Beverley Anderson-Manley

THE MURDER in Vietnam, August Town, of two-year-old Tyra Lewis last week makes me sick to my stomach. The police say it is impossible to describe the state of her body after the assault rifle bullet ripped through it. But we can use our imagination.

In addition, Tyra's six-year-old sibling, Rajay, her 12-year-old uncle, her 19-year-old aunt and the children's mother were shot and injured by the bloodthirsty gunmen. It is reported that six-year-old Rajay may never walk again.

In what would have been a deep state of outrage at these murders, it is alleged that the community took it upon themselves to murder two of the young men, in their early 20s, who were branded as the killers. Because of the state of their bodies, it is alleged that they were badly beaten before they were killed. They received several gunshots. Surely, this experience of 'murder most foul' must be our 'tipping point' in Jamaica. We cannot afford to let this one just quietly slip by.

Reaping the Whirlwind

The gunmen who carry out these dastardly acts have no compassion for anyone. In a recent documentary, a Ugandan child soldier spoke dispassionately about going through a type of resocialisation that made it possible for him to maim and murder anyone. He had compassion for no one. This was a critical part of his training. Unfortunately, many of our young men know no other life. Various methods are used to ensure that they can kill anyone, anytime, in the most clinical way. They have little or no experience of love.

Studies confirm that the environment within which we live has a critical impact on behaviour. Walk through the average inner city in Jamaica. Unemployment is high with the unemployment among women twice as high as that of men in the age group 18-24. Infrastructure and services are non-existent. There is a basic lack of amenities like water and toilets. This is living way below the poverty line. This is sub-human existence. It is true that there are individuals who make their way out of these jungles, but the majority of our people need more help in order to get out. They nee They need to be seen and treated as human beings.

A major survival strategy for young women is to have children for fathers they hope will support them. Three, four, five babies later, these women are left with the children and no support. What happens to these children? Who cares for them? We know that when women are employed, their dependency on men is lessened and the birth rate goes down.

We keep talking about the social programmes that need to be implemented in the inner city. The privileged few live a life second to none while the marginalised masses of our people, in particular our young people, live like hogs - bathing at standpipes in public and getting rid of their human waste in 'scandal bags'. And then we wonder why we have become the murder capital of the world.

We Are No Longer Slaves

We need to give our young people a reason to live. Currently, they have many reasons to die. Is it really asking too much to envision a Jamaican environment within which our young people can live and function as human beings?

As we consider the ending of the transatlantic slave trade and listen to the voices of our ancestors and recall the suffering they went through, let us also listen to the voices of little Tyra and others who have been murdered, as they speak to us from the grave. Having recognised the causes of crime in several reports, we need to get angry enough to do what is necessary to source the funds and thereby make it possible for no one in this country to live a sub-human existence. We need to get it in our mindsets that we are in charge - we are no longer slaves.