Go Lean Commentary
The issue in the subsequent news article relates to the guidance we give our young people. The words we say and the things we do have an impact on their standards of right and wrong. The research in this article relates to the attitudes that lead to domestic violence, and why the rest of the community may standby and tolerate it.
This point is being brought into focus in a consideration of the book Go Lean … Caribbean. The book serves as a roadmap for the introduction and implementation of the technocratic Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU), for the economic optimization in the region.
The focus of the book is “Economics“, not domestic violence! And yet this commentary relates that there is an alignment of objectives. The Go Lean roadmap posits that the economy of the Caribbean is inextricably linked to the security (public safety) of the Caribbean.
Among the objectives to accomplish the economic elevation is the mission to retain Caribbean citizens in their homelands and repatriate the far-flung Diaspora back to the region.
Many times people flee the region to mitigate abusive situations; even more troubling, as victims they may have encountered an attitude of complacency and indifference among public safety authorities. The following article posits that this attitude is deeply entrenched in society, even among the next (younger) generation.
Title: COB Study: 58% Of Boys Believe Men Should Discipline Their Female Partners
By: Rashad Rolle, Staff Reporter
The Tribune – Bahamas Daily Newspaper – October 21, 2014
FIFTY-eight per cent of high school boys and 37 per cent of high school girls participating in a recent academic survey believe men should discipline their female partners, according to a new College of the Bahamas study.
The study also found that 49 per cent of boys believe women should ask permission from their male partners if they wanted to go out while 17 per cent of girls supported this view.
Of the students surveyed, 46 per cent of boys believed wives must have sex when her husband wants to, compared to 16 per cent of girls. This, according to researchers, has possible implications on debates on marital rape.
According to the study, most of the teens from both sexes believed men should be the head of their households and that both husbands and wives should submit to one another and remain committed, reflecting the country’s religious values.
The research was conducted by members of the Bahamas Crisis Centre (BCC) and COB’s academic community. Its findings appear in the latest edition of the International Journal of Bahamian Studies. The study investigated teen perspectives on relationships between the sexes and the prevalence of violence within teen relationships.
It concluded that efforts must be made to ensure adolescents adjust their behaviour before becoming adults in order to push back against a culture of violence.
It also concluded that girls are more likely than boys to use aggressive behaviour in teen relationships, such as restricting access to friends of the opposite sex.
Based on the gathered data, the study concludes that “there is a clear need for children to be taught how to respect one another from an early age.”
One thousand students from grade 10 to 12 from eight schools, including one private school, participated in the study.
According to the study, “over 80 per cent of respondents had been on a date and so had a relationship of some sort with the opposite sex,” a figure noted as higher than the 61 per cent reported in a similar study of teens in the United States.
The study is titled Attitudes of High School Students Regarding Intimate Relationships and Gender Norms in New Providence, The Bahamas.
“The responses show that on a number of issues regarding relationships, boys and girls have different attitudes and behaviours,” the researchers wrote. “It can also be seen that large numbers of teens can be expected to be victims of controlling behaviours. The use of threats and physical force may be learnt behaviours due to the presence of violence in homes in The Bahamas.”
“Overall, it is apparent that the breakdown in adult relationships, which is considered to play an important role in the violence observed in Bahamian society, may be the consequence of adolescents not adjusting their teen behaviours when they become adults. Therefore, modifying the attitudes of children with regard to interpersonal relationships may be important in reducing long-term violence in the country. Boys and girls had different attitudes on many aspects of relationships with current or future partners, but their endorsement of stereotypes of sex-related roles and their participation in certain behaviours could be a cause for concern. Underpinning these attitudes may be issues associated with what it means to be a woman or a man in The Bahamas, and related gender norms.” http://www.tribune242.com/news/2014/oct/21/cob-study-58-boys-believe-men-should-discipline-th/
———–
The actual Research Report: ‘Attitudes of High School Students Regarding Intimate Relationships and Gender Norms in New Providence, The Bahamas’ can be found here:
http://journals.sfu.ca/cob/index.php/files/article/view/225
This CU/Go Lean roadmap has 3 prime directives:
- Optimization of the economic engines in order to grow the regional economy and create 2.2 million new jobs.
- Establishment of a security apparatus to protect the resultant economic engines and their relevant stakeholders.
