Culture, violence and disorder

At the end of May, the local edition of our newspaper reported on a study conducted by the IDB – “Antipodes of Violence”. It should be studied by our policy makers who may be wringing their hands at the violence that is wreaking havoc in all sections and strata of our society. “Antipodes”, of course, refers to things that are direct opposites. The findings of the study, which was conducted in several Latin American cities, found remarkable echoes in our own experience. It bluntly concludes that any successful strategy to prevent violence should include measures to recognise and change behaviours prompted by beliefs, emotions and cultural factors. What then are the cultural factors that are the “antipodes of violence”?
Unlike countries such as the USA and Guyana which stress police action and incarceration, along with various ameliorative ‘social’ programmes, the study warns it is not enough to increase police capacity, reduce socioeconomic inequalities or amend laws to achieve deep changes in the safety of citizens. This ought to give pause to those in Guyana that insist “marginalisation” and “economic inequalities” (themselves disputed) lead to the higher rates of crimes and violence.
We have to look at the variations of the cultural practices of several communities and find out which of those practices are more highly correlated with crimes/violence and then look for causative mechanisms. Culture is defined as rather broadly, cognitively and behaviourally, as the universe of social norms, attitudes, beliefs and habits shared by individuals in a social group. The premise is that violence is not normative and that the communities want to live in peace.
One of the researchers pointed out: “Harmony or disharmony among law, morality, and culture often determines the attitudes of people before the law, and lie at the root of legal or illegal behaviours. When a society or social group approves illegal behaviour and disapproves of legal behaviour, the law naturally loses authority as a regulatory system, and the likelihood of committing illegal acts increases.” We see this operating every day in Guyana.
Not long ago, when the Mayor of Georgetown Hamilton Green was asked about the then incipient problem of street vending, he replied that the owners of the stores were greater violators of the law. In this way, rather than going after the store owners if his allegation was true, the Mayor encouraged the vendors to continue with their illegal activities. By the time the problem inevitably metastasised into drug dealing, gambling, robberies under arms etc, the country did not have the resources to deal with the problem. The culture of ‘looking the other way’ towards law breaking had become endemic. Today, there is a whole section of the media and opposition elements that are bent on subverting and undermining law enforcement officials and officialdom on the whole. The result is a loss of faith in all institutions and a culture of anarchy and nihilism.
Although young people generally enter the world of crime because of economic problems or lack of opportunities, the study’s authors argue that the root cause is cultural. For instance, youths may feel the need for social recognition and to express machismo. Increasing penalties, therefore, would not attack the underlying problem, since punishing individuals who do not feel guilt or shame for their criminal actions may be useless in preventing recidivism, the study said.
One of the mechanisms in which violence and law breaking become normalised and ‘acceptable’ is when the popular media flood communities with dysfunctional traits with graphic images of violence. This newspaper has long argued that the sensationalist yellow journalistic practices in some sections of the press must be curbed by the authorities.
However, it is possible to modify culturally instilled traits and collective beliefs that nurture violent behaviour. Culturally ‘slack’ institutions must be curbed and the ‘politically correct’ norm not to place responsibility on individuals for their beliefs and actions must be abandoned.