Marcia Henville, Activist, Journalist Burnt in Her Own Home in Trinidad
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| Activist,journalist |
Voice cracking, an emotional Errol Fabien yesterday asked why no one went to help Marcia Henville when she was at death’s door at her home at Fidelis Heights, St Augustine.
Bishop Dr David Ibeleme also said it was important for the society to “break the silence” on domestic violence other forms of abuse.
Both Fabien and Ibeleme made these comments at a celebration of the life of Henville at Holiness Revival Ministries, Woodbrook.
Fabien said: “When she hear a cry she gone. That was Marcia. That is why I vex because Marcia Henville called for help. Marcia screamed. However and in that fancy Fidelis place where she was living nobody does go. When they hear her bawling out for help, no one went.
Fabien added: “People in Baige Street, which is half mile away, them hear and they called St Joseph Police Station. If it was anybody else in Fidelis Heights getting that treatment, Marcia would have been in there at the front door. She would have said: “Hello, what is going on inside there. Nobody went to help Marcia.”
Fabien said it was important to honour Henville’s legacy by not turning a blind eye to people who needed help.
He said: “We burying Marcia but Marcia not dead. We have to go when people in trouble. We have to go when people want help. What is going on in this country? This is not the country I know. And when I was a little boy in my village, if somebody wanted help, we would help. Help somebody. Stand up for somebody. When you look around, nobody behind you. Like we get shy, stupidee or gun shy in this country. That has to stop.”
Fabien said it was important to help without looking for anything in return.
“We could see when people need help. Anybody could tell me what happen, How we get so stupidee. We cannot go when people need help. She must have that voice still in all of us. If we just bury Marcia, we will kill her. And we cannot kill Marcia Henville.”
Fabien also saluted the staff at Simpson’s Funeral Home for the professional manner in which they had reconstructed her face.
Pastor Ibeleme challenged the congregation to make a commitment to end domestic violence. Describing her as “real”, Ibeleme said: “God’s style of vengeance is to comfort the people that mourn. Use the stuff that she had accomplished to comfort and reign over death. Make a commitment to ensure that we close the door on domestic violence so the enemy called death cannot pass through the door. We must be committed to ensure it (abuse) will not happen under our watch.”
Citing “Run Away”, the song by calypsonian Singing Francine, he said “Dog does run away/ Cat does run away/ Woman what happen to you? You could run away too.”
He paid tribute to activist Verna St Rose for her advocacy against injustice and oppression in the society.
By Michelle Loubon
Marcia Henville’s charred body was found early on Saturday morning in her bedroom after a fire at her Fidelis Heights home in St Augustine. The discovery was made by fire and police officers who responded to a report of a blaze at the house where 51-year-old Henville lived with her husband and two children. The children escaped unharmed. An autopsy performed Monday on Henville, host of TV6’s Point Blank, revealed she had sustained blunt force trauma to the back of the head, her throat was slit and she had multiple stab wounds to her back. Police said the main suspect in Henville’s killing was expected to be interviewed late Wednesday. Henville’s husband, who is a person of interest in the investigation, is currently warded at the Eric Williams Medical Sciences Complex, Mt Hope, under police guard after suffering injuries from the same incident in which Henville was killed
Weak Trini men kill, abuse women
To tell how primitive a culture is, look at the way its men treat their women.
It was on my first solo trip to Istanbul that this idea really took root. There, it was not just how I experienced the thrill of travelling alone as a woman or of being to a Muslim country, but observed the Turkish man’s innate claim to anything female.
I was the most obvious tourist. Tanned skin and frizzy hair; exotica or more pejoratively, someone’s private zoo. The man’s curiosity for this non-Turkish woman compelled them to act in misogynist ways that were very different to what I knew. From yanking my hair in the Grand Bazaar, to ascribing chants “Miss Kenya!, Miss Morocco!, Tina Turner, come here!” My heart raced as I quickly tried to find my way of out the maze of shops, dizzying with Turkish teas, spices, and other ornaments.
I suppose the difference between being ‘cat-called’ or as we know it “sooted” from our very own Trinidadian man, was that Turkey was new territory. I was now the outsider. I was not protected by that all too familiar security of belonging and neither was Marcia Henville.
I speak from speculation. From the autopsy that proved Marcia was bludgeoned to death...it seems her death was a crime of passion. Man’s innate claim to a woman exceeds anything logical. Affairs of the heart drive us insane.
But Marcia, may she rest in peace, is not our first...sadly neither would she be our last. In extreme cases, our Trinidadian men kill our women when they are rejected. Our Trinidadian men beat and abuse our women when they are insecure. Our Trinidadian men are weak.
Frantz Fanon, speaking about the inhumane effects of oppression upon the colonial man and woman, says: “It is violence, and it will only yield when confronted with greater violence.” It will only yield when we make these issues meaningful and conscious, when we write about them, speak about them, when we expose these issues that plague our society, that keep us stagnant, that keep us primitive.
May your soul live on, Marcia.
Melanie Jones
Lecturer
Department of Literary, Culture, and Communication Studies, UWI
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