- Improve Caribbean governance, with a separation-of-powers between member-state administrations and the CU federal government (Executive facilitations, Legislative oversight and Judicial prudence) to support these economic/security engines.
While the subject of the Caribbean adolescent culture of violence falls on the member-state side of the separation-of-power / governance divide, the CU will entail a jurisdiction of monitoring and metering (ratings, rankings, service levels, etc) local governance and their delivery of the Social Contract.
Change has now come to the Caribbean. As the foregoing article depicts the problem of domestic violence is tied to a community ethos. This ‘negative’ ethos must be uprooted and replaced with a new, progressive spirit, starting at the adolescent level, when attitudes are pliable and sensitive to strategic messaging; see VIDEO below.
Many related issues/points were elaborated in previous blogs, sampled here:
The above commentaries examined global developments and related their synchronicity with the principles in the Go Lean book. There are a number of touch points that relate to domestic violence and the community attitude to dissuade such behavior. Most importantly, the Go Lean book depicts solutions. These are presented as community ethos, strategies, tactics, implementations and advocates; a sample is detailed as follows:
| Community Ethos – Privacy –vs- Public Protection | Page 23 |
| Community Ethos – Whistleblower Protection | Page 23 |
| Community Ethos – Witness Security | Page 23 |
| Community Ethos – Anti Bullying & Mitigations | Page 23 |
| Community Ethos – Light Up the Dark Places | Page 23 |
| Community Ethos – Ways to Manage Reconciliations | Page 34 |
| Community Ethos – Ways to Impact the Greater Good | Page 37 |
| Strategy – Rule of Law –vs- Vigilantism | Page 49 |
| Tactical – Separation of Powers – CariPol | Page 77 |
| Implementation – Reasons to Repatriate | Page 118 |
| Planning – Ways to Improve Failed-State Indices – Law Enforcement Oversight | Page 134 |
| Advocacy – Ways to Better Manage the Social Contract | Page 170 |
| Advocacy – Ways to Impact Justice – Police Internal Affairs Auditing | Page 177 |
| Advocacy – Ways to Remediate and Mitigate Crime – Youth Crime Awareness | Page 178 |
| Advocacy – Ways to Improve Gun Control – Suspend Gun Rights during Domestic Discord | Page 179 |
| Advocacy – Ways to Improve Intelligence Gathering – Electronic Surveillance of Suspects | Page 182 |
| Advocacy – Ways to Improve Communications – Public Messaging | Page 186 |
| Advocacy – Ways to Impact the Prison Industrial Complex – Reduce Recidivism | Page 211 |
| Advocacy – Ways to Impact Foundations – Crisis Centers and Support Groups | Page 219 |
| Advocacy – Ways to Protect Human Rights – Women & Youth Focus | Page 220 |
| Advocacy – Ways to Empower Women | Page 226 |
| Advocacy – Ways to Impact Youth | Page 227 |
| Advocacy – Ways to Impact Persons with Disabilities | Page 228 |
| Appendix – Failed-State Definitions – Index for Human Rights Uneven Protection | Page 273 |
The book Go Lean…Caribbean was written by resources from an organized movement, by people (residents and Diaspora) with passion to change/elevate their Caribbean homeland. This is personal! One of those people devoted to this Go Lean goal, Camille Russell-Smith, is a co-author of the underlying research in the foregoing news article. This research is a product of her collaboration with the Bahamas Crisis Centre (Donna Nicolls) and her role at the College of the Bahamas as a Counselor, Instructor and Workshop Facilitator for incoming freshmen students entitled “Violence in Interpersonal Relationships”.
Good job Donna Nicolls, Camille Russell-Smith and your research team; thank you for your service. Congratulations on this timely research effort.
The goal is to make the Caribbean a better place to live work and play; with justice for all, regardless of gender. This is the right thing to do! But this is not easy. This takes heavy-lifting on the part of everyone: the educators, public safety officials, community leaders and parents. The message must be strong and clear:
No More!
‘No More‘ is the theme of a campaign in the US to minimize the public attitudes that tolerate domestic violence. This is a great role model for the Caribbean to emulate. See the VIDEO here of the Public Service Announcement (PSA)/TV Commercial:
Video Title -‘ No More‘ PSA Campaign – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j70ha1PUlqk: