Dear Editor,
Up to the time Mr. Roger Williams and I had our last exchange on corporal punishment in the letter columns in August last year, eighteen nations had already abolished all forms of corporal punishment.
Since then, five more countries – the nominally Catholic states of Portugal, Uruguay, Spain, Chile and Venezuela – have joined the small but growing roll of nations that have fully banned the corporal punishment of children, recognizing that children have the same protection from assault as adults enjoy. This brings to 23 the number of states to have recognized that children must be legally protected from all forms of assault of their persons. This number is more than a significant tithe of all the world’s 178 sovereign nations, no longer a drop in the bucket.
In his recent letter of March 27, 2008, Mr. Williams has once again exercised his democratic right to express his righteous indignation against the anti-corporal punishment lobby and the much-welcomed comments of the Honourable Minister of Education of Jamaica, Mr. Andrew Holness, against corporal punishment.
Among other exertions, he accuses the rather genteel lobby of using a “select signature-campaign to bludgeon local Ministry officials by its “star-power” effect.” Bludgeon? Will he next accuse them of burning tyres, blocking roads, banditry and shooting sprees as portions of our corporally bludgeoned populace have embarked upon in recent times?
Mr. Williams then refers us to diverse online pro-corporal punishment literature, including his previous letters and own “purely personal opinion”, calling their contents ‘evidence’. His disclaimer to his June 2007 advisory says it all: “While this document/dossier is styled as an “advisory” which any person/organization can choose to adopt, I stress that the entire text of the document has been screened to represent and reflect a purely personal opinion, and should not be construed at this time as the opinion of the Christian Community in Guyana or the respective churches or heads of churches that its members represent.” It is upon this kind of ‘evidence’ that people in olden days were accused of heresy and witchcraft in duly constituted courts of law and sentenced to capital punishment.
So, we must be very vigilant when Mr. Williams use the word ‘evidence’ as if it were scientific evidence as obtains in the physical sciences. What he really means is legal evidence, which, because of its nature, may or may not be equivalent to scientific evidence. For example, the Families First report only became legal evidence when it was accepted by the Joint Committee on Human Rights of the British Parliament.
A witness who swears to “tell the truth and nothing but the truth, so help me God,” is presenting legal evidence even though every word he utters is anything but the truth. The jury has to weigh the evidence and decide to accept or reject it. While the jury on the pro- and anti- corporal punishment arguments is still out in 178 nations, the collective jury of 23 nations has weighed against corporal punishment.
He then speaks glowingly of “the outstanding secular, academic and political positions that have generally supported the classic [and solid] Christian position on corporal punishment.” The Christian position is anything but classic and solid, as his disclaimer above seems to imply. His is merely a one-sided Christian position, which is just one of the varied Christian views on corporal punishment available online. As far as I am aware belief in corporal punishment is not a doctrinal creed necessary for salvation in any Christian church. Some churches even believe that Solomon’s rod is not a literal rod, but a figurative rod. Alternative Christian positions on corporal punishment are available at: Christians For Non-Violent Parenting (http://nospank. net/cnpindex.htm);
The Non-Violent Christian Parent (http://nospank.net/ncp.pdf);
Religion and Discipline – Christian (http://www.stophitting.com/religion/christian/); Sparing the Rod ( http://www.beliefnet.com/story/160/story_16021_1.html );
Corporal punishment ‘not a biblical doctrine’ (http://www.ekklesia.co.uk/content/article_corporal_punishment.html)
A Resource for Gentle Christian Parents and Other Caring Adults (http://parentinginjesusfootsteps.org/) There is also a vast online surfeit of “outstanding secular, academic and political positions” against corporal punishment that readers can access. A very informative and proactive one is found at http://www.endcorporalpunishment.org.
Recently, on a Berbice NCN broadcast, several young Christian leaders joyfully confessed that they no longer corporally punish their children but use non-corporal approaches and find their children are much better behaved.
And this extract from the January 19, 2007 edition of the Catholic Standard: “[School corporal punishment] is now formally banned in more than 100 countries, including all of Europe and all of Latin America. In the US… none of the 174 Catholic dioceses which run schools permits corporal punishment. Black Protestant church and other Black American leaders, including Rev. Jesse Jackson have mounted a strong lobby urging all school boards to ban corporal punishment and state legislators in all states allowing its use to pass legislation ending school corporal punishment… Mercifully, the Roman Catholic Church … has moved from being one of the world’s leading, even notorious, proponents of beating school children to one of the world’s leading institutions to have sought more civilized methods of discipline…The only current Roman Catholic school in Guyana has never practised this form of punishment since its inauguration….
Unfortunately, some Christ-ians defending pre-Christian practices of physical violence against minors, are also among the most strident defenders of corporal punishment in schools, and literal application of the Old Testament ‘Beat them with the Rod of Correction’” (Beating: Can Madras Help? by Mike James).
“It is utterly unbelievable that our Saviour, who said that a child-like quality is required to enter the Kingdom of God, would ever sanction hitting and hurting children.” (Thomas E. Sagendorf, Ohio Methodist minister.)
Yours faithfully,
M. Xiu Quan- Balgobind-Hackett
