Burning Candles for the Dead

 A few weeks back I was fortunate or unfortunate enough to be passing through U.W.I in time to witness the Guild of Students’ candlelight vigil, a gesture in remembrance and solidarity with the victims of the Virginia Tech shooing incident.

I laud the sense of community which drives the students to reach out to their fellow students in time of a great tragedy, but I could not help but think that there were no candlelight services for the 365 individuals killed January to March of 2007 on their own doorsteps, with not even a lighter flashing in remembrance.

Now do not get me wrong; I am as appalled and horrified by the Virginia Tech massacre as the next person, but isn’t it a little far removed from the roughly 5 persons who are killed in our own country daily?

Have we become so immune to the violence that we commit against each other, that it no longer elicits a response? Or is it that we just do not care?

Is the fact that since the majority of murders in Jamaica occurs outside our circle of friends and or our socio-economic group this has canceled any feelings of kinship we might have had with these victims. While in the case of the Virginia Tech and U.W.I, the shared status as students resonates and forms a bond where previously none existed thus creating a sense of oneness.

It is always a tragedy when such horrific acts take place, but what is more tragic is when the same thing is happening in our own country and it does not move us to act. So 32 people did not get shot within a few minutes in Jamaica, but 148 murders in January, 95 in February and 122 in March is a real grisly picture to paint, and no candles have been lit…by anyone!

Incidentally if you cast your mind back some months to the murder of a business man whose last name happened to be ”Azan”, the PSOJ was up in arms. Businesses were closed in condemnation of the murder in a move that was never before executed nor duplicated since. Not even the recent double murder of six-year-old Tajax and his 15-year-old sister Tavia in Portmore elicited more than the token “We are outraged” statement from the PSOJ.

What seems to be the trend is for us to remain unmoved unless the people lying in the blood are in some way related to or identifiable with us. This insularity among our population supports murder and the senseless taking of life as long as the life taken is not from among our ranks.

Our sense of justice is only ignited when we feel threatened, when we feel that the life that was taken could have been ours or one of our own.

SUGGESTION

(This is definitely numbered among the Crazy)

1. We need equal opportunity murder in Jamaica. Where every Jamaican has an equal chance of stopping the next bullet. Only then will the population act together to denounce the killings which we have become blinded to.

We need the deaths of, 1 policeman, 1 Azan, 1 U.W.I student, 1 Pastor, 1 Diplomat, 1 Minister of Government, 1 Nurse, basically one representative from every class and segment, until we have blood flowing from every quarter of the society. Only then will we be motivated to voice our outrage for the loss of every life; only then will we stop turning a blind eye; only then will we “light candles for the dead” and rid our society of the scourge that is stalking us.