For quite some time Anguilla has been rocked by reports of guns barking night and day resulting in a number of persons being seriously wounded and permanently injured. Thankfully (I stand corrected) no one has died recently but, with the escalation in gun shootings, how long before a life or lives are taken? Others have died from stabbings, etc., but knives have been laid aside for the gun.
As an Anguillian, I am saddened and angry because my beautiful Anguilla is no longer a safe place for our children and grandchildren to play and grow. As a youngster growing up in Anguilla there were fights among our young people. I even recall having a fight with my brother in primary school; but I was more afraid of what a certain teacher, who was our mother, would do to us for fighting in school than the blows I was getting from my brother. So much so I don’t even know if my brother beat me or I beat my brother. I knew that I was in for a worse beating from my mother than any beating my brother could give me. But we had no knives or guns or machetes. We used our good old fists and fought like real men.
How should we describe a person who hides in the bush and shoots after another in the dark? What do you call a person who takes a weapon and attacks another rather than slug it out fists to fists? What do you call a person who shoots and hides or runs away so that no one knows who did the shooting? If I use a weapon to attack someone it means I am a “bad man” and no one should “mess” with me, right? If I am that “bad” why would I punch you in the dark when you can’t see me, or when you have no chance to defend yourself? How do we describe such actions?
What makes me most angry is the cowardly “street rule” that “if you can’t catch kwaku catch his shirt” which allows so called “bad boys” to attack and injure or kill their enemy’s child, brother, sister or friend with whom they have no quarrel. I am angry and I hope by the time you finish reading this first in a series of articles, you will realise that you too are angry and you are ready to speak out as I am speaking out.
Tell me if any of the following statements are true:
1. There are boys who believe they have a right to drop out of school but expect to be given jobs paying thousands of dollars.
2. There are boys who believe that they have a right to have everything they want without working for it.
3. There are boys who believe that they have a right to attack, fight, maim, and even kill, not just their enemies, but the friends and families of their enemies who have done them nothing.
4. There are boys who are so blinded by greed, and an inflated sense of their own self importance, that they would stoop to the despicable level of engaging 9 to 11 year old children to sell and traffic what the law still refers to as illegal drugs, under the assumption that the children are too young to be suspected or prosecuted. Is it that these “bigger” boys cannot sell their own drugs themselves because they lack the testicular fortitude to do so? Or is it that they are too scared of “Babylon” who seems to be “always picking on them and harassing them?”
5. There are 13 and 14 year old boys who have the resources and contacts to purchase, import or smuggle guns into Anguilla for sale to other 13 and 14 year old boys so that they can shoot up their enemies.
6. There are 13 and 14 year old boys with enough money to buy high powered rifles and guns and hide them from their parents and neighbours and police.
7. It is not 13 and 14 year old boys but “respectable” bigger boys in Anguilla bringing guns into Anguilla.
8. There are boys who believe that they must have a gun or marijuana or fancy clothes, phones or shoes, but find themselves in a dilemma because they do not work, and so they lack the funds to buy what they want. Consequently, they steal and rob from their own family, strangers and visitors – people who work HARD for what they have – and then try to sell their ill gotten gains to get money to buy what they want.
9. There are parents and other relatives of these boys who turn a blind eye, support, encourage and defend them in such reprehensible behaviour.
Perhaps in the past we could feel secure and hide behind the fallacy that “it’s them unruly, bad children out there attacking each other” – not any more. NO ONE IS SAFE! Perhaps we have analyzed the situation and concluded “it does not concern me”. I repeat, NO ONE IS SAFE! It may be true that no one in my family has been shot, maimed, injured or killed; but who knows (God forbid) when that might become a reality in my family or your family. I do not wish or pray for it. For the same reason, remaining silent and doing nothing will not shield us from it either.
What is so scary is that we have a bunch of boys who are capable of shooting themselves in various parts of their own body. Who knows where the next bullet will end up and in which bystander or passerby. It is very important that you continue to read this article, because the real tragedy is that those about whom I speak cannot read it as most of them can’t and won’t even if they can. So I beseech you to keep reading and sit for a moment and ask yourself the question – where were your children when gunshots were being fired; when homes were being broken into; when hard working individuals, like yourself, were being held at knife or gun point and robbed of their possessions? Where were your children, and where were you?
