Dear Editor,
The recent and not-recent killings of young men by unknown perpetrators and women by current and past partners are continuing evidence of the impact of the widespread social norm that guides, directs, recommends, accepts, condones, and excuses violence as a means to get what we want, correct wrongdoing, resolve disputes, manage conflicts, and settle scores. Let me put this in other ways.
When parents and caregivers (adult family members and older siblings) use and justify corporal punishment against children as right and proper, we are teaching children that violence against the bodies of others is a valuable tool. Children, nurtured in a home environment supposedly populated by persons who care for, ‘love’ and ‘protect’ them, learn to employ this tool when they are able to dispense violence or react with violence to others. While there is research that connects violence in childhood with the normalizing of violence in adulthood, we should not need this to understand why a child raised with violence can easily become victim, perpetrator, enabler, or passive witness of intimate partner, family or other forms of interpersonal violence. Too many Guya-nese are in denial about how growing up with licks from loved ones can turn children into persons who can commit violence against loved ones, appear to ‘survive’ with loved ones who abuse them, or who do bodily harm to those who are not ‘loved ones.’
When teachers and faith-based authorities practise violence against children, are silent on, and/or equate ‘violence’ with ‘discipline’ – they are modelling, disseminating, and promoting pro-violence values, attitudes, and behaviours. And when they choose not “Thy rod and Thy staff shall comfort …” but “spare the rod and spoil …” from sacred scriptures originally written with shepherds, livestock-rearers, farmers, and fishermen in mind, one is forced to question not merely their comprehension of language and context, but the moral compass and compassion underlying their teaching and preaching.
We often forget that we are not raising children, nor even raising adults. To have the society we say we want, we must be consciously raising human beings; human beings who, by our example, learn what it means to be human, and behave in human and humane ways in whatever situations we find ourselves.
When police and those in authority over institutionalized big-bodied or small-bodied human beings, with roles and responsibilities for protection and service, routinely use verbal and physical violence in handling others, we need not wonder where they learned their communication and people skills. Our homes and schools are the places where the employment of fear, threats, and violence is taught and learned. We know of, and many accept, violence in police stations, jails, prisons, and other places of incarceration. Those fortunate enough to live in safe, peaceful homes should reflect on, and be concerned about, what prevails in the homes of public servants whose daily, poorly remunerated work is conducted in abusive environments and whose principal management skills are fear-based or violence-based.
The widespread practice and normalization of violence in our country is not new. If we review our historical experiences with colonization, enslavement, and indentureship or even if we only go back to the ‘independence’ and ‘republican’ generations that preceded us, we should be surprised and profoundly grateful that the current levels of violence are not far, far higher.
Although there are other countries, in our region and further afield, that have experienced deeper trauma, there is no doubt that Guyana is a traumatized society. Trauma specialist, Judith Herman MD, in her book Trauma and Recovery: The Aftermath of Violence, points out: “Repeated trauma in adult life erodes the structure of the personality already formed, but repeated trauma in childhood forms and deforms the personality.”
However, bringing an end to violence, not in our lifetime, but in the generations to come, is doable. It simply requires each of us to critically examine our own roles in fostering violence, and resolve to do better. Hold yourself accountable. Respect children and treat their bodies with respect. Let them see you treating your own body with self-respect. If you have ever hit or humiliated a child, make genuine apology, give the child a commitment to never, ever hit again. Honour your commitment. If a child is being hit or otherwise abused, step up and step forward to protect him or her. If this feels vulnerable, remind yourself that the child is in an even more vulnerable place.
And while men are not the only gender guilty of violence, we have to face the fact that the emotional needs of our young and adolescent boys are hardly recognized, much less met. Now that Covid-19 is forcing us to overhaul our teaching methodologies and hopefully, our formal education curriculum, for the ‘new normal,’ the opportunity must be taken to ensure that teaching and modelling healthy relationship skills are high on the agenda.
What is facing us is much, much bigger than the operations of the Ethnic Relations Commission.
“Not everything that is faced can be changed. But nothing can be changed until it is faced.” (James Baldwin)
Yours faithfully,
Bonita Harris
