Every day we read and hear the fol­low­ing ques­tions—How many more must die? When will it stop? What’s the end game?

Is it that we are not ask­ing the right ques­tions?

Many in­di­vid­u­als and groups are work­ing as­sid­u­ous­ly to fos­ter a per­ma­nent end to the sav­agery that has re­sult­ed in gang wars here in Trinidad and To­ba­go and in par­tic­u­lar along the East-West Cor­ri­dor. It’s be­yond bru­tal.

The ma­jor­i­ty of the bod­ies dropped in this bru­tal­i­ty are Trin­bag­on­ian youth, while the home in­va­sions are tar­get­ed at law-abid­ing work­ing cit­i­zens across all di­vides.

There are many views, com­ments, and opin­ions ex­pressed as a trau­ma­tised cit­i­zen­ry re­acts and re­coils in fear and hor­ror at the killing spree. In the so­cial me­dia world we now live in, none of us can avoid the gory pic­tures and videos that are shame­less and un­car­ing. In the rush to be first, we seem to have lost our hu­man­i­ty and em­pa­thy. While peo­ple are dy­ing and fight­ing to hold on to life, in­stead of re­ceiv­ing help, phones are be­ing used not to call for help but to cap­ture videos of their dis­tress and demise.

As we de­scend in­to the mur­der cap­i­tal abyss of dark­ness. The blame and fin­gers are point­ed at the gangs, the gang lead­ers, and com­mu­ni­ties now la­belled as hotspots. In this sea of hypocrisy writ large, many pre­fer to de­ny the harsh fact that the gangs are as much vic­tims as the rest of Trinidad and To­ba­go.

It is our so­ci­ety that has cre­at­ed the gang cul­ture. Some may ar­gue that it’s born out of ram­pant cor­rup­tion and the law­less­ness that per­vade in­signif­i­cant things, and some are even blam­ing the ed­u­ca­tion sys­tem.

Who is with­out sin and there­fore has the moral au­thor­i­ty to ad­dress the killing spree?

Is it the bro­ken homes, the busi­ness com­mu­ni­ty? The Po­lice? The Gov­ern­ment? The church? The com­mu­ni­ty groups? Sports or­gan­i­sa­tions? Civ­il so­ci­ety? The Ju­di­cia­ry? The me­dia? Who?

Talk to those try­ing for years to stem the tide of so­cial ills, in­jus­tices, and in­equal­i­ties that have led to the cur­rent sav­agery and they will tell you their pro­grammes and ini­tia­tives have not re­ceived the need­ed fund­ing con­sis­tent­ly. The rea­sons for this vary. But the fact of the mat­ter is that pro­grammes that were mak­ing a dif­fer­ence crashed be­cause of a lack of fund­ing. We are se­ri­ous when it suits or is con­ve­nient.

Eas­i­er to blame the gangs and hope they kill each oth­er out. Are we se­ri­ous about deal­ing with the gang cul­ture even if it means ad­dress­ing un­com­fort­able truths? The bub­ble and ve­neer of re­spectabil­i­ty, re­spon­si­bil­i­ty, and in­tegri­ty will be pierced.

In the war against crime, sport mat­ters be­cause sport is the ve­hi­cle that can har­ness and it helps with the so­cial de­vel­op­ment of in­di­vid­u­als, who can chan­nel that en­er­gy, through their tal­ents and not the gangs and gang cul­ture that they see as the equalis­er to over­com­ing their per­ceived op­pres­sion and dis­ad­van­tages.

Any gang truce will be on­ly tem­po­rary. It’s a plas­ter on a sore.

We need to ad­dress the root caus­es. I re­call say­ing some years ago at a TTOC An­nu­al Awards that the fact that the Des­per­a­does Steel Or­ches­tra had to run from its home in Laven­tille por­tends a fear­ful sit­u­a­tion. At an­oth­er TTOC An­nu­al Awards, I made pub­lic an ini­tia­tive called Re­place Guns with Medals. None of those de­c­la­ra­tions were tak­en se­ri­ous­ly. Notwith­stand­ing sus­tained ef­forts to re­place guns with medals didn’t get off the ground.

Sport mat­ters. A known fact among the un­sung he­roes work­ing every sin­gle day amongst the at-risk youth who suc­cumb to the gang cul­ture is that the ma­jor­i­ty of those in­volved in gangs play sports and pan, have tal­ent and po­ten­tial in spades. Why do they choose guns and gangs in­stead?

Every life mat­ters. Every life lost di­min­ish­es all of us. Sport mat­ters.