Please permit me some space in your paper to express my concern and disgust at the insensitivity and callousness I have seen exhibited by my fellowman over the last few days. I guess I should be used to it by now, as e-mail and the Internet appear to have brought out the sensationalist and love for gore in many persons.

Individuals all over the world love to be the first to send their family, friends and colleagues the grisliest and most horrific of e-mailed images. Bodies piled one upon the other, half naked after the floods of Myanmar and the hurricanes to hit Haiti in 2007; dismembered young people after a tragic road accident in St Lucia in April of this year; children with horrific disfiguration and bleeding heart appeals for financial aid that seem to hit my lap top screen at least once a week; and the list goes on. (By the way, a visit to www.hoax-slayer.com, www.truthorfiction.com or www.snopes.com would free up the internet for more useful purposes if we confirm the veracity of the information we receive before we rush to share it.)

But to think that even when the victim is someone we all know, one in our community could be so insensitive to the pain and suffering of the family and loved ones of the deceased that he or she could still take a morbid pleasure in forwarding those graphic photos is incomprehensible to me. I was appalled to think that someone could not only leave where ever they may have been on the morning of Wednesday 17th June 2009 just because they ‘fass’, but have the heart to take photographs of a fallen brother, son, friend and neighbour, especially under the tragic circumstances of his passing. The indignity and disrespect just blow my mind. And if that is not enough, to add insult to injury, that heartless and cruel person could actually forward those photos to others. Needless to say, the first recipients could not keep the images to themselves and now we have a flurry of graphic photos all over the Internet.

My heart goes out to the loved ones of Mr Clinton Bryan, on his tragic passing, and I hope that in spite of the thoughtlessness and insensitivity of the photographer/s, and all the forwarders, these last unfortunate images of Clinton will soon be deleted and we are left with memories of a vibrant, beautifully intact person. I wonder if the photographer is man (or woman) enough to express remorse and regret for their thoughtlessness and ask the family for their forgiveness? I hope that that person may search their heart and find the empathy and respect for others that we were all raised with (but many seemed to have forgotten), for we need always to remember that we should ‘do unto others as we would have them do unto us’.

Avon Carty

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