U.W.I. professor looks at Youth, Masculinity and Violence
On far more nights than we care to mention, this broadcast has opened with news of a fatal shooting. The perpetrator and victim are invariably young and male. The motive? Usually some trivial insult referred to as an “old beef.” Tonight, thank goodness, we are not leading with such a story … but we will open by talking to a man who’s made an academic career out of studying the problem of youth and violence. His name is Barry Chevannes and he’s a professor at the University of the West Indies Mona Campus. He’ll be speaking tomorrow night at Parish Hall and if you’ve ever wondered why our young men are killing each other with such methodical regularity, you ought to be there. Today Professor Chevannes gave us a preview.
Barry Chevannes, U.W.I. Professor
?It?s extraordinary chilling when you look at the percentage of homicides that are committed by young people. So the question then is why? I have been ruminating about this thing for years and I?m coming to the view that it has to do with how masculinity is constructed and the problems that young people have in the construction and the maintenance of that masculinity, which I think is fuelling in a kind of negative way the violence.?
Stewart Krohn, Reporting
?Are you saying young males engage in violence to express their masculinity??
Barry Chevannes
?In a matter of speaking, yes, in a matter of speaking, but I hope that your listeners won?t misunderstand. I am not saying that they consciously say, alright I can?t achieve being a man in the normal way therefore I will do it in the abnormal way, I don?t mean that. People don?t rationalize their behaviour like that, but as a scientist, an analyst, looking on and studying the pattern of this kind of behaviour over the years I?ve come to no other conclusion. I think the thing about this is that it isn?t a local Caribbean phenomenal. I use to think that it was a Jamaican phenomenal, when I began to discover that the governments of the Caribbean, the CARICOM regions certainly, are expressing anxieties about what is happening in their countries, so they are beginning to see some of the same manifestations. The youthfulness of energy which they have if they don?t turn it into positive avenues then it will express itself in destructive avenues.?
Stewart Krohn
?Professor you don?t have to work at U.W.I. to know that there is a problem here. In your work have you come up with any suggestive solutions??
Barry Chevannes
?Well that is what we will talk about tomorrow.?
Stewart Krohn
?You can?t give us a preview??
Barry Chevannes
?Well there is no big shakes. For years we have been seeing problems in the role of males in the family structures and I think that our governments need to turn?not just governments but the NGOs and civic society need to do what they can, I wouldn?t say restore the place of males in the family but at least to buttress the role of males in the family. I think that this is perhaps the major casualty of the period of globalization that we have been in. It is not globalization specifically but what it is non-liberal economics that structure society and relationships between people; in particular economic relationships between people in a particular way that is having a deleterious effect on men. I think that we are beginning to see or to reap the sour grapes of that sort of problem?
Stewart Krohn
?Dr. Chavannes I don?t know how many young disaffected and violent people are watching this newscast tonight but assuming that there are at least some. What is your message to them??
Barry Chevannes
?Well my message to them is that violence is not fulfilling. It really does not bring out your humanity. As human beings the essence of humanity or human nature is in our sociality. The social relations we have with people, you can?t be a human person if you don?t have social relations with other people.?
Stewart Krohn
?Meaning friendships and acquaintances??
Barry Chevannes
?Friendships, blood relationships and so on. You cannot live like an island, you are not, you can?t. The world will never exist like that. Even to be able to think you need other people to teach you language and so on. So I say to them that there is no future as human beings in violence. But each person, especially a young person, is at the peak of his creative powers and those creative powers can actually be turned into creative avenues that benefit and bring honour to oneself, to ones family, to ones kinship and makes one feel very big and fulfilled.?
The lecture, entitled “Youth, Masculinity and Violence in the Caribbean,” begins at six thirty on Thursday night at Holy Redeemer Parish Hall.
