THE EDITOR: I wish I could indulge in the usual platitudes at this time of light overcoming the darkness in this land of ours, but the realist in me forbids such.

Instead, I pose the question whether the Festival of Lights can touch the hearts of people and make them turn away from the error of their ways, or is it soon to be forgotten with the business of wrongdoing continuing on apace.

For the Hindus it is a time of cleansing, with the home immaculately so, and the focus on the divine mother more intense, and none can doubt that such would have some measure of moral and spiritual impact.

Even for the nation as a whole, Divali seems more universal than most, the flickering lights touching the common humanity in most, even for a moment, and the delicious goodies associated with it reinforcing same.

But somehow I find it difficult to accept the much touted sentiment that the lights of Divali, even as metaphor, will significantly affect the nation, for the darkness surrounding us is too overwhelming for the flicker to turn into a flame.

Some may say you need to be more positive in your outlook, more optimistic, to have more faith, but when you face the truth, such is delusional. The problem is that most of us do not fully understand the nature of the criminality surrounding us as a people.

Our emphasis is on how pervasive it is, from the corrupt politicians to the professional scammers, from the home invasions to the murders, inter alia, and to express horror at its continuing occurrence.

However, we never fully understand the enduring mindset which underpins such criminal behaviour, how it has been a festering sore and continuing to do so, born out of a pattern that criminal behaviour can be engaged in without consequence at every level of the society, so much so that it has become “high culture.”

So what can the flickering light of the humble deya do in such a situation?

All our cries to fix the criminality which is now overwhelming us will never bear fruit, for it is too deep-rooted as a state of mind for the traditional plasters to work.

What is needed is a new generation of thinkers made to grow in the long-term by a value system which fosters our humanity, which only institutions like the family, the school, the church, the community can help to foster.

And the lights of Divali can be the harbinger of such a beginning.

DR ERROL N BENJAMIN

via e-mail

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