Dear Editor,
Constable Shawnette Bollers has put into the public domain her complaint to her employers about the violence she experienced at Justice Carl Singh’s residence (Stabroek News and Kaieteur News).
The Guyana Police Force has remained silent. Justice Singh has not denied that he apologized to Ms Bollers or any of the statements in the public domain. In this court of public opinion, most of us citizens on whose behalf Shawnette Bollers was providing protection to Justice Singh, most of us citizens can rightfully assume that the attack happened. We do not have to wait for the ‘evidence’ and ‘court’ and the long drawn out process which does not resolve the sexism and racism described in the attack.
The Guyana Police Force remains silent so far. The lack of accountability by the Guyana Police Force so far is disgraceful and there should be improved communications to be responsive to the public.
The reported behaviour by the lawyer must be condemned. The racism in the attack, happening soon after the Ministry of Education issued its ‘permission hair’ memo which is a part of the racism we live with, is like the oil and gas, latent and abundant.
The reported apology by Justice Carl Singh speaks to possibilities of righting wrongs and working on transformative justice. Transformative justice requires accountability and of course for many of us, men especially, we don’t believe in accountability or we don’t know how to do it. The Parliament, the streets, the workplaces are places for contempt for women all the time, intersected with race, ability, class. The politicians selectively condemn as they use these incidents to have access to the oil and gas money, rather than say trying to fix things so we can all live in a healthy and nurturing environment. The lawyer’s reported behaviour is disgraceful and there should be accountability for that behaviour. We fear conviction and accountability because the conviction means only punishment without any chance for transformation. But as we see in our world, punishment is not providing any lessons on how to deal with racism and sexism.
Maybe the law schools need to teach about transformative justice and understand that conviction does not only have to be about punishment but also about healing.
So the big ones who can drive drunk and kill people can get off on technicalities for example.. but we will continue to have others killing people on the road as some will get off, and some will not get off. And so we have to destroy racism and misogyny in Guyana by consistently holding all racists and misogynists accountable.
Yours sincerely
Vidyaratha Kissoon
