree with you more my friend! It’s up to us!