More on Violence

Irina Echarry

I’ve closely read everything that Havana Times has published on the issue of violence (which has been quite a bit) as well as the comments made by readers.  I myself have written about the issue on several occasions, and I continue to think that it’s necessary to do something to prevent its noxious impact and its worsening.

While attempting to better understand this situation, I began to think a little more seriously about it, and perhaps I should add that I tried to put my passions and emotions to one side.  Up to now I’ve advocated the radical elimination of violence, but I’ve come to realize that this isn’t possible because the idea of annihilating it at its roots, so abruptly, is in itself a violent idea.

So, what can be done?

Violence is something natural in human beings.  The act of birth is violent, despite the degree to which we’ve improved it.  Even the formation of an embryo in a woman’s stomach —though we view the fact of giving life as being something beautiful— leads to implicit violence (the living being must feed from its mother).

Going further, the very idea and the act of bringing a life into the world, without being able to ask it whether it wants to or not, is the height of violence and imposition.  Therefore we should not look at it as something that other people practice but as something that influences us all.

On the contrary, I believe that when we assume that we’re violent or that we can be violent at any given moment, we should begin to think seriously about how much we win or lose using violence or (something exceedingly difficult) not employing it.

If we are tied to it; if we experience it daily; if we understand its causes and consequences, then we could learn how to accept it as something natural and not struggle against it, because to struggle against anything or anyone is a violent act.

We would have to learn how to manage it so that it didn’t harm us, to judge it in a subtle way when that’s necessary (for the time being it’s sometimes necessary),and especially for us to learn and teach how to love one another and respect each other to see how we can get along.