The Guyana Defence Force (GDF) has crushed the dreams of a would-be recruit by telling him that he will not be eligible to become a member until after he removed a series of tattoos covering his left forearm and hand, a procedure he cannot afford at this juncture. According to Major Delbert George, who heads the army’s Public Relations Department, the no-tattoo policy is a longstanding one, but it had been relaxed at one time because the GDF was under strength and was not getting as many applicants as it would have required. However, soldiers who do have visible tattoos now have until March 31, this year to have them removed.
This is confusing to say the least, and the Guyana Defence Force is not an institution where one would expect confusion. In the first place, if it is the GDF’s policy that soldiers cannot have visible tattoos, then this is something that should be mentioned in its advertisements for recruits. That way, young men and women who have tattoos would not apply. But the army does no such thing; and worse, in the case reported in Tuesday’s edition of this newspaper, the young man in question was allowed to write an entrance examination, at which he was successful. It was when he was being interviewed that he was told he needed to get rid of the tattoos, and not only that, but they needed to be gone before he did a physical exam that was scheduled for the same day.
In the second place, if the GDF has a no-tattoo policy it should be strictly enforced at all times. No tattoos should mean no tattoos; there should be no flip-flopping on the issue. If the GDF can relax a policy to increase its intake, it means that persons with tattoos can be accepted.
Furthermore, Major George has told this newspaper that a Force Order issued this year requires soldiers with tattoos to have them removed by March 31, but he chose not to say what would happen if the inked soldiers did not or could not comply, given how expensive it is to have tattoos removed. Would the army toss them out? Because if it did it could be back at square one – seriously under strength, with a dearth of applicants.
While the GDF, as a military and disciplined organisation, has the right to enforce the rules by which it is governed, its spokesperson Major George did not or chose not to make a case about why tattoos are not allowed. Has having tattoos impacted soldiers’ service? Do they perform less well because of them? Are soldiers who have tattoos less disciplined?
As a point of reference, tattoos have been around since around 2000 BC, according to the Smithsonian Institute, which recorded tattoo patterns on Egyptian mummies unearthed during archaeological digs. It also noted that tattoos were prevalent in pre-Columbian Peru and Chile, and among the ancient Greeks, Romans, Britons and Native Americans. Evidence of tattooing, the Smithsonian said, was also found in ancient Greenland, China, Japan, New Zealand, Algeria, Niger and the Polynesian Islands. Back then, according to the Smithsonian, tattoos were used as medicine; “a permanent way to place protective or therapeutic symbols on the body”; as identification, “marking people out into appropriate social, political or religious groups”; and as a form of self-expression or as a fashion statement.
Fast forward to modern times where body ink continued to be used for the latter two reasons and earned its ‘bad’ reputation over its incorporation by criminal gangs, particularly in the USA, as a way of marking members. The yet unproven conception that one could contract HIV from getting tattooed also helped attach stigma to the body art.
It is also well known that soldiers in other countries such as the US, the UK and New Zealand for instance, add tattoos after they enlist which depict the insignia of their chosen branch of the military, or in memoriam of a fallen comrade in arms. In the UK (2014) and the US (2016) regulations have been relaxed, allowing for visible tattoos on enlisted men and women as long as the body ink is not offensive, obscene, extremist, racist and does not depict a sexual act, violence or illegal drugs. And while in the UK military tattoos are now allowed on the neck and hands, though they should not be visible in a passport-sized photograph, those areas are still prohibited in the US.
Of course, in the shaping of its policy, the Guyana Defence Force must have done its own research on tattoos. Its reasons for having the policy in place obviously makes good sense. The army therefore should not be allowed to deviate from its no-ink policy just to gain recruits, then switch back when it pleases. It should either relax its regulations or stick strictly to them, the way other disciplined organisations have done. A case in point is the Guyana Police Force which has a strict no-visible-tattoo policy that it has rigidly stuck to over the years.
