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The viciousness of Guyana

Mar 06, 2016 Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom

Guyana’s political system has become extremely vicious. In politics there will always be competing sides. In politics there will always be opposing sides. But politicians should be able to respect one another and be friends.
Politics however has, in Guyana, become extremely vicious. It has gone beyond competition and beyond opposing each other. There are, in many instances, deep-seated hatred and animosities on all sides of the political aisle. And unfortunately the public tends to add fuel to these fires by agitating the politicians to be more vicious.
The vicious political system is really a mirror image of a vicious society, a society shaped by violence, physical violence on the plantations, in homes and in classrooms. If this culture of violence is to be broken, then those who lead must set the example and they must also takes steps to de-institutionalize the culture of violence within our society, including within the penal institutions.
Removing corporal punishment in schools must be part of the solution to violence in society. Sending people to jail for long periods for minor offences is also a form of violence which must be reexamined as part of the process of making society less violent.
The system of punishment in our society originates in class interests. The penal system is a system of class rule in which the ordinary man is made to feel the brunt of society’s violence for even the most minor of wrongs.
Persons are dragged before our courts for the most minor of traffic offences. In the name of revenues, persons who fail to submit their tax returns are made into tax defaulters and forced to pay huge penalties, even though they may not owe any taxes. School children are flogged for not doing their homework. Some workplaces have become concentration camps, with many employees taking a liking towards humiliating, in the name of authority, their fellow workers.
Change has to begin at the top. Change has to begin with the changing of our laws. Change has to begin with a new political culture, one that is respectful. Power cannot be so important as to force people who know that they have lost an election to want to inflict violence on the supporters of the other side simply to force the other side to submit to violence.
Violence is not the answer. Violence is not the solution to the problems of Guyana. Violence begets more violence. It continues a vicious cycle. It is for the politicians to set a better example; to demonstrate that the political culture can be made more humane and decent. This has to begin by curtailing the vicious and indecent attacks on their political rivals. It has to begin by not giving in to demands to be vicious towards their political rivals.
Politicians are human. Those in power are subjected to pressures to jail this person, to punish this person. When a person associated with one political party goes over to another, that person is subjected to the most vicious of attacks, physical and verbal. That person’s character is maligned and ridiculed in public. This is where the violence is stemming from in Guyana. It is stemming from a violent political culture, reinforced by a society which was shaped historically by violent forces.
The decision by the Minister of Public Security to respond immediately to some of the demands by prisoners for better food and more contact with their families is an act of humanism. It is a response that does not seek to punish, but to understand and respond. It sets the right tone for non-violent resolution to our country’s problems. Even the most hardened of criminals will appreciate such gestures, and therefore even though the situation at the prison is fragile, the prisoners will hold to their side of the bargain.
A change to the culture of violence has been made. It must extend now to the rest of society. It must begin with a new culture of politics, one that is less violent and less personal. Old habits die hard, but unless a start is made to change our vicious habits, they will never die. The silly season is once again with us. Let us keep the campaign clean and less confrontational.

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