Now and then, Saint Lucia (like every other Caribbean nation), gets a necessary jolt of reality to show or remind citizens of the things seen every day but remain invisible to their minds, or they simply did not know exist right under their noses, away from the bright tourism spots and on the other side of town.
Thanks to the globalisation of Information Technology (IT) today and the global expanse of internet-driven devices and services, any and everyone can post anything online, careless of or regardless of legal or other possible liabilities.
In keeping with the age-old American-born headlining maxim that ‘If it bleeds it leads!’, Crime and Violence, Death and Politics still steal headlines in the Caribbean and other developing nations from Economic and Social Development, or ongoing efforts to create employment or address and overcome growing national problems.
Political operatives post blatant lies and twisted truths to malign character, impugn improper motives and help reinforce partisan interpretations of national issues, instead of treating facts as facts.
Saint Lucia and some other Caribbean Community (CARICOM) nations are being ‘covered’ by select bloggers highlighting aspects of violence, crime and life in depressed communities, highlighting interviews with victims of the immense in-bred challenges that come with accelerated urban expansion in a region where, like most others globally, social needs grow faster than governments’ ability to address and solve them.
So, the daily posts by one ‘Country Man’ have tended to highlight aspects of the relationships between violence and gangsterism in ways that make many citizens uncomfortable, but also show certain undeniable realities they either didn’t know or simply refused to believe — far less acknowledge — because ‘It makes our country look bad!’
In the process of using available public access to information technology and exercising presumed limitless rights to say anything about anyone or accuse without offering evidence, this platform and its contributors nonetheless drive home, Live and Direct, the fact that crime today is more the results of challenging circumstances that influence choices.
Same with the ‘Chris Must List’ blog that landed in Saint Lucia last weekend, giving the world a view of the city many citizens either never saw or believed existed, or simply wish the world hadn’t seen.
Unlike ‘Country Man’ blogging his opinions and ‘talking truth to power’ in ways that don’t sound right before the law, Chris tends more to facilitate gang and ghetto leaders, or others in socially depressed communities who wish to speak ‘on air’, voicing voices of the voiceless – again in ways that surprise, anger or please many differently.
Chris offered the world a tour of Castries before and after sunset last Saturday, from Grass Street through to Leslie Land and Wilton’s Yard (Graveyard), along a route that looked online more like miles of rubble and wasteland, leading to a supposed ‘border line’ – a street dividing two rival gangs (‘Sixes’ and ‘Sevens’) that was however (surprising to Chris) devoid of the likes of (his expectation) of sharpshooters from the other ode ‘monitoring us’ from hidden locations across the street.
Here too, statements by some who spoke to Chris on air, if not possibly eventually legally incriminating, were enough to cause discomfort to those who’d have preferred not to see or hear, but which (like with ‘Country Man’) exposed images and words that confirm a little bit of just how gangland life is ‘big, broad, massive and large’ in communities ‘just across the road’.
Understandably, the emphases of bloggers also have to do with their own pursuit of ‘likes’ to grow their online support — and in both cases, this must be viewed within the limited lens of small societies where everyone knows everybody.
So, while the information revealed or allegations made do breed discomfort, they also give the society — on the whole and including police investigators and state prosecutors, human rights and legal/judicial circles, etc. — enough information to assist their respective vocations, from intelligence for investigators to revelations to families of some of the unknown movements of relatives.
As with the general use of new media means over time, abuse outweighs responsible use, most users of cell phones and other online devices today use them more for entertainment than enlightenment, more to follow the proverbial ‘bad news’ in the headlines, than to learn how or why crime is changing and continues posing similar challenges everywhere else.
Violent crime is down in the USA, but the Trump administration is weaponizing illegal immigration to make it appear that America’s worst criminals are mostly exported by neighbouring nations of people of South American and African ethnic descent.
At the same time, US agencies — like USAID which provides different types of necessary aid to developing nations worldwide since its inception in 1961 and helps address crime-related challenges in some places, including Saint Lucia and other CARICOM nations – are being buttonholed by the Trump administration.
Meanwhile, nations needing vital urgent and necessarily continuous medical aid for millions (like people living with HIV in South Africa) are condemned to capital punishment ‘for 90 days’ by Washington.
Also, as per usual, governments’ efforts to address crime are treated as failures until and unless they can claim more supposedly ‘positive’ crime statistics like lower homicide rates (fewer people killed) and more arrests and convictions.
But the insufficient attention always being paid by the media (including online bloggers) to the need to also address social and economic issues challenging nations continues to contribute to the building of new ghettoes and filling prisons to over-capacity – the latter including in the UK, where prisoners have been having their sentences reduced to facilitate immediate release, to make way for new convicts.
All that said, however, one prefers to always look at the brighter clouds of what most may see as dark — and in this case, seeing the revelations as uncomfortable truths too-many citizens prefer to deny or hide, simply because they look or sound ‘bad’ for the nation’s image.