SOUTH FLORIDA – There is a Bob Marley song which states, “Man to man is so unjust, You don’t know who to trust…”. This is the reality being played out in much of the English-speaking Caribbean at this time. It is a phenomenon that is far from new, but it has become frightening for people who are used to a more laid-back, easy-going existence.
In the central parish of Clarendon in Jamaica, eight people are gunned down on Sunday evening, eleven of them hospitalized. In Trinidad’s Sister Isle, six people including a fifteen-year-old boy and a woman are killed by the police after they go on a robbery spree during which they abused their victims.
People in an area of Barbados are scared by the sound of gunshots in the nighttime. They are scared to leave their homes. Antigua and Barbuda concerned about illegal weapons entering the country.
What makes the Jamaican situation doubly frightening is that a video recording is making the rounds on social media. A young man threatening the life of the prime minister. As if that was not egregious enough, this man says the prime minister cannot stop mass killings like the one in Clarendon parish Sunday evening. And, investigations so far suggest the assignment for the eight killings came from the Southern United States.
Questions on Human Violence
The question has to therefore be asked. “Is Jamaica, are the countries of the English-speaking Caribbean going to simply descend into utter chaos”? Or, “Are the reasonable among us going to help put an end to this special kind of inhuman barbarity”?
Photo Credit: Leroy “Dreamy” Riley
Voice your opinion on the “Open Line” with Winston Barnes daily on WAVS 1170AM or listen on-line http://wavs1170.com/
