Submitted by Margaret Harris
A little boy in Barbados has died. Not in sleep or because he had an illness. He did not die like so many little boys walking certain neighbourhoods because he was black; Barbadian boys are supposed to have a real chance at a future. He did not die by falling off the back of a cane-truck like a child I knew who would now be diagnosed with ADHD, not that that diagnosis would necessarily be true. He died because someone did not listen and if they had listened, they did not hear and if they heard, they did nothing about it. He said goodbye to his classmates and left them for the day. He told them they would not be seeing him anymore, as if he had had a plan, as if he knew that something was going to happen to him, even if he inflicted the wound himself. But did he cause his own death?
Someone said that there was a big gash somewhere on his head, that he didn’t kill himself. But we all know what happens when there is too much speculation through second and third party whisperings without speaking to the source and Shamar Weekes, tiny it seems by any standard for a 14 year old, is not here to tell his truth. In any case, whether he faltered too sad to scream or laugh or try to fight anymore, to beg for an opportunity to live the life he wanted, Shamar Weekes was figuratively pushed. The literal take on the story, we will have to wait for later, when the second and third party versions of what went on in the house and Shamar’s mind are over, emotionalism has simmered down and investigators match evidence to speculation, or not match evidence to speculation and somehow we carry on with our lives, much as we did before. For barring a miracle, this is what I expect to happen. We are like ostriches; we come up for air to guzzle at the spectacle or even be sad, then we bury our heads again because indeed we need to carry on. Back to our corner of the woods, our designated roles, our own troubles, the lives we created for ourselves. Someone else will take care of it. Aren’t we all playing our parts in the (re) construction of this beautiful country?
Shamar died here in this land, where community is supposed to mean more, in his house in misery and in pain. He is not the first child to have died but something about the way he came to his end opens up the country to examine its soul – not only the neighbours who must for the rest of their lives live with the knowledge that they heard the bumps and the thumps, the licks and the bruising of the teenager’s spirit and did nothing; nor the people who saw him sucking limes but responded only so much and no more, nor the woman who thought twice when he asked her to,but she did not take him in. The entire nation will be put on trial whenever this case is heard. We have to go deep and ask, which child was/is in trouble that I did not/have not assisted? We have to ask, how much did I turn my head to hunger, to stories about sexual abuse, to a child’s suffering which must surely be the mother of all sufferings?
What drives a young boy to be so cheerful at school, it is claimed, when something was so wrong? They say that men generally commit suicide when women only try but often fail. Why do little boys and teenagers commit suicide? They also say “all” teenagers have some notion of killing themselves at some point in the transition to adulthood. But whether Shamar jumped, or was jumped, or whether his head was bashed with a hard heavy or metal object, he is dead. Barbados has to reason its way through the mire of this story and in so doing, come to terms with something about itself.
Remember when there were no murders in Barbados? Or only one murder a year and then two and three and so on? You say, “ah but this is the world. it is happening the world over. We have things here that are great and good and wondrous” and all of that would be true. It is the not so wondrous changes and shifts we still have to deal with and what is the future we wish for our country and our children.
Everything is relative you say – neighbours do not have to respond, child abuse is a worldwide phenomenon, that is the place of the “useless” Child Care Board; But before the Child Care Board, there was the citizen. We are every bit as entitled to be watchdogs and caretakers in a country in which jobs are far fewer, child abuse is every other person’s story stretching across both the black and white communities. The future that is changeable, is what we always have to look to… in a country in which communities teem with dust and growth in “block children” and sure, yes, I may be overstating the case because afterall it is not Haiti or Jamaica or Guyana. And no, Shamar was not Shamar from the block – for all I’ve read and heard.
Coupled with the flight of something that overtook him, Shamar died, they said, from a rope, his feet hanging or dangling, barely touching the floor, at an age in which memories only just begin to gather. Those memories, it is said, were far from good. Bad memories, cumulatively they say may cause great depression and suicidal thoughts. Shamar in that sense, was already a big man, grappling with fears it seems no young person should have to entertain at that age. Hiding sometimes, asking for help at others. Yet there he is, in the picture, resiliently smiling, gritting his teeth, eyes attempting to dissimulate his burden, until the light in them could shine no more.
Until he died, the little boy was an unknown to the majority of us. Before he died, he, it is claimed, searched in years so young to find an answer to the problems that seared his soul. So what was it that took him to his death? There are no two ways to answer this: whatever verdict is arrived at – Shamar Weekes was definitely pushed.
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