Dear Editor,
Two things are shocking about the reports in Stabroek News and the Guyana Chronicle of the address which President Jagdeo made at the fund-raising event organised by the Guyana Hindu Dharmic Sabha on Saturday, April 10. While the President talked about the achievements which are being made in terms of legislation and other areas, he apparently cautioned against “succumbing to a western definition of child abuse.”
What is this western definition? If anything, we have seen the unpacking that we have to do in our post-colonial societies in changing values and laws which saw that black people were less than white people, and that women and children were beings deserving of less dignity and self worth. Furthermore, the global support for corporal punishment seems to be rooted in Biblical (western?) quotations and values. Was the President thinking that he was addressing adherents to an Eastern religion which might tolerate some forms of child abuse?
The July 1998 editorial of Hinduism Today ‘Beating what devil out of our children?’ asserts that “In Sanatana Dharma each human, however young or old, is a divine, evolving soul, and the prime ethic is this: Thou shalt not injure other living beings.
That means neither hitting nor physically punishing kids. We have no spiritual justification. We cannot excuse ourselves by pointing to scriptural authority to assuage our conscience. We cannot say it’s OK ‘because the Vedas permit it.’ They don’t.”
What is even more horrifying is the President’s reported belief that the solutions to child abuse must be adjusted to our reality.
What reality is that? The one in which there is an increase in the use of violence and tolerance for violence to resolve disputes? The one in which religious leaders are excused from carrying a sick child for medical treatment?
It is sad that the President’s comments reflected a kind of hopelessness that change is not possible. There are many Guyanese who have adjusted their realities and the realities of the children around them so as to ensure that children could grow in nurturing environments. He should be committed to that process.
Yours faithfully,
Vidyaratha Kissoon
