By Carl Nisbett
Kuba Assegai did not like what I wrote about him in two articles published in both the Democrat and The Observer. He said, “Carl Nisbett has used what were rational and free debate on this organ [the internet] to try and malign my character”.
Apparently, Assegai does not like himself much. If his own words have “maligned” his “character”, then he is at war with himself for, in the two articles I have written, I have simply repeated what Assegai has said. If Assegai were to say, “Throw bottles and stones at them” and I repeat what he said, whose words are they? If he comes across as a loose cannon, whose words make him sound like a loose cannon? His.
Imagine one of the young people committing a crime and another young person or an adult points the finger at the one who committed the crime and says, “You’ve committed a crime.” Imagine that young person who did the wrong accusing the one who reports his crime as “maligning” him. There is no sense of accepting responsibility.
To make matters worse, Assegai then had the nerves to call what he has penned, and which I’ve quoted in my articles, “rational.” Well, if he thinks his words are rational, then we can understand part of the problem, but someone should let him know his words are as rational as the act of a man trying to cut water with a knife.
Assegai’s response proves he does not get it. Here is an individual who allegedly is working with troubled young people; yet that individual, an adult, has behaved more badly in some instances than some of those troubled young people. He apparently lacks the ability in some instances to distinguish rational from irrational or right from wrong. Also, it appears that he’s saying, “I know I said it; I know I did it; but rather than accepting responsibility for what I’ve said and done, I will do anything and tell any amount of lies on you to blame you for what I’ve done and said.”
There are certain implications for the young people whom we are trying to impress upon the need to accept responsibility for their words and actions.
It does not end there. Assegai then said, “the question asked of me by one of my life long friends was, ‘what is this fool’s problem?’” Let’s assume this friend is an adult and not a yard-fowl and he did say that to Assegai. Here is an adult, “a lifelong friend”, who, instead of saying to Assegai, “did you really say and do those things? What were you thinking?” tries to blame someone else. These are two adults refusing to accept their respective responsibilities.
Imagine one of the young people doing something wrong but rather than his friends correcting him or her, they blame those who told that young person he or she did something wrong. “What is that fool’s problem?” rather than “why did you do it?” It’s a behavior that encourages that young person to continue in his or her errant ways.
How does that translate into the larger society? We have blamed others for the shortcomings of our young people, even blaming American television programming. I’ve even heard one person said this generation is a “lost generation”. How did this generation become lost in the land of their birth? These are indictments of the adults and of the community in which these young people live.
Firstly, I do not believe we should put all the young people in the same boat. The overwhelming majority of them are no different than we were at their age. They are decent young people. Yes, there are some who have behavioral problems and some who have resorted to violence. But we should not condemn the young people to the fate of being a “lost generation” and we should not label any of them “chicken heads”, as Assegai has called some of them.
We cannot and should not issue a wholesale condemnation of all the young people. That would be unfair and uncalled for.
Secondly, we, the adults, must put the responsibility squarely on our shoulders as parents, teachers, pastors, friends and as members of the community at large. We cannot accept our responsibilities by laying the blame for some of the young people’s behavior on the television. If we are saying that they are picking up their bad habits from television, what about the habits of the adults they live among whom they see and hear on a daily basis? They see and hear the adults more often than they watch television, but we are saying the television influences them more so than the adults do. Also, who allows them to watch the televisions for any length of time?
Thirdly, if some of our young people are so easily influenced and misled by habits from another culture, it may very well mean that they are not grounded in their own culture. Could it be that we’ve failed to teach them properly, if at all, about their culture to ground them therein? Perhaps we have failed to instill in those so easily influenced what they need to ground them on the right path.
Don’t get me wrong. These young people must bear some of the responsibility to carry themselves in an acceptable manner. Yes, there are outside influences on the society and on those young people, one of which is “I want it and I want it now”, or “so and so has it and I want it too”. However, it’s as if some adults are afraid to say “No” to those outside, negative influences.
We got into trouble too back in the 1950s or 1960s or 1970s or 1980s. Yes ladies, admit that you liked us, the boys, and we’ll admit we had our eyes on you. But the majority of us turned out well because we were able to build upon what the previous generations left for us. What was the difference? If we did something wrong in our village or even in another, our parents or guardians found out about it before we got home, and most did not have telephones back then. We know the result. You misbehaved you took your punishment.
Some of us may have become too disengaged in our communities. We say, “It’s not my child but somebody else’s child who is doing the wrong.” That may be true, but it weakens the concept and workings of community. Also, we fail to realize that those bullets or other criminal activities may impact the innocent children or adult because a bullet has no mind of its own to distinguish between the right and the wrong and a criminal is not going to stop to think if the person he or she is about to assault is a “good or bad” person.
The responsibility rests with us, the adults to make a difference, starting in the homes and expanding throughout the wider community. We avoid our responsibility when those who are hired to work with the young people have behaved, as adults, more badly than the troubled young people they are supposed to help.
Now that Kuba Aasegai has given me another opportunity to revisit some of his “rational” thoughts, I welcome it.
In March 2004, he said, “Dr. Denzil L. Douglas, refuses to give public accountability [transparency] into/about the ‘Taxes owed to the Inland revenue by many leading companies in our Federation. The amount allegedly, totaling above $100 million (EC) according to the investigation using forensic accounting.” Those are loaded allegations.
He once asked the people to avoid one of their most basic, civic responsibilities afforded them – to vote. In March 2004, Assegai said, “Currently Cde Dwyer Astaphan is the only person among that lot who can offer an semblance of leadership and direction. Douglas better pray and hope that Cde Dwyer contest the next election. Despite Dwyer’s pedigree, is the the only real Labour in the present regime. My advise to the lectorates is to stay home and boycott the polls on election day…DONT VOTE!!”
Those are Assegai’s words. He was asking voters in St. Kitts to neglect their responsibility to vote for people who will lead them into the future. On a comical note, he then drove from Connecticut to New York, got on the Labour plane from New York to St. Kitts for the election in October 2004 and limped around St. Kitts.
It seems that Kuba Assegai is very confused between his own words and actions. That is so true when at one time he suggested that he should be the rightful leader of St. Kitts and Nevis, as if the people of the Federation are yard-fowls.
Back in March 2004, he spoke admirably of Mao Tse-Tung of China who, by some estimates, killed up to 26 million of his own people between 1949 and 1976. They were, Assegai said, “Robbers, pimps, drug pushers, addicts prostitutes, and bourgeois criminals” and “conceited bureaucrats.” He then said, “We need a cultural revolution in the Federation of St.Kitts/Nevis to prevent decadent United States trained criminals and parasites from returning.”
Those “bourgeois criminals” and “addicts” and other “criminals” also included those who did not agree with Chairman Mao politically, a political “cleansing.” Assegai, even had the temerity to say to me, “Get well!!” — meaning my mental state for opposing what Chairman Mao did and his, Assegai’s, support of it. That was one of his “rational” debates.
Yet he says I’ve tried to “malign” him. It seems that even Kuba Assegai is very confused by his own words and actions. What do we expect him to teach the children? “Don’t do as I do, but do as I say,” or “don’t do as I say, but do as I do,” or “do as I say and as I do,” or “don’t do as I say or as I do”?
