Apathy vs Bull Crap...Again, Where's the Rage?

When will we get angry? You know the kind of anger: where you feel your head will explode, and you want to throw things, smash stuff, roar epithets at the top of your lungs until your throat becomes sandpaper. When will we get that angry?

Newborn Andy Jones died last week, a victim of a horrendous chain of events that add up to a serious indictment of our healthcare system and its custodians. Aside from a chorus of oh-poor-things, only Amandala seems to be angry enough to say 'Bull Crap!' I think that's an excellent choice of phrase, by the way. But where's OUR anger?

One of our readers mentioned it: Roldan Trapp, a father of five, was killed in a hit-and-run. Oddly enough, even though the pickup was found, no one seems to be able to trace the owner and arrest the culprit, nor have we heard why that's not possible. Mr Trapp has, in the meantime, been relegated to the rank of stray dog -no one cares, for the dead are gone. Where's our anger?

Glenford Williams, a security guard, was shot in an attempted holdup. He lies critical in the hospital. Half a dozen or more surgeries later, he'll never be the same, if he survives. Juan Carlos Castillo and Peter Guenther, the two men murdered in Cayo in the past week might, if they could be asked, regard him as the lucky one. So might Rosa Cornejo, the businesswoman from Belmopan who was tortured and killed. What will come of all of these murders -what is it, 37 so far for 2009? Will anyone ever again hang in this country? Hell, will anyone ever again even be convicted of murder? Where's our anger?

Holdup jacking murder robbery killing mugging rape incest fraud arson shooting theft stabbing assault, it all runs together in the news, a hypnotic, mind-numbing ritualistic nightly repetition of the same damned and deathly chorus. And it has numbed our minds to anger; we're emotional zombies.We do know fear though, it is our friend and constant companion. We lock ourselves in our homes, afraid to go anywhere. We are silent in the face of controversy, afraid to rock the boat even though it's already sinking. And while the schoolyard bullies arm themselves, we cower and hope it'll be the neighbour and not us who gets it when the time comes. Where's our anger?

"Thank God I don't have to go to PG/Dangriga/San Ignacio hospital to deliver my baby. Poor Cenaida."
"That poor man, that's why I never ride my bike on the Northern."
"Ah, security guards have the worst jobs, that poor man."
"Hmm, those people must have been into something, to be murdered like that, poor things."

Not me, never me, it can't, it WON'T happen to me...we are so condescending and selfish and full of false hope in our denials. Remember this, every time something happens to someone else, the odds of it happening to you are shortened. Unless things change, your turn WILL come. And there will be little or no interest or follow-up. And no one will speak up for you...or for me.

The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.