Public response to Monday’s cutlass attack on a female school principal was predictable. With practiced elocution, his right eyebrow typically raised, the education minister declared his ministry’s concern, to the extent he had instructed the police to do whatever they deemed necessary to put an end to such incidents. He also promised the latest casualty every possible assistance.
As for Virginia Albert, the president of the Teacher’s Trade Union [on July 26, 2021 elected to parliament and given responsibility for crime], she wanted it known that her union would more than ever be intolerant of violence against her membership. “We will seek to mobilize all our resources at the local, regional and international levels . . . to send a strong message to students and other persons who are tempted to threaten other teachers.”
No surprise that the attack on a woman at work was the hot topic on Monday evening’s call-in kwèyol radio program ‘En Hall La’—for many, the nation’s premier source of erudition. Encouraged by the night’s stand-in for the institution’s regular host, Professor Juk Bois, callers provided the nation with obviously apocryphal details of the cutlass-wielding miscreant: He was well known drug abuser; he was actually on suspension at the time of the assault; he had sneaked unobserved into the school and, with the aid of an equally deranged 13-year-old, proceeded to rearrange the school principal’s hair-do with a machete.
Several honor students phoned their alma mater to advise Juk Bois’s stand-in that the nation’s youngest citizens were turning into Satan’s servants, thanks to what was regularly broadcast by local radio stations. A few called it “the devil’s music,” produced abroad by degenerate performers. One notorious caller said he was appalled upon discovering even Radio St. Lucia, the state-funded station, had joined Radio Caribbean and Gem Radio in their quest to turn our young women into the devil’s angels. BET was also fingered as an encourager of violence. One particularly irate caller from Castries, a declared retired schoolteacher, assured listeners to ‘En Hall La’ that the American TV station regularly featured rappers spewing obscene lyrics while prancing around with their truncated pants way below their drawers.
Then there were the “dub idols with their heavy gold chains, all carrying on in a manner most vulgar.” Worse were “those shameless gyrating females rolling around a lit-up stage with everything God gave them on display, like bitches in heat.” She apologized to her host and listeners for referring to her own gender as she had, but there was no better word for them. Especially when they presented their half-naked hippo butts doggy-style!
At least two ‘En Hall La’ graduates blamed local crime on shoes. Yes, on sneakers. Parents were too quick to fork out for Air Jordons, Reeboks and Nikes, said a Babonneau luminary. He volunteered that he was the father of three kids, two of them boys. Somehow he drifted into a discourse about wasters of scarce money who cannot afford medicine for their sick offspring. He felt especially blessed that while he was fast asleep one morning “God whispered to me in a dream the cure for AIDS.”
The night’s big hit was a woman of a certain age. She said her name was Agnes and she wished to remind fellow ‘En Hall La’ regulars that the nastiest odors do not always emanate from clogged drains and poorly maintained public conveniences. More often than not, she assured the show’s substitute host, the worst smells imaginable are right under our noses.
“Nothing stinks worse than hypocrisy,” she hissed. “While everyone’s talking about what happened to the school principal, and why her attacker should be tried as an adult, no one seems to care that violence in our schools is only a reflection of what happens every day all over the country.” She cited holier-than-thou wife batterers, teachers who rape their students with impunity, criminals in police uniforms, and predatory politicians whose favorite meat is the flesh of underage lambs.”
Finally she directed a volley of questions at the night’s host: “What do we know about this young man who attacked his school principal? Is he all right in the head? What do we know about his home life? Does he have a father figure in his life? Is he an only child? Has he had a psychological evaluation?”
“We know nothing, madam,” said the part-time host, straining to imitate the inimitable sound of Juk Bois. “All we know is what came over the news!”
Editor’s note: The STAR first published the above in its issue of March 19, 1998. Over two decades ago. To update a well known Santayana quote: The more things change, the worse they get—at any rate, on this Rock of Sages!
