Valley of bones
Written by Newsday on August 24, 2024
AUGUST is supposed to be a month of celebration.
Instead, when the protective services line up at the Queen’s Park Savannah, Port of Spain, for the Independence Day parade, they will do so under the pall of spiralling murders. Instead of the focus being on 62 years of autonomy, it will be on a year of – already – 400 killings. Instead of taking in fireworks, some will take in bullets.
The convergence this month of yet another murderous milestone with our annual ritual of freedom brings into sharp relief the ways in which, notwithstanding becoming a nation with our own coat of arms, anthem and watchwords, the project of seeking freedom continues.
It continues in the still pressing need for constitutional reform. And it continues in the face of no greater challenge than a situation in which the right to life – a fundamental entitlement – has been and is being undermined to the point of meaninglessness.
“The whole nation had atrophied,” Archbishop Jason Gordon said in his morning mass at Archbishop’s House, Port of Spain, on August 23, referring to a passage from Ezekiel 37 in relation to the symbolic fate of the people of Israel.
For the archbishop, the parable of the valley of bones, in which God pledges to bring the dead back to life and restore them to a promised land, is about recovering from calamity.
“Many people feel Trinidad is like this valley of bones,” he said, noting the imminent Independence Day holiday. “But when we think there is no hope, there is always hope…The darkest moment is midnight. The moment after that, we move to dawn.”
And yet no amount of earthly prophecy can return life to Kerlon Thomas, 21, Avid Reece, 47, Tyrell Alvarez, 27, Enrico Guerra, 34, and his five-year-old daughter Anika – among those killed in recent days.
The Prime Minister on August 21 called the deaths of the Guerras “barbarism,” and evidence of “the worst of what we are and what we have produced.”
But the words of shocked and angered politicians, unlike the word of God, will not bestow the breath of life.
Children are being killed days after celebrating birthdays. Entire classes in schools are being wiped out. Everywhere, bones are being discovered, in far-flung forests and in back yards. Families are being wiped out. If there is bombast from priests and politicians, there is eerie silence in grieving communities.
“We are trying to regain the trust of the public,” said DCP Junior Benjamin this week.
But it might be too late.
The only way out of this valley of bones is a bold reset in our adversarial politics.
When leaders inspect the parade or issue holiday greetings come August 31, will they have the courage to admit that?
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