Violence becoming cultural norm

The shock of a particularly horrendous act has the effect  of diverting attention away from the everyday occurrence of violence  in the cultural life  of the Caribbean.That view was expressed by Professor Linden Lewis, outgoing president of the Caribbean Studies Association, as he addressed the opening ceremony of the association’s 35th annual conference at the University of the West Indies Cave Hill Campus on Monday night.Speaking on the topic The Banality Of Violence, he said whether our particular indignation and outrage were the result of the recent beheading of two individuals in Grenada, or the shooting of dancehall artistes in Jamaica or drug-related homicide in the Bahamas or Puerto Rico, there was a tendency in the Caribbean for the objective violence of the region to become obscure.He said violence was always an exercise  of power which pitted strength against weakness, affluence against poverty; “capital against labour and men against women. Patriarchy is fundamentally about power, not only power  of men over women,  but power of certain privileged men over other categories of men”.Lewis stated: “Furthermore, we do men a disservice when we only condemn the violence they direct towards women, while normalising and naturalising the pervasive violence men visit upon each other every day.”Speaking about structural violence, he added that it was not reducible to the behaviour of individuals; it got  at a deeper level that  was systemic as opposed  to personal.“Structural violence  is concerned with matters of inequality and poverty; it is about the way economic resources are unequally distributed so that certain classes of people in society are privileged while others are marginalised,” he said.According to him, globalisation had brought with it a certain amount  of violence that even when recognised as such was simply treated as collateral damage,  as the cost advancement and modernity  in a technological age.“Violence in all its complexity, in all its banality, offers to all of us a burning ontological challenge; that is, to do the work of social justice and to pursue social change. Whether the violence  is structural, symbolic, mythical or related to deprivation of human rights; it is a call to action, to intervene, to right the wrongs, to restore humanity,” Lewis stated.It was also during the opening ceremony that noted author and literary giant George Lamming was presented with the President’s Lifetime Achievement Award.Among Lamming’s most celebrated works are  In the Castle Of My Skin; The Emigrants; Of Age And Innocence; A Season Of Adventure; Water With Berries and Natives Of My Person. (PW)