LIVING IN FEAR

Another friend was remarking, incredulously, about overhearing a group of women discussing not going anywhere in their cars after dusk, except in convoy. Yet another, about PoS residents who never go downtown for fear of being robbed, raped or kidnapped in broad daylight. Of course, these are all people who, fortunately, do not have to shop in Charlotte Street for better-value foods and who have SUVs that make them feel a bit safer, but not safe enough to be really free and independent.

Everybody in this country fears crime. And rightly so since most of us now know someone who knows someone who has been a victim of some sort. And I say “sort” advisedly because the type of crime you might suffer is class-coded, as race once was, and is definitely income-bracket linked.

However, most of our fear of violent crime, especially among the middle classes is misplaced. Statistically, young men in poor areas, and they are mainly black, are the ones who should fear violence and death most. Their mothers, sisters, wives or lovers are the people who are most justified in expecting the worst, yet it’s the middle classes who seem to feel the most preyed upon.

I’m no sociologist so I can only guess this comes from a sense of vulnerability. In Britain, the elderly, who on the whole live alone, form the most terrified section of society when the crime figures show they are the lowest number of victims. But, the popular newspapers never fail to give vivid front-page coverage to the stories of old women who’ve been raped, robbed of their pension money, bludgeoned and left to die.

Managing our fear is not easy — I remember the battles I waged against my over-active childhood imagination that summoned up bobolees in every dark corner. I often get asked about feeling safe living in TT and my answer is always “as much as I did in London,” because I live in exactly the same way, taking the same precautions. At least, that feeling runs to the things I can control.

There is so much to fear and about which we can do little. I belong to the side that believes we are endangering our planet, using up our resources at frightening speed and paying little attention to the future. I fear the lack of food security. Developing countries really need to get smarter about genetically modified crops ending up, irrevocably, in our agricultural systems — something that appears hardly to interest us in TT. I fear the new era of globalised continuous war that is sucking us all in and changing, forever, the way we live.

After 9/11, I used the London Underground rarely and was always slightly amazed to arrive safely at my destination. For one entire year, I lived in fear for my son who used the Tube daily to attend university. I dreaded that he might be on the train the terrorists would blow up, because that event was always certain. It was just a question of time.

But of all the great dangers in the world the ones I fear most are those of Nature. I wake in the night in a sweat about what to do when a hurricane arrives – should I fell the trees close to the house? Should I get the roof bolted down harder? Should I get sheets of board to cover the windows? Why did I build so low to the ground? Are the drains unblocked?

I’ve been around the house looking for a safe place in the event of the roof disappearing. I found one but I still don’t know what to do if the nearby river overflows. There is enough tinned food but not enough bottled water, so I need to do something about that, and so it goes on. Seeing what Ivan did in Grenada was my undoing.

I live in equal fear of lightning. I once saw lightning enter a chimney and start an explosive blaze that destroyed the top floor of a building. I’ve heard the stories of people being electrocuted, mowed down and incinerated by one of Nature’s most powerful forces. Last Friday’s storm was a bit too close to home for me.

But there is one chink of light in all that black fear. I’ve been told (I hope reliably) that PoS is unlikely to suffer a Tsunami from the Gulf and that one on the north coast wouldn’t reach the capital. Phew!