Kristen Gyles | Iniquity abounds and love waxes cold

This week has been heavy. Another week of bloodshed and sordid reminders of how callous we have become as a country. The popular prophetic 24th chapter of the book of Matthew speaks to the arrival of a state of affairs in which “because iniquity shall abound the love of many shall wax cold”. It looks like we are there now.

On Tuesday, news broke that Barbara Gayle, a retired court reporter and journalist, was found dead in her home in the Caymanas Estate gated community. She had been stabbed several times. This woman was 77 years old.

At least one stone-hearted savage sat and planned how they would exterminate a 77-year-old woman in her home, who, based on the testimonies of friends and acquaintances spent much of her time sharing Bible verses and inspirational messages, and praying for close friends and family. This is not hard to believe considering the emergence of video footage which appears to have been captured by her doorbell camera on Monday afternoon, in which she is seen sitting and talking with a man unfamiliar to her neighbours, about Jesus’ interactions with His disciples.

What has gone wrong? Is this really who we are?

Amid the news of Gayle’s murder, the country found out that a sentence of 15 years and seven months was handed down to Matthew Hyde, a former University of the West Indies, Mona student, who held his then girlfriend captive in his dorm room for three days, torturing her in various ways. He used a hot clothes iron to burn her several times all over her body, beat her with a belt, kicked her and pulled her by her hair. At one point during the ordeal, having seared her skin in several places, he is said to have jeered her by saying “Let me appraise my artwork”.

Again, after reading such a story, one is only left to seriously wonder what has gone wrong.

Another troubling headline read “Man killed moments after arriving in Jamaica” and detailed how the man’s car was shot up during his journey from the airport.

BARBARISM AND WICKEDNESS

At a point, one wonders why there is such barbarism and wickedness here and why it seems next to non-existent in some other territories. It has become our culture, our way of life and a key feature of the way we live. Why? Crime has become so commonplace that we expect it. If a day passes without a murder being recorded it makes the news and we find it remarkable.

It really is a mystery – all the time, we complain about crime and we lament the moral depravity that we see around us. Yet, somehow despite the widespread complaints about crime, we are still experiencing crime at very high rates. Who are the mysterious and invisible creatures among us that keep committing murders and other heinous crimes? They are our relatives, our friends and our acquaintances and we know them. But because they are our relatives and friends and acquaintances, we feel the need to protect them.

I remember a few months ago, seeing a video on social media which displayed some of the burn injuries which were supposedly inflicted by Matthew Hyde during his psychotic episode in his dorm room. I scrolled through the comments and noticed that while many empathised with the young woman who had been tortured, there were several comments blaming the woman for allegedly cheating on Hyde and some went as far as to use the unfortunate circumstance as grounds for issuing a warning to women who dare to cheat on their partners. Others commented that they knew the young man personally and that he was really a good guy.

HAPPY TO DEFEND

Although only one individual carried out the crime and faced sentencing, several others were happy to defend the crime, for various reasons. When we know the perpetrator, he or she is almost always a ‘good guy’ and almost always has a good reason for doing the rubbish that they do. We are not willing to call out unfairness, injustice, immorality and wickedness when we see it. We only want to talk about it when the perpetrator has no connection to us whatsoever.

Further, how do we combat crime when there are so many mixed signals echoing across society in relation to what is right versus wrong?

How do we impart an understanding to our young children that harming others is not good when all around them at school and on the roads, their friends gloat about how bad, senseless and wicked they are? When and where do *children* develop the aspirations to beat, rob and murder? And if they really don’t have these aspirations, why do they claim to? What has triggered the shift from a culture that decries shame on crime and violence to one that boasts about it? No longer do criminals feel shame when they are identified as criminals. Instead, they wear their vices as badges of honour.

And what do we do now? Sit and wait to be slaughtered or figure out what lies at the root of this unfortunate shift in societal values? At the ire of people who keep pretending that media influences have not helped to get us here, I will suggest that, as we think, so we are. Mindless meditation on images and music that normalize violence is eroding our moral sensitivities – not just ours, but our children’s. We won’t truly hit at the crime problem without finding a way to rescue the depraved minds of crime-producers. And maybe we can’t. Maybe the best we can do is to try our hand at saving the next generation.

Kristen Gyles is a free-thinking public affairs opinionator. Send feedback to kristengyles@gmail.com and columns@gleanerjm.com