Child abuse is the toxic legacy of brutal slavery and indentureship

Dec 18, 2020 Letters

Dear Editor,

The nation is fully aware by now of the attack on the little girl in Berbice. The child, Shania Ramsarran, has thankfully recovered and the monster of a mother has been arrested. However, the story has not and should not end here.
This incident shed a light on a terror seeping through Guyanese households for decades. A terror that we don’t usually talk about: “Corporal Punishment”. You’ve felt it, I’ve felt .I pray your child doesn’t feel it. So many of us grow up and simply brush it off. We hear the familiar rationalizations like “I collect my share of licks but I turn out fine”. And then those individuals perpetrate those acts onto the younger generation. In fact, “corporal punishment” is just a sugar- coated term for child abuse. It is a term synonymous with “abuse” but of seemingly lesser intensity. We must call it as it is. It is abuse. It is nonsense. It must end.
Further, this nasty culture in Guyanese society of brushing off child abuse as nothing has paved the way for incidences like young Shania’s. Our nonchalant attitude of brushing off acts of violence disguised as “discipline” has now led to an atmosphere where child abuse has been normalised. This was not a “beating gone wrong”. This was not an “accident that shouldn’t have happened”. This is just one example of a barbaric human rights violation that takes place day after day in homes across Guyana. Enough is enough! This perverted form of “discipline” serves as an outlet for adults to take out all of their angers and frustrations freely—the child having to carry the pain. Whatever insecurities or angering instances that affected parents during the day can be all taken out by brutalising a child with a belt or other means.
Let us dig deeper. Abusers commonly have a history of child abuse. Because our parents were brutalised by their parents, they feel they are entitled to perpetrate acts of abuse against their own offspring. They feel that their own children deserve to “feel what we went through”. This forms a vicious cycle of abuse. It even stems all the way back to slavery and indentureship. “Massa” and his overseers would flog slaves and indentured workers as punishment. Yet we all know that this was just a toxic way of asserting dominance and ownership. When adults repeat these acts against their children, they only recreate the plantation scenarios which should have died on the plantation! Imperialism is the vilest curse that ever struck this land. Those systems and means of oppression must be erased in modern day Guyana. We must stand firmly against tasting what our ancestors tasted. This is the bloody twenty first century. Surely you’d think we’d have evolved by now.
Further, I would like to send a message to every parent who flogs their child today. You are no different than that wretch who harmed her child. She thrived on the culture, which you have normalised and continue to normalise. You have continued the cycle of abuse when it should have died with you. I am calling on every single youth of this country to END THE CYCLE. END THE ABUSE. This generational curse MUST die with us. We are the ones of change. I stress that we have to be proactive in doing so! The terrors of imperialism must not have a hold of us anymore! It is time for us to break free! STOP THE VIOLENCE! BREAK THE CYCLE!
Yours truly,
Nikhil Sankar.

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Child abuse is the toxic legacy of brutal slavery and indentureship

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