Domestic Violence

May 20, 2019 Editorial

Again. Yet again. Not again. There are people, mainly women, who exist in a continuous torture chamber. It is the plague of domestic terrorism writ large, as brought out so graphically, and reminded of so disturbingly, in recent media reports.
It never goes away to manageable, acceptable levels. That is, if there can ever be any level that is acceptable. For even one incident, one harrowing circumstance, should be too much to absorb or accommodate.
Guyanese are more than jaded; they are numb and shrivel before the episodes of violence that flare here, there, and almost everywhere it appears.
Unlike the gun violence that is now every day, and lurks behind most routine interactions, domestic violence is characterised by physical blows, whether fists of feet, or other ready tools of force. There is that familiar nearness that makes matters more monstrous, more unforgivable, through frequency.
Yet there is forgiveness for those willing themselves to believe (mostly females), that tomorrow will be sober and peaceful and lacking the unimaginable wretchedness that is the daily, yearly, lifetime norm. That kind of tomorrow rarely comes. Nobody should live like that; especially women, wives, mothers.
None ought to become so insecure and so dependent as to compel themselves to believe that they cannot get by, cannot manage, cannot survive. It is when they stay and hope, that survival is most threatened. That the tomorrow that comes could well be one of blood, battering, and brokenness.
It is why women must make up their minds, steel their spine in the conviction that they can and will overcome. On their own. And in the aloneness of an unknown, but newfound, strength and faith.
The cultural overhang has to go; there is no stigma in leaving and going from that which menaces. There is neither joy nor security nor tranquility in staying. Too often, there is only maiming and dying.
True punishment and justice are denied by the cowardly escapism of ending one’s life by one’s own hand, through the contemptible pathos of the usual easy, available poison or rope. It is a premeditated exit strategy. Having long brutalised and at last butchered, the quick way out is taken. There is no solace nor closure for survivors, be they orphans, parents, or siblings of those hacked and incinerated and stripped of life.
No one should ask, insist, coerce, or influence a victim to remain. Not abuser. Not family. Not community. Not the state. Not the church.
That is a recipe for tragedy, one more. In this emerging era of keener social sensitivities and greater emphasis on the dignity of persons, including the poor, the vulnerable, the weak-the necessary cultural education, reformation and transformation cannot continue to lag far behind. This starts with the individual and in the family.
The standards and upbringings instilled in male offspring that violence is not the way, that respect for women and self is mandatory, that starting over is better, wiser, healthier. The old automatic reflex towards, and dependency on, male dominance no longer meets with either applause or approval or any strain of acceptance.
In the same patient, unambiguous manner, parents and elders must cultivate a value system and mental shift in female descendants that questions, if not contradicts, blind submission to the whims and rages of partners, bent on inflicting harms of many varieties, all highly endangering.
Religious denominations of all persuasions have to look again at that matrimonial ideal of “until death do us part.” That is not sustainable when the circumstances cry out against; when, indeed, the death that parts is from anything but the passage of time or natural causes.
The teachings have to focus more on physical safety and self-preservation, along with psychological confidence and spiritual vigor. Discretion is not merely better than valor; it is also removing the bull’s eye from one’s body.
Hard domestic choices have to be made or harder personal violence follows.

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