The human heart and its savagery

Dear Editor,
The murder of innocent Orlando Jaikarran has sent shockwaves throughout this country; the word on everyone’s lip is, “How could someone, in this case his own father, visit such savagery on his own son?”
Words cannot adequately describe this horrific situation, that one can be so heartless as to take the life of his own son. Soon, grief and horror turned into public outrage when the circumstances surrounding the infant’s death became known. Word is out that the father took the infant out of his bed and then killed him based on the misguided advice from his religious leader. The sheer brutality of this case, compounded by other recent tragedies, has caused society to call for the reintroduction of hanging in Guyana.
Human Services and Social Security Minister Dr Vindhya Persaud has strongly condemned the use of religion and superstition to justify atrocities against another human being. I share the same view with Minister Persaud, which pretty much sums it up: the sick thoughts of an unregenerate mind. And thus it has been from times immemorial that man has always tried to justify his sick actions under the cover of religion. The situation becomes egregious when politics is added to the mix.
In Jeremiah 17:9 (KJV), scripture states: “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?” The scriptural text highlights the flawed and deeply corrupt nature of the unregenerate human heart. These are not my words; these are the inspirational words of the maker of man himself. It is a ghoulish representation of how incurably sick some human beings are. Thousands are killed and maimed under the caption of religion and politics – wasn’t this the excuse Hitler used in his campaign of terror, “the [purity of the Aryan Race]” when he went about slaughtering millions of Jews in the Holocaust? Sure enough, that was his convenient excuse; that strange combination of religion and politics which brings out the worst in some human beings.
So, while we mete out judgement on this poor civilian in his depravity, we should apply the same even-handedness when politicians use power and position to kill. The MV Barima is coming up; when will I return with this argument?
Yours sincerely,
Neil Adams