Sick society

In the case of Chitram Ramlogan, several elements came together to make his murder more outrageous than the other killings which, inexcusably, are now a daily feature of national life. Ramlogan, a Caroni worker who had been laid off when that company closed, was the father of a five-year-old boy who suffers from cerebral palsy. His main motive in plying his private car for hire was so that he could afford medical care for his child.

The murder of such a man would have been tragic enough in any circumstance. But Ramlogan’s killers were men of an especially callous calibre. Having stolen his car to commit a robbery, they apparently got enraged when they saw him calling for help as he ran away, and actually reversed the car to shoot him in the back. Such cowardly brutality seems typical of such individuals.

The second incident last week was of a different order, but no less repulsive. Police have questioned 28 men from Dow village in connection with the rape of a nine-year-old girl. Again, the details sharpen the tragedy. The mother has 15 other children, all of whom were removed from her care by the State — except this one. The girl was born HIV-positive. When the police went to investigate the case, they found a 71-year-old man having sex with the child. The mother, a drug addict, was reportedly charging the men $5 a time — not coincidentally, perhaps, the price of a cocaine rock.

What do these incidents say about our society? It could be argued that such persons are in a minority and therefore not representative of the social order. But the question cannot be so simply dismissed. We must ask whether these individuals arise in spite of our social norms, or whether they are extreme manifestations of those norms.

It is a given that, in any country, about 20 percent of the populace commits nearly all the crimes. If the society can reduce that percentage, then the crime rate drops. But that minority percentage does not absolve non-criminal citizens of responsibility, for the old saw always holds true: evil flourishes when good people do nothing.

So the sub-culture which produces the murderers and kidnappers is not unconnected to the wider society. The attitudes and actions of influential people shape social conditions. When the powerless react with the only means at their disposal — such as violence and murder — this is the logical consequence of a social order that denies them a stake in "good society," which they have come to see as the enemy.

The case of the nine-year-old girl is an even more damning indictment of our society. In the first place, why was the child returned to the mother after 14 others had been taken by the State? Could it be because she, like her mother, had HIV? That the mother was not given financial and psychological help also indicates a failure of our social services — a failure that probably started in the mother’s youth, and which would explain how she came to have 15 children.

Ignorance of birth control, stigma, the drug culture, callousness to the young, sexual perversion — all came together to create a situation where at least 28 men were willing to take advantage of a child.

Is our society sick? You tell us.