Watch out for the big-time thief who claim say that dem smart
Stop bringing the crack and the gun to mash up the youth them heart,
Earth a Run Red
Ten-year-old a look dem owna tea bread
I hear a next youth dead yeah.
Earth A Run Red…

Watch It
The mark of the beast a come in under sneaking under man feet
A revelation time, check the signs of the time, you no feel the heat
From you see how the youths them leggo out the street
And you know say things nah go sweet…

Ijahnya Christian

Yes I. Many of us still sing along and dance to Richie Spice’s popular lyrics shared above but serious as it is, his commentary on the Jamaican scene, failed to dislodge us from the myth of a comfort zone in which Anguilla is still a no crime, low crime, superior little paradise. Not so for the family whose blood ran red last Saturday morning and not so for the family which now has a member who is a murderer. Not so for the North Valley community which must have known that the day was coming when its earth would run red. Its earth is our earth. Not so for the neighbouring communities with the red now flowing up to our very doorsteps. Not so for the island community which once looked in scorn at St. Kitts where they would never go to live because people get killed there, not here. Not so for the same island community that within one week is confronted with another gun crime committed, according to the radio news, against an elderly couple.

We have lamented, we have cried, we have written articles, we have bust our guts on the talk shows, we have blamed development, women, youths, teachers, the church, politicians, parents and the police. Now Anguilla must squarely face the fact of innocence lost and rapidly come up with strategies required to transform this society into the new Anguilla for which our revolutionaries fought. Over the last two decades, in spite of everything called development, we have not tackled our social development as a top priority. Worse still is a pervading and underlying hypocrisy and downright dishonesty which we display in everyday life but which somehow we expect our young people not to emulate. This does not work anywhere and it will not work here either. In the endless diagnosis of our social condition, we have identified a long list of contributing factors. I single out the following five for National Attention – that means your participation in personal as well as other capacities – in 2006.

1. The absence of parenting, the emotional abandonment and abuse of many young people in the Anguillian family and the failed attempt to replace our loving time and care with material things.

2. The unabashed folly of adults – family and community members who fuel the fires of conflict among youth and contribute to the escalation of violence among youth. What happened to tranquility wrapped in blue? Was that only for tourists?

3. A “comprehensive” system of education that still behaves very much like the old grammar school system and is therefore leaving many children behind. What is the advice to the child who is being left behind and who knows it?

4. The inadequacy and absence of facilities for youth recreation in Anguilla which has contributed to a tolerance regarding breaches in the law that is supposed to shield children and minors from the vices associated with alcohol consumption, for example.

5. A wholistic response to drug use and abuse in which alcohol is recognized and treated as a drug and in which every other specific substance is treated as is appropriate to its ill effects on Anguillian society. Let’s be honest about this because the young people know what the adults know.

Research, intelligence, investigation and documentation that enable us to see the big picture created by useful statistics is still not a norm but we need to understand and appreciate why our young people feel the need to establish turf, to arm themselves and to use drugs. Finally, we continue to behave as though we are quite separate and apart from the land and sea and entire island eco-system on which we depend for our sustenance. Conflicting rather than consensus economics and politics are still the dominant factors in our national thinking about development. However, only when we realize that Earth and the life forms it supports are One, will we recognize that it too will respond violently when it absorbs the blood of our youth. How many more must die?

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