I hold my generation of parents responsible for some of what is happening in our society today. We have let our children down because so many of us were embarrassed by our parents. Our parents didn’t hesitate to buss us a slap if we deserved one in front of the entire school; or give us a double flogging when we reached home and complained that teacher hit us. As children, we were so ashamed of our parents that we vowed to never put our children through such anguish. Well, the “chickens have come home to roost”.
Am I advocating child abuse? What is child abuse? I suspect that to beat one’s child with a tamarind whip, or an electrical cord, or a leather belt is known as child abuse. What is ironic is that those of us who received such “abuse” turned out fairly ok. However, because we hated such abuse we vowed never to similarly abuse our own children. Instead, we opted to be their friends first and parents last. So what do we have now?
1. Children abusing parents; beating and pushing them around; swearing at them and cursing them; demanding money from them since as children they didn’t ask to be brought into this world. The children have a right to be supported and provided for because as parents we went with our fast self and gave birth to them without their permission.
2. We have strangers, drug pushers and gun toting boys whose knowledge about guns is what they see in the movies by people who pretend for a living – these are the persons we have handed our children over to get them hooked on drugs and marijuana before they reach 12 years; and get them to become narco-entrepreneurs before they are old enough to spell the word money. But we do not consider this to be child abuse? It is ok for strangers to do that to your son and daughter, but it’s a crime and a sin to “fot” the child you brought into this world a slap because he disrespects you and abuses you?
Am I advocating child abuse and violence against children? NO. But I am not going to “throw out the baby with the bath water” either. I am not going to go as far as some disciplinarian parents who say, “Boy, I brought you into this world, and I would take you out!” But some of our children need to be told, reminded and impressed upon that the acquisition of pubic hairs does not give them the right to be disrespectful and abusive towards their parents and elders for that matter. They should also be reminded that the good old book says, if they want to live long they “must honour their father and mother.”
However, lest I allow you to forget that I am actually speaking to us as parents, let me hasten to add that the same passage speaks about parents training up their children in the right way and, most importantly, not provoking their children to wrath. When we over discipline our children, without showing them love, we are abusing them and provoking them to wrath. When we discipline our children without training them up in the right way we are provoking them to wrath. We train our children in the right way when we teach them manners and respect; when we teach them the value of life, friendship, family, work, self respect , self honour, human life and property; when we teach them the value of being Anguillian, and respecting who we are as a people; when we teach them that there is a God who loves and cares for them and when they feel at their worst they can know that God is with them always, and they must hold on and be strong. We train them in the right way when we teach them that discipline is a part of love; that there is no freedom without responsibility; that we have no rights other than to respect the rights of each other; that we should not do to others what we don’t want others to do to us.
So those of you parents who go to the school to fight and abuse teachers for disciplining your children, let me ask you this: If your child can tell you “I never ask you to bring me into this world”, why shouldn’t a teacher be able to tell you “I don’t have to teach your rude and disrespectful child”? To teach your child is the teacher’s job, because that is the job he/she accepted. But the teacher doesn’t have to teach a child who is rude, disrespectful and have no desire to learn. Any child with those characteristics – whose parent wants to accost a teacher for trying to discipline him or her – should be told go home and let your mother and father teach you. I am sure there are enough children who are respectful and willing to learn, and who have parents who would say to the teacher in front of their child: “Don’t call me back to this school when my child is rude – deal with him/her then tell me; and when he/she comes home I will deal with him/her.”
Children have a right not to be abused by anyone. Children also have a right to go school and learn at least one lesson: “For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction” and “every action has consequences.” If you break the law you will be caught and you will be punished. If you do not want to be punished, do what is right. DO NOT TAKE MATTERS INTO YOUR OWN HANDS because two wrongs do not make a right. I have a lot more to say, so check next week’s paper.
But, before I go, do yourself a favour and agree and disagree with me. So long as you are talking about this problem of violence in Anguilla with your children, with your neighbour’s children, with your colleagues at work, in your groups and organizations in the community, the church, the school until enough of us realise that sooner or later, if we do nothing, the next victim (God forbid) could be from my home or yours. Until next week…
A very angry and concerned citizen.
