Linnette VassellONE OF my friends told me that earlier this week, her 10-year-old daughter spoke out quite angrily, and to no one in particular: "a don't want to hear no more news about no shooting an' no killing, about no kicking off doors and no dead people". The family has not watched the evening news since then.
There is no doubt that all of us are caught up in the pain, fear and weariness of the national trauma caused by the seemingly unrelenting violence and criminality in our small nation.
The most vulnerable among us, our children, the elderly, and the young people are most deeply affected, especially those who live in the communities close at hand.
The question is how to cope? What to tell ourselves, first and foremost, and our children our friends and the stranger in the streets, who, in the sharing of our shared feelings and experience suddenly becomes a neighbour and friend? What can we do?
BRUTALITY OF ENSLAVEMENT
First, I think, we look to the hills and ground ourselves in the knowledge that we have passed this way before, meaning that we as a people, through our foreparents passed through the fire and brutality of enslavement. They held their hope and pressed on in faith that better days would come to us their children. And those days did come.
Do you notice that if you stand on just about any spot in Jamaica, you can see hills? Show that to the children, help them to draw meanings from the strengths of the past; tell them stories of times when we had a sense of coming together to face crisis, for example, with Hurricane Gilbert (even for a short time).
Let us remind ourselves and tell our children about other struggles in our own families, where we are coming from, and therefore the confidence we can have, that despite the hardships now, we will stand our ground and from there move steadily forward. We need to encourage this kind of sharing among family members, so that all of us have space to release the tension and to draw strength from one another and be in touch with each other. That space for keeping in touch can be anywhere, anytime.
Secondly, let us remind ourselves and show our children the good things that are happening in Jamaica now in the midst of the rot and the pain. What are some things that come to your mind? Did you mention the commendable CXC results recently achieved by the prison inmates? Did you notice the rush and the excitement of decent striving, Jamaican women and men to get their children back into school? Do you notice that although things are hard, we are still 'up-full' in spirit, creative and ambitious to move forward? Isn't that significant?
Let us learn to give respect to that spirit in ourselves and in others. As a matter of fact this issue of giving respect and affirming the worth of each person came up again for discussion at last weekend's workshop held at the University of the West Indies under the theme, "Bridging the Gap with the Community". A part of bridging this gap with the community, many speakers said, was the need for academia, and by extension, the middle strata in society to validate and give respect to the high levels of skills, competence, and high level of work done by 'grassroots' community people, including unrecognised social workers to keep their communities functioning.
Repeated reference was made to the findings of a study done by the Faculty of Social Sciences and the World Bank among inner-city communities.
The publication of that study titled, "They Cry Respect", reveal that to the youth and people of the inner city and by extension, to our brothers and sisters of the poorer classes, one of the most painful aspects of life is the lack of respect shown by our society to their rights and dignity as human beings.
ALIENATION AND VIOLENCE
It is a complex matter that we need to explore, but much of the alienation and violence that is expressed in the society is linked somehow to this high regard for respect and validation that has never been and is still not accorded to the majority of Black people in our country. We see in the wanton violence, the lack of respect for life itself. This is an issue that we have to confront in our journey towards wholeness as a people.
Finally, to cope with the stress and to reduce and avoid panic, in the face of the violence in our society, let us each consciously plant a seed of hope in our own lives. This means, to my mind, that to the best of our strivings, we do what is right in all things at all times and above all, choose to love.
In this light, I am deeply inspired by bell hooks, a feminist theorist, who in her best-selling work, All about love: New Visions, challenges the dominant cultural view that equates love with desire and romance. She adopts the definition of love as "the will to extend oneself for the purpose of nurturing one's own or another's spiritual growth".
Thinking of love as an act of will more so than as a feeling, means that we are challenged to be accountable and responsible for our actions and their consequences. This means, inter alia, that when we choose love, we plant the seed of peace, and reduce the stress within ourselves as in others. To quote bell hooks, "when we are loving we openly and honestly express care, affection, responsibility, respect, commitment, and trust".
It's all about 1 Corinthians 13.
Linnette Vassell is a social development consultant. E-mails may be sent to cvas@cwjamaica.com
