Cultural violence is smothering social cohesion − Granger

Former President David Granger believes that cultural violence is smothering social cohesion. Granger, during his weekly Public Interest Programme aired on Friday said that cultural violence was the exact contradiction of culturalcohesion.

He noted that violence is aggravated by attitudes and policies which impair social solidarity and isolate, rather thanintegratecommunities.

Granger, pointed to the February 17, 2023 incident at Woodley Park involving the abuse and assault of schoolchildren.

He said that theWoodley Park incident “was a frightening rerun of the injuries inflicted on school children at Bath Settlement, Bush Lot and Cotton Tree th Villages(inReg.No.5)on6

March2020.”

The former President said too that “similar simultaneous lawlessness at Canal No. 1, Canal No.2 and Cornelia Ida (in Region No. 3) at Herstelling, Lusignan, Mon Repos and Success (in Region No. 4), and Black BushPolder,EastCanje,No. 19 Village and Tain (in Region No.6) and elsewhere occurred on the same day, s u g g e s t i n g c e n t r a l coordination.”

“Cultural violence was evident in the wake of the grisly slaughter of two boys at Cotton Tree and the murder of another boy in September 2020 which plunged the villages deeper intoviolence.

Cultural violence was evident, also, in the forceful removal of residents from informal settlements in Success and at Mocha-

Arcadia and the public reactions to the killings of Orin Boston in Dartmouth and Quindon Bacchus at Mon Repos,” Granger said n o t i n g t h a t t h e aforementioned incidents were ominous indicators of the connection between cultural violence and social disintegration.

Mr Granger said further, that cultural violence was evident in the National Assembly when the Leader of the Opposition displayed a placard describing social cohesion as “a farce” during the President's address in November2017.

This, he said, was the antecedent of the “vulgarity evinced by prominent Opposition parliamentarians during the President's presentation at the private meeting of the Guyana Manufacturing and Services

Association in September 2019 and the disorder displayed by the Opposition in the National Assembly in December2022.”

The Former President lamented the awful legacies ofillwillandloathingleftby the cultural and criminal v i o l e n c e o f t h e 'Disturbances' of the 1960s and the 'Troubles' of the 2000s.

He indicated that the decisions to discard the Social Cohesion Action Plan a n d d i s m a n t l e t h e Department of Social Cohesion have been big mistakes that effectively undermined the bases of the subsequent attempts to promote the 'One Guyana Commission' and 'Corridor ofUnity'initiatives.

Granger said that society is becoming increasingly unbalanced and that the sincere adoption of 'social cohesion'measureswouldbe a sure means to avoid the