The spectre of cannibalism

By Oscar Allen 10.OCT.08

An ugly thing is haunting us in SVG; it is the spectre of cannibalism. Now, a cannibal is a person who in obedience to his/her culture, consumes and devours another person. Cannibal culture is beginning to rise among us and one sign of it is the slaughter and termination that continues to take place in our streets and bushes and on occasion in our churches and homes.{{more}} Vincentians are consuming Vincentians.

The People’s Movement for change (PMC) is beginning to take this threat seriously. Some of the questions that we have to consider are: where does this condition come from; how does it grow; what does it feed on; what may we do about it? All our people must be part of the discussion, perhaps all of us are a part of the problem, and may be part of the solution.

Persons with cannibal tendency feel that they can measure and assess the life of another person and decide whether to let it be or to terminate it. They have their unwritten code which goes something like this: I will terminate you if you dishonour me. Your life is worth nil if you touch the things I am working for or handle and damage my goods and my property”. There are other principles, too, like: “Who help me, I will share with you, who honour me will get a portion; if I want what you have, give me”. Under consideration, there is another guideline: “Instead of slaughtering you, I will put down someone whom you cherish, your son or daughter”.

Now cannibals begin to enter this field as a result of the conditions of their childhood. When we run our community in such a way that some children experience poverty, loss of dignity and social indifference everyday, while they observe others whose everyday experience is of lavish excess and honour, then we are putting a normal strain on those children and their parents. Some begin to lose their sense of worth – their I AM SOMEBODYness. They feel less than others; they learn that the material means of living do not obey any moral law of equity and justice. Who have it, have it. Such learnings by children go against the teachings of most homes, but it takes hold where the senior and adult model’s morale is weakened. Emigration does weaken the senior adult morale of the home, fatherlessness and motherlessness makes the home weak; survival stress does the same, drug and sexual delinquency like incest reduce the home’s teaching force as well as weaken family and social networking and other conditions. In a weakened home environment, children of the poor learn more easily to devalue human life, and become open to additional learning that tend towards a vicious culture when we ignore the daily struggle for justice and neighbourliness in our society, we supply cannibalism with raw material and recruits – our children.

As these children move into adolescence and youth, new conditions begin to mould them in one form or another. Some of the youths return to our touted conventional views, others are pulled away further. Some legitimate and mainstream practices and institutions do make up part of a curriculum for cannibals. In commerce, in entertainment, in politics and in the caprice of the Lotto industry, the goal of human life is made up of status goods, bright lights, power to manipulate and mamaguy, an instant wealth. Human life is measured out in, and valued by things, honour and control. But perhaps more of a pull towards cannibalism and the reducing of human life of others is the call to the youth to gravitate towards an alternative society, or a parallel society. This parallel society is based in part on an alternative quick growth economy, life in the fast lane, a regional soon-to- become transatlantic drug trade enterprise, with its own morality, sexuality and informal jurisprudence. Cannibalism is wrapped up in utopia and ideology! We just happen to live on the same streets and in the same homes as the cannibals!

Of course, this ideal portrayal of mainstream terminators must leave room for others who are truants and bear other vulnerabilities that link them to our cannibals. But the spectre and the threat of this growing sector is a call to the ‘Whole People’ to sit up now and watch ourselves. We do not face a situation which we must leave to the government or parliament to settle. In Jamaica, poor urban girls have made it clear that the only man they want to ‘deh wid’ is one who has already ‘mek duppy – sent somebody to his/her death, a cannibal. There in Jamaica the strategy is to out cannibal the cannibals – those who are out of political control! For us a short to long term strategy must recognise in cannibalism a call to social and political economic and spiritual reconstruction. It is we who have produced the raw material for cannibalism, the PMC says, let’s get together to renew ourselves and our conditions.