“City of God”

By anthony sylvestre

Brazilian director Fernando Meirelles in the 2002 movie “City of God” depicts the growth of organized crime in the Rio de Janiero slum  of Cidade de Deus (Portuguese for City of God) between the end of the 1960s  and the beginning of the 1980s. It is said to be one of the best movies you will ever watch.

The antagonist (that is to say, the villain) is a ruthless drug dealer Li’l Ze who recruits children as young as 10 into his army of criminals. The children who are forced to join Li’l Ze’s gang are forced to kill to prove their utility. Li’l Ze himself started killing around age ten in a hotel heist which ended in a bloodbath.

The children in Li’l Ze’s gang are given guns as their only tool. They rob, kill and rape with unimaginable heartlessness. No one is spared from the viciousness of Li’Ze and his army of killers. Men, women, and children are killed with the same degree of brutality.

Residents’ only source of security is to align with a rival drug dealer. The police are hated and despised by the residents who have their individual horror stories of police executions of troubled youths. Life expectancy for a young male is about 25 years.  A world of crime seems the only possible way out for most of these males in the slums of the City of God.

The news cycle this week of the many shootings (11, Channel 5 says in 8 days) reminded me of how much the streets of Belize City has become like those in the City of God.

There is a continued escalation in the brazen callousness of the young men in the streets of Belize City. If we thought otherwise, the murder of Glenford Matura jolted us out of that slumber. Matura, another youth from Queen Square, is reported to have been gunned down while eating his breakfast on Euphrates Avenue on a break. I know we always see family members on television crying and saying that their family member or relative didn’t do anything and didn’t deserve to die. I might be going out on a limb here, but from what I knew of the young man, he was indeed a humble and hardworking man. And as his common law wife and mother-in-law related on the television, his children seemed to be his world. Didn’t know him that close, but whenever I would see him on his bike (that is whenever he was not with a crew from BML working) he had one of his children on his bike bar riding to somewhere.

If the news reports of persons arrested for firearm offences are any indication, it is safe to say that shootings and killings in the streets are being perpetuated by young males under the age of 25 years. These young men who have the streets running red with blood right now don’t seem to be cognizant of what they are doing to the lives of their victims’ families. They cannot. It seems that their humanity has been squelched from their soul. They are in many respects a lot like the character Li’l Ze’ whose search for acceptance in their young years, led them to the claws of predators; older males who put guns in their hands and wickedness in their hearts.

While I would prefer not to cast any blame on government for the state of lawlessness in the City, it has to be said that government’s inaction, its do nothing approach to addressing the matter of crime, is incredulous and unpardonable. From the looks of things, government has given up its responsibility of providing security for the residents of the City. In this state of affairs, hopelessness and lawlessness will only worsen.

It is a cruel irony that an area pervaded with crime, pain and suffering is called the City of God. Some may even say that that is blasphemous and irreverent. But when people’s lives and livelihood are daily in the chasm of pain, anger, frustration and hopelessness, even those things sacred to them lose their value.

 I fear we are reaching that point in the City.

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