Dear Editor,
I met the late Dr Faith Harding only once in my life on September 3, 2002 at an education convention at the Ocean View Convention Centre, Liliendaal, East Coast Demerara. The few hours I listened to her on that day profoundly impacted my thinking and world-view.
As I listened to her speak gently yet firmly on matters of education, she slowly and surely convinced me that the corporal punishment of children is wrong on all counts, and by extension, all other forms of unnecessary violence (domestic violence, police brutality, state torture, vigilante justice) are also wrong and must not be tolerated one iota in a civilized society.
I credit Dr Harding with the remodelling of my thinking concerning the use of violence, an aberrant and abhorrent human behaviour that continues to pervade our society and the world at large. In her field of work and in the large niche that she carved out, she had fought a good fight, she has finished her course and she had kept the faith. Her soul is resting in peace.
It remains for us the living to carry on the work that she has left unfinished. As of today, forty-four states worldwide have abolished all forms of corporal punishment of children. Guyana will one day follow suit, and Dr Harding will smile.
Yours faithfully,
M Xiu Quan-Balgobind-Hackett