Households’ role in violence : Don't Blame the Poor.

One Caribbean Nation.

  by Professor Sir Errol R.Walrond

 Some 50 years ago there was an informal forum where politicians from both parties and others would gather, relax and candidly discuss issues of the day. I recall a new minister stating that their first priority was to get the streets clean “for the tourists”. He was met with the retort from someone at the table that they should “get the streets clean for us first, then they would be clean for the tourists”. The echoes of this type of thinking persist to this day as with the tax relief for repairs/improvement on villas but none for “ordinary” house owners, or the recent Holetown redevelopment plan. Satisfying tourists.  On that occasion 50 years ago, the conversation shifted to other topics of development and it was posited that Jamaica had gone the way of satisfying the “tourists” need for a marijuana fix and the accompanying gun enforcement of the trade had evolved into corruption of some elements in the police force and had become embedded in the political culture. It was posited then that lest we go the same route, we should try to stem the growing culture that any dispute or burglary is best met by a gun. The new minister roundly ticked off by the comment, declared that it was foolish to believe that Barbados would ever follow the path of Jamaica in this respect, and to emphasize his point, he pulled his own gun from his pocket, put it on the table and announced that “anyone who troubled him would get a piece of this”. I silently hoped then, that the situation I left in Jamaica would never be manifest here. For I recalled when I had asked a colleague who was running for political office, how they were planning to cope with the increasing reports of guns being issued by the opposing party, the response was “We will match them gun for gun”. That chilling connection between armed “gangs” and political figures was established in Jamaica back then. I decided not to engage in that conversation with the new minister and perhaps I should have done, for one has seen over the years a gun brandished in our parliament and alleged “drug lords” invited to the Opening of Parliament. We have recently heard what I heard in Jamaica so many years ago, “law abiding” citizens vociferously arguing that they must be armed, not just the police and the army. I knew several such vociferous gun owners who lived to regret their boasts when they became targets to get their guns, most emigrated in great haste. called upon to be no-nonsense in their response, and attendance at church is proclaimed the answer. However, it appears that in spite of the proliferation of churches in both communities they have not yet found the way of getting most young males into their congregations as in times past. In all these years, I have never heard the church ask why they no longer attract those soprano voices into the choir or any other part of church activity? How many in our community proclaim that we are on the path to madness but are loathe to learn the lessons from similar communities that have trodden a similar path? Poor households.  The young men and boys from poor communities are blamed for the violence and often pay with their lives. Part of that pathway is the neglect of early childhood education and placing the blame on parents, particularly those from poor households. We refuse to acknowledge that part of the development of our community has been the break up of the traditional households where capable women, and some men, were outside of the workforce and with a primary school education only could not only provide parental guidance they were educated enough to push their children to strive for a better education. Our governance in our Caribbean countries has properly taken pride in education achievements at the secondary and tertiary levels and the performance of those people both abroad and at home. But our governments should not feel that the provision of “free” education is their only responsibility, the quality of that education at all levels must be their prime concern. Blamed for violence,  so  far, the responses here in Barbados mirror those in Jamaica so many years ago. The young men and boys from poor communities are blamed for the violence and often pay with their lives. The police are.  It is time to rescue those who are still left behind, and no amount of trying to blame the parents, or a particular assessment process, will do, other than increase the resort to violence as the only means of validation of those who feel left behind.

The Mahogany Coconut endorses the position of Profesor  Sir Errol Walrond

From the Nation Newspaper.