Is “Evil” really stalking our land?

Over the years I have written about what I referred to as “Evil Stalking this Land.” Stories in the media in the last few weeks – “Charred Remains Discovered in Park Hill”; “Aldon Charged in Body Burning Horror”; “Another accused man sent for Psychiatric

Evaluation amid concerns of lack of staff”; “Police seize gun, extended magazine and bullets at Campden Park Cargo Port”- including 3,558 rounds of ammunition, have me reflecting on what I had written then. Criminal activity is continuing at a frightful pace, and we must applaud efforts to amend some of the laws covering criminal matters, including sexual offences, especially against minors- even though coming late. I agree too, that the age of consent needs to be looked at. My warning is that the discussion should rise above partisan politics.

Now back to the matter of “Evil Stalking the Land.” I spoke of it as if it was some “abstract monster” hanging over us and casting evil spells on our people. But far from that, this “Evil” is one created by us that is penetrating our society and undermining what ever values we still cherish. It has to do with the kind of society we are creating, one that is shaped, to some extent, by the divisive politics governing and impacting on how we live. But it is obviously more than this. If we accept that many of the criminal activities are perpetrated by young people, then we need to reflect on a reader’s recent opinion in one of the newspapers – “It takes a Village to raise a child.” That was a time when the community shared common values and believed that they were all responsible for each other. That Village/Community no longer exists, for very many reasons and it is every man/woman to his or her own.

We are now part of a global community and more so with the rise of social media. When we began our move away from a colonial society, a process still continuing, we have to some extent thrown out the baby with the bath water. But it is, of course, much more complex than that. Individualism reigns predominant and family and community mean less than they used to. We try to find scape goats and single out people who we claim are giving the country a bad name by virtue of them expressing their opinions on certain matters in the society. We have to avoid being ostriches burying our heads in the sand. I am not sure that ostriches actually bury their heads in the sand, but we have lived with this as a metaphor.

In trying to address the ills in our society, we must first accept that there are ills and recognise them as such. This calls for polite conversation among our people and a willingness to agree to disagree. We develop hatred for those who have a different opinion, coloured most often by politics. When you listen to conversations about our country, you sometimes get the impression that they are speaking about two different societies. They all admit that St. Vincent and the Grenadines is a beautiful country, with a lot to offer. The big issue is why are we not living up to our potential. Here is where we are stuck. We do not even have role models, who hopefully will represent models we can look at and help to tailor our conversation. When one speaks about the alarming crime rate, the answer often is that the same is happening in other countries, but our first priority is to our country, and we have to deal with what is happening here. Let the other countries deal with their problems except in situations where we can learn from each other. CARICOM was supposed to be about this. One of our CARICOM member, states- Haiti is in serious MESS but we have never really understood the roots of their problems, and so are unable to come up with any workable solutions. But at home let us remember that the evil stalking our land is what we have first to identify and then work on, not as individuals but as a community. In the past we had given part of that job to the Church but the Churches themselves need to deal with the realities that are confronting them. They need in the process to speak up more often on some of the issues and let them be part of a conversation we hope will be polite and will grow.

• Dr Adrian Fraser is a social commentator and historian