Garth Rattray | Murder, death, kill – the panacea for conflict

In 1997, Shiny Entertainment developed a video game for Microsoft Windows. It was about a janitor named Kurt Hectic, who reluctantly tried to save the world from alien invaders referred to as “Minecrawlers”. It was a third-party shooter, action-filled video game, named Murder Death Kill (MDK). MDK became extremely popular among video game enthusiasts, and was eventually ported to Mac OS by Shokwave, and to the PlayStation by Neversoft. The game went on Stream in September 2009.

Jamaica has its unique version of MDK, but it is no video game. The weapons and ammunition are real and the lives that are lost are not digital creations by software programmers, they are real, flesh and blood people with thoughts, fears, wants, needs, family and friends. But, the way that the victims are killed with callous indifference, you would never know that the victims of Jamaica’s version of MDK are living souls.

Killers appear to be competing to see who can come up with the most daring, coldblooded, macabre, heinous, destructive, and terrifying way of killing their fellow human beings. Consequently, they have degenerated into depraved soulless monsters, that act like bloodthirsty automatons on some kind of netherworld mission to score points in Hell. Nowadays, these evil shells masquerading as regular people, will kill anybody, at any time, for any reason. No longer are the unborn, the newly born, the babies, children, the elderly, the women, or the innocent bystander given some consideration; they are mowed down so that they can revel in their body count.

UP CLOSE AND PERSONAL

I have seen the cold, calculating, murderous intent of a killer up close and personal. It was only the intervention of our Heavenly Father that spared me from death. It was in April 1983. That morning, I borrowed my father’s VW minibus and was at the front of a line of traffic at the intersection of Hagley Park Road and Maxfield Avenue (in Half-Way Tree). A bunch of people were walking from my right to left on the pedestrian crossing in front of me.

Suddenly, a man stopped before the vehicle, and pointed a revolver directly at my head. Looking into the dark barrel and seeing the bullets silently waiting in the cylinder was so surreal that I was not even scared. Everything paused. There was no time to dodge and no place to escape. Then I heard him say to himself, “Oh, ah nuh him!” before he turned and dashed off in the direction of the Half-Way Tree Parish Church. We eventually learnt that a hit was ordered on the life of my father because he refused to approve payment for more than a government contract was worth.

If that occurred in this day and age, I would be stone, cold dead. I know of several instances where hired gunmen kill people in error because they just don’t care. They will readily kill everyone within the immediate space of their intended victim. I remember a case where a group of hired gunmen went to a bar on Chisholm Avenue. They opened fire on the lady inside, and emptied their magazines as if to escalate the terror of their cowardly deed. While they were calmly walking away from the scene, residents cowering behind their front walls overheard them saying that they killed the wrong person. There was no remorse, only musings regarding their next course of action.

SYMBOL OF POWER

The Jamaican society was introduced to guns, and killing in general, during our era of turbulent politics. The gun became a symbol of power and control over self and others. It became a tool for getting whatever was wanted. It was used to intimidate, to terrorise, and to send messages. It came to represent everything that many young and disenfranchised men yearned for. Growing up bereft of true love, affection and respect, those young men abandoned their craving for love and substituted it with a craving to be feared. A gun made them part of a group of sociopathic, apex predators. Consequently, guns cheapened human life.

I had a minor problem with someone, and took great pains to carefully bring it to the attention of the person who manages the place. This was greeted with, “You are an inconvenience to my business!”. I did not take that veiled threat lightly, so I involved the Community Police. During the meeting, a female police officer pointed out that, in today’s Jamaica, if a little baby says, “Watch me and you!” there is cause to exercise caution.

Despite the efforts of the security forces and the Community Safety and Security Branch of the Jamaica Constabulary Force, the Ministry of Education and Youth, the Ministry of Justice, and the Dispute Resolution Foundation, people are being murdered for any and everything. Killing someone has become the panacea for dealing with conflicts.

Those depraved, soulless, bloodthirsty monsters and the people who pull their strings are products of our failings as a society. It’s time that we treat crime like a Bonsai tree. Trimming the errant branches that are hell-bent on doing their own thing is necessary; but it is also essential that we keep the roots [of crime] trimmed and provide proper care and nourishment so that healthy and orderly branches will be produced.

We are being inexorably socialised into viewing murder as a way to deal with our problems. It’s not too late to resocialise our society.

Garth A. Rattray is a medical doctor with a family practice. Send feedback to columns@gleanerjm.com and garthrattray@gmail.com