Being a doctor in the public system, and a surgeon in particular, I know that violent crime is significantly under-reported in the mainstream media. And, to some extent, we as doctors have become immune to the consequences of the ubiquitous violence that has sadly become quotidian in our communities all over the country. I say this simply to emphasise that the shock potential of any violent incident must be off the charts to bewilder us as doctors. If we are honest, as a people, we should readily acknowledge that for a country that is not at war, violent crime and the horror it yields has become a challenge of Herculean proportions.

Given that background, allow me to relate an incident I was informed of recently. A seven-year-old was admitted to hospital with a history of being choked to the point of unconsciousness by another child of similar age. It was gathered that the two boys began to fight after one skipped the other in a lunch line at school. It seems that words and fisticuffs were exchanged, then one boy was sufficiently irate and, I dare say, expert enough to choke his counterpart until he lost consciousness.

The inanity and utter unimportance of the inciting event is not really surprising because, truth be told, women are strangled by their spouses and men killed by others in a variety of intriguing and imaginative ways for even more banal motives. In fact, children fighting for one reason or another is, I have come to believe, a natural phenomenon. My one-year-old twin nephews are the pride and joy of my family and have been blessed with a wholesome and loving home environment, yet from time to time they fight like Russian hooligans. I should stress that I certainly am not suggesting that seven-year-olds throttling each other should be chalked up to childhood overexuberance; simply that children roughhousing is commonplace.

So, if we extrapolate somewhat, we may fairly safely assume that little boys in Iceland also fight in schoolyards over trivial childhood matters. This gives rise to the question: Why do those same little boys not mature into men who kill and maim (which is the unsurprising transition here in Jamaica)?

The answer I think is multifaceted. Poverty is an oft-quoted beating stick and is used as an excuse to cover a multitude of sins. While it factors heavily, being a poor nation by no means translates into an inevitable decline into the abyss of crime and violence. It’s my feeling that a large part of our problem is cultural. This is good in the sense that culture is not a static entity and can therefore be unlearned and reinvented. For large swathes of the population, even across economic divisions, conflict resolution is perceived as weak and uncool and, ergo, is likely not our default setting in most situations of discord.

A prime example comes from the case of the two seven-year-olds.

Some, when made aware of what happened, were overheard saying, “I would kill that likkle boy if it was my son him do so!” Would they “kill di likkle boy”? Not in most cases, but we can see how it is this mindset that leads us to instruct a child to ‘lick him back if…’ or ‘don’t mek nuh bwoy… and yu nuh do him supmn’. With encouragement of this nature it is easy to see why our emergency departments are replete with the victims of intentional injury who consume the meagre resources allocated and disenfranchise the truly sick and accidentally injured.

Imagine, if you will, the ripple effects of less violence, not just at a national level in terms of being more attractive for investment and tourism, but also at a personal and community level. It’s one less paraplegic young male following gunshot to back who can continue to care for his ailing mother and properly father his children. It’s one less prisoner in a dysfunctional prison system; and it’s both sets of families spared heartbreak.

Again, to be clear, my perspective does not imply self-defence is never justified. I simply feel that defending oneself and thereby causing injury to someone who attempts to relieve you of life and property is a very distinct situation from stabbing someone to death simply because he spoke uncouthly about your mother. Both scenarios are all too real in today’s Jamaica, but the incidence of the latter is all too obvious.

So while a utopian society is difficult, perhaps impossible, to achieve in this plane of existence, we certainly need not embrace a descent into anarchy and violence as a foregone conclusion. We can start with a change in mindset and begin to break the cycle. Following the path of conflict resolution is the smart play in almost every situation of potential unrest we might encounter. After all, “Blessed are the peacemakers.”

While disagreement is inevitable, and though our natural tendency may be to succumb to our baser nature, we can teach our children a new way. As the song suggests, “Children live what they learn,” and there is no better way to teach them than being their example.

We can forgive the unintentional or even intentional slight and learn to talk it out rather than shoot it out. As mentioned previously, our failure as a nation is complex and multidimensional and will, of necessity, require a great deal of time and effort to reverse. Indeed, other factors, like poverty, adequate police-to-citizen ratio, effective and timely dispensation of justice, among others are also crucial and will need to be improved if we are ever to kick the habit and get this crime monkey off our backs.

Dr André Vaccianna is a general surgeon at May Pen Hospital.