How to make a murderer

Unfortunately, it has become more difficult to make murderers in the 21st century than in previous times. The archaeologist Lawrence Keeley, in his book War before Civilisation, has summarised data of male deaths caused by war in different societies. The lowest percentages occur in Western Europe and North America, the highest percentages in tribal societies. Since Trinidad and Tobago is closer to the latter type, we have been meeting the murderers manufacturing challenge with unprecedented success. So what are the other factors which give us a comparative Caribbean advantage second only to Jamaica’s?

Well, the second thing you need to make murderers is a fairly large group of poor people in a wealthy country. This is because it is not poverty per se that correlates with a high murder rate, but a wide gap between rich and poor - about 100 yards or more is considered adequate. Any closer, and rich persons start to feel nauseous or, worse, guilty. Luckily, in Trinidad, the latter reaction is hardly likely. You see, a group of rich persons is not a sufficient condition to create murderers - after all, Britain and Japan and Germany have many rich persons but very low murder rates. What a country needs in order to make lots of murderers is a group of rich people with little or no social conscience. Trinidad has such persons in abundance, certainly enough to make all those all-inclusive fetes very profitable ventures. This lack of conscience ensures that rich people will spend nearly all their money on themselves, giving just enough to the church or mandir or mosque to ensure that God loves them. Indeed, it is very important that religions be supported if a society is to continue producing murderers. Researcher Gregory S Paul has done a survey which shows that, "In general, higher rates of belief in and worship of a Creator correlate with higher rates of homicide, juvenile and early adult mortality, STD infection rates, teen pregnancy, and abortion in the prosperous democracies." TT has all these things, except the abortions: after all, Prime Minister Patrick Manning has categorically stated that his Government will not allow abortion here - which, I guess, means we don’t have democracy either, just prosperity.

However, it is absolutely crucial that the society’s rich persons pass on some of this prosperity directly to the murderers. After all, murder is not, of itself, a profitable activity. It only becomes so if you rob the person you have murdered, and most murderers are reluctant to reduce their social status by becoming petty thieves. It is embarrassing if you’re liming with some nice chick and she asks what you do and you say (trying not to look too conceited), "I’s ah killer" and then somebody else says, "But he does rob, too." This is the kind of thing which leads to all these revenge killings. Luckily, many murderers do not have to steal in order to make a living. There are enough rich people willing to hire them to kill other people, collect debts, act as bodyguards, and put staplers in the stapler when the secretary is otherwise occupied fending off the boss’s sexual advances. This is one reason why murderer is a rational career choice but, since it is a career which is even shorter than an athlete’s or a beauty queen’s, you have to make your children before you are murdered in turn. However, the example set by athletes and beauty queens helps make this acceptable.

It also helps in the production of murderers when prominent people, who are always on newspaper and TV, are drug addicts. The important thing here is not the addiction, but the fact that these same commentators badtalk drug dealers and never argue for legalisation of the cocaine and marijuana that they will never be jailed for using. This kind of hypocrisy helps fuel resentment for respectable society amongst poor people. But, like poverty, resentment alone is not a sufficient condition to create murderers. As I said, this is a very complex process, but Trinidad has done everything right (or, as some might say, wrong) to create a good supply of murderers. Resentment has to be nurtured, like a baby in its mother’s arms, by the society’s mores, so these murderers can grow up to kill babies in their mothers’ arms. And how does a society help create the socially approved resentment that is so essential to making murderers? A double-pronged approach of martial mind-bending and victimisation vituperation has proven quite effective.

The promulgation of a warrior ethos — lots of talk about coming from a long line of African kings and steelbandsmen and footballers and not, like other races, shopkeepers and cloth-sellers — has been of great help in promoting a violent mindset. Simultaneously, all the talk about how blackman doh get nutten easy and how you only poor because the banks doh like to lend blackman money, has helped reinforce resentment. Once such talk is pushed at a highman level by poets, at a middleman level by radio talkshow hosts, and at a shortman level by calypsonians, then young black men begin feeling they should get everything they want without hard work. Naturally, this attitude has been aided considerably by the country having an education system which does not cater to those individuals who are not automatically academic.

So these are the elements that go towards the making of murderers. Trinidad and Tobago has put all these parts in place and, now that CSME is set up, will soon start exporting this major product to the rest of the region.

kbaldeosingh@hotmail.com

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