This violence thing!

December 28, 2002
By Bukka Rennie

How anyone could have read what was said in the last column and conclude that I was being "apologetic" and seeking to "legitimise crime", is beyond me.

There is a need here to comprehend the phenomenon that is violence in order to be able to pose holistic approaches to deal the present situation.

Throwing money and materials and implements at the problem is not dealing with the problem. It is so true, as one commentator repeats ad nauseam, that we understand everything else other than our own environment, and moreso, we can add, we do not understand who we are and what made us who we are.

The last column indicated that this society, with its socio-economic travails of plantation development, was founded on violence and continues so to be and that crime has always been a reflection of the nature of the dominant structure of social relationships that exist.

The column indicated that present crimes in T&T are largely crimes of passion, reflecting the basic relationship between the sexes and the struggle to transform sex and sexual relations; and drug-related crimes that are impersonal and are a direct result of the big-boys and fat-cats "doing business" from their patriarchal-structured ivory towers who are to be held responsible for unleashing all these "cowboys" in the streets.

For examining the sociology of the phenomenon of crime and violence, I have been accused of being "apologetic". Truth to say, I had only scratched the surface. There is much more to be said, so here are more "apologies" for crime and violence.

For years I have been saying that the natural stance and posture of the black male, in particular, within the confines of this White, Western, Graeco-Roman, Christian world and its global military-industrial complex, is one of subversion and revolution. The tendency of black males is not towards reform of this global system, but to destroy it lock, stock and barrel.

The tell-tale signs of this natural tendency to subversion and revolution are there in the underpinnings of all the varied forms of sub-culture in which black males are formidable leaders.

And it is interesting to note that once any new form of this sub-culture is co-opted by the global status-quo and becomes mainstream, it loses its attraction and power of influence within the sub-culture and pride of position is given to a newer form even more "outlandish" in the eyes of the establishment.

Growing up in T&T, moreso the East/West Corridor, the urban hub, one was always mindful of this stance and posture of black males in the way they contested each other and in their attitude towards the superstructure which they defined as "society" ie Government, police, judicial courts, prison etc.

Being a "man" meant being psychologically aggressive and violently uncompromising against anything and anyone that limited an individual's space and sense of freedom to be free, that limited one's sense of his own importance and bigness.

In the 60's I saw men kill men in the Quai D'orsay(Croisee) for "putting mih under". There was "fatigue" and "mamaguy: but there was an unwritten but well established threshold that you did not cross. In T&T the language said it all. In the 70's, "boy" ceased to be a term of endearment . You referred to somebody as "boy" and the angry retort was "not, boy, man". Then a boy, a non-adult male, had to be called "small man".

Later on, for a particular section of black males, it was Rasta or "Ras" which means "king" or "Prince" and "Dread". All terminology of another sociological complex that sought to search for and establish paradigms different and diametrically opposed to that of the White Western world.

It is that uncompromising posture which gave Rastafarianism its power and popularity in the last decade , including of course its fierce visual impact, always a criterion, particularly after the "afro" and the "braids" became mainstream fashion.

It is the same thing that is reflected in the hybrid complex that is a black male who is also a Muslim. This is like a double-whammy.

It is the added factor of an aged, international religion, unlike the more recent Rastafarianism, that has battled the White Western Christian world for over 1000 years, the crusades themselves having lasted from the 11th century to the 15th Century.

We need to understand what this natural stance and posture means. What the language that follows from it indicates. And, of course, the connection between all of this and the throes of a whole people, in the ongoing process of decolonisation, to establish and affirm nationhood and sovereignty, and yes, the connection between that and us becoming or own "men".

Are we then to still wonder why the male terms of endearment went from "boy" to "small man" and "man", then to "Ras" and "Dread" and finally to the present all-embracing, "Soldier!"

Next week: solutions