Richard Ho Lung - DIARY OF A GHETTO PRIEST LAST WEEK Sunday, along Tower Street in broad daylight ,Shirleen, a hefty 180-lb lady, strapped her child into total humiliation. It was 10:00 a.m. and the little girl named Alicia had broken a drinking glass. When asked who did it Alicia told her mother, "Not me." She was frightened to tell the truth. Shirleen discovered from her good friend Mavis, who lived in the same yard, it was a lie.
Shirleen went out into the street to look for her six-year-old daughter Alicia. When she found her at the nearby grocery shop, she grabbed her by the neck of her dress and lifted her little daughter tiptoe barefooted through the hot burning street. Frightened, Alicia began to sob. "Is you do it? You little wretch," shouted Shirleen. She said, "No mama." "You little liard. Is who teach you to lie, eh?" Shirleen whipped her with the belt with all the strength of her 180 lb. The skinny little six-year-old screamed and hollered while tears poured down her face. "Mama, mama, stop. I beg you stop." Shirleen wrapped the leather belt around her fingers with the tail end of the belt made of metal and she pounded her little daughter mercilessly in the street for the public to see for fully ten minutes more. Her daughter wept and wept. By this time Shirleen had almost fallen into a frenzy of cruelty. She kept whipping the child over and over. A small crowd of neighbours and passers-by stood up to watch the appalling spectacle of cruelty. The more the child begged for mercy, the harder was the strap laid on.
It was like being in the arena again when little Christians were thrown into the lion's den and they were eaten to pieces. Brother Rodolfo had heard the shrieking of Alicia and went out into the street with Roy, our cook. Nobody dared to interfere with the mother's cruelty. But Brother Rodolfo cried out, "You must stop. Stop it. You can't beat the little girl to death." Brother Rodolfo tried to grab Shirleen's arm, as she was about to strike once again. Shirleen yelled at Brother Rodolfo, "Is fe me pickney. She brok me glass." "I will give you another. But stop it. Stop it! Stop it!" yelled Brother Rodolfo. The crowd yelled, "Stop interfering. Is not fe you pickney." God will punish all of you for encouraging this wickedness."
Roy took courage from Bro-ther's defence and began to drive off the crowd. "All of you standing around, is you encourage de mod-da to be so wicked. Is your watching her mek her show off." He came forward bravely to Shirleen. "Is dis violence to you pickney mek all a de youth dem violent. Is dis violence will mek you daughter a bad woman. You no love her. You hate her. Look how you daughter magah and you so fat. Is because you eat off all de food."
Roy was surprised when Shirleen backed off. She said silently, dangerously, "I gwine shoot you down. You wait. Gunman gwine fix you business." Roy responded, "I am not afraid. I doing the right thing, but you is an evilous woman."
Brother Rodolfo brought Shirleen a drinking glass, gave it to her and prayed over her. She broke down and cried. He brought little Alicia to her mother and placed them hand in hand, daughter and mother.
This terrible cruelty is the beginning of violence. This excessive beating, this humiliation, this total loss of one's passion of anger is the origin of so much hatred and insecurity among the young. These modern times have totally confiscated beating as a punishment.
At our centres, no matter how much the cursing, the abuse, the ungratefulness and the wickedness, we will not beat any of our homeless and destitute. In fact, we will offer prayers and kindness in return for their misdemeanours.
Sometimes we do punish by sending out those who disrupt the community. Sometimes we will withhold a meal. Sometimes we will isolate an individual, but not beat.
Punishment is good to instil discipline. There cannot be discipline without punishment. I myself and my sisters and brother sometimes received beatings but never to such a point of cruelty, especially when we ran away from castor oil at the end of the mango season. We were also kept away from games or dinner or were forced to stand in a corner with a book on our head. But it was always explained it was for our good. We knew we deserved the punishment meted out to us. Moreover, it was not in excess. The good Lord, as we know, will punish us with the fires of hell if we do not worship Him and serve our neighbours. But it's because we deserve it.
Reward and punishment is part of justice. Discipline requires our adherence to proper behaviour. We must live out our lives filled with kindness and generosity rather than selfishness. However, excessive cruelty and wickedness meted out in exercising justice, with a clear imbalance between the rude act and the punishment, becomes in itself and of itself, injustice. That is not Christian, as Roy our cook said. It will bring about more violence rather than discipline.
There is too much excessive beating in family life in Jamaica: sometimes husbands of their wives, men of their women, and mothers of their children. That is the origin, the beginning of the violence so prevalent in our society. We must pray for an end to it.
Father Ho Lung is founder and leader of the Missionaries of the Poor.
