Right now at the Bliss Center, Jamaican violence anthropologist Dr. Herbert is speaking about his groundbreaking work, the study on Male Social Participation and Violence in Urban Belize.
The hefty research document was released two weeks ago and since then many policy makers, social scientist types, students, and observers have been wrestling with its 403 pages which are full of information and insights into the nature and the sources of violence in Belize.
Gayle is visiting Belize this week to discuss the body of work, and today he told us about the four factors that create violence in Belizean society:…
Dr. Herbert Gayle, Violence Anthropologist
"The problem is 4 sets of stuff. It's one: extreme inequality in such a very small place. You have a 3% solid people who have everything to create - to literally hold the economy together. And then you have a massive 43%, between 39 - 43% - because there has to be a flex in the data - of people who are below the poverty line. There is no way you can carry a country forward with that level of poverty. Two; there is no central political authority that is worth writing home about. And the central political authority we are talking about ranges from parliament to policing to civil society to media. The third one is
mobilization. If you have these two things then mobilization is easy, it means that I feel that I am on my own. If they feel they are on their own, they're going to create their own structures. Their own structure becomes the most efficient gangs. Gangs are very useful because not only do gangs operate as family but they also make money, they also get girls, people have to respect you. So just by being a gang member you achieve everything. It solves everything at the risk of you being killed, but if you are dying anyway - what's the logic, what's the prohibition? What's going to stop you from becoming a gang member if you saw young friend walking down the road, he wasn't a gang member and he got shot? Why die innocent when you can die guilty? Human beings are pre-occupied with providing food, getting food [Jules Vasquez - fear of scarcity] yeah, while some women have luxury of receiving food even if 90% of the women are employed, it still doesn't matter. We grow up as men to know that her money is her money and my money is still her money, that is what we all grow up knowing. There is nothing more profound. Every country I work there is a term leaves that stays in my head for the rest of my life 'catch and kill.' It's just the most beautiful explanation of what males are doing. If we don't have a skill, if we are not employable, you have to catch and kill, something has to get killed because you have to be able to provide food and you have to be able to provide food within a frame of protection."
We'll have more from that interview tomorrow… If you'd like to see the entire research document, you can find a link to it at 7newsbelize.com
http://issuu.com/7newsbelize/docs/male_social_participation_and_violence_in_urban_be
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