'It’s God who is the answer'

That’s what was reportedly said by Justina “Sanda” Letrin, the confused, grieving mother of two young sons who were fatally gunned down inside their home at Scorpion Alley, Carenage, two weeks ago.

Police said it was “a reprisal for the murder of two other men from Abbe Poujade Street, Carenage.” And so dead bodies – murdered young men and old people – keep piling up, heading to another record-breaking number for this year.

The distraught mother stumbled for a proper explanation for the horrible murder of her two sons, 23-year-old Joshua “Forty” Gorge and 31-year-old Israel Letrin. Apparently not knowing where else to turn, she turned to God, saying, “Parents, please, in spite of everything, it is God who is the answer. Let’s make things right because I am sure there are a lot of people out there that don’t believe that there is a God.”

Still hopeful, she warned, “He is coming again.”

To her, criminals are disbelievers, neither loving or fearing God, and reaping evil consequences. What better warning is there for lost souls and wayward lives? How many will believe? How many supported Police Commissioner Erla Harewood-Christopher when she called upon God to help us get out of our crime situation?

Is our serious crime situation really a result of the country’s godlessness and a sign of worse to come?

Ms Letrin further warned: “Parents, don’t give up on your kids in spite of what. Don’t stop praying for them because it was very hurtful to see my two boys go down this way.”

Who is listening? Discipline in some homes, schools, roads, public services and even in higher places has not only broken down but is tolerated with a long string of excuses. It now looks as if the nation’s watchwords are out the window, with little or no examples from the top. The guardians, the gatekeepers, have apparently failed the country.

It is discipline, obeying public standards of conduct, that energies a country towards social and economic progress. When we reference Singapore’s magical economic development, it is public discipline, law enforcement, corruption-free government and worker productivity that created and sustain it.

Singapore is also a very multi-religious society. Students and workers there dutifully pray to their God each morning. Whatever the religion, children are better served with an acknowledgement of God and prayers rather than just secular instruction. As debatable as it may be, for young minds, the fear of disobeying God is an effective form of social control. They can choose something else if they wish when grown up.

Children from homes without caring parents, with mothers or fathers who are themselves corrupt, crooked or drug addicts, such children are likely to fall easy prey to crime and gangs. This mother, Ms Letrin, is suffering. She is paying a heavy price, but if her words can help encourage some parents to do better with their children, her words of grief would be worth it.

The country’s worries over youth crime are nothing new. It seems an endless story. The parental irony is that while some parents neglect their children, there are others who “spoil” their children with the “blind love syndrome,” by letting them have their own way, being lazy, easily giving them everything they want, tolerating even laughing when they do wrong things rather than disciplining them.

Such children tend to grow into a misguided view of later life – the need to work for a living, to cherish the little they have, etc. They lose balance. When school fights and violence reared their heads early this year, Marcus, the Presentation College 14-year-old student-calypsonian, advised parents and families “don’t spoil the children.” They will likely bite you back. Around that same time, while lamenting the fatal shooting of 23-year-old Akeem “Jammy” Pegus, a relative moaned: “We tried to instil in him to eat little and live long. Anytime you get it fast, it don’t last. He eventually fell into the wrong crowd. He didn’t listen.”

The grieving Carenage mother, Ms Letrin, added: ”I don’t know what else to say. Life is not easy out there as people are just going down, too many young people, especially young men.” Her final advice: “Put down the guns and pick up Jesus.”