We are told, for example, that the ancient civilization of Egypt is black (or at least partly black). But how did we come to know so much about ancient Egypt? The ancient Egyptians wrote using a picture-alphabet. Until a few centuries ago, no one knew how to translate this strange alphabet. Guess who figured it out - not us black people! During one of Napoleon’s campaigns in Africa, one of his officers discovered a stone, known as the Rosetta stone with inscriptions in three languages. One was Greek, the other was an early Egyptian language and the third was the ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics. The stone was taken to Europe. The Europeans guessed (quite rightly) that all three languages were saying the same thing. They knew the Greek that was there, and it was this Greek that was used as a basis to translate the hieroglyphics.

In several other cases, other peoples have managed to dig up artifacts from their past and study them - to the point where, in many cases an almost exact picture can be re-constructed of what life was like then. Many times, this reconstruction is of events thousands of years into the past. Now, why is it that we black people have not been able to do this? Do we consider this even necessary?

One reason why other peoples are advancing is due to the fact that they are heading into the future because they have a very good idea of their past. They have learnt (or at least, many of them are trying to learn) from their past. That is why, despite the probable existence of a few lunatic influential people, these people are trying to avoid the mistakes of their past. The Europeans have made up their minds that a third world war will not start in Europe, because they have learned what destruction such a war can bring - from the last two.

In China and India, for example, all efforts are being made to prevent the type of famines that were frequent decades ago. No doubt this is because of the dreadful experiences that they have had in their past. Throughout the civilized world religion is being kept as far away from politics as the east is from the west. This is because the civilized world knows that when politics is married to religion the people suffer - dreadfully. Many of the diseases that once killed many people are virtually unknown throughout the progressive world (like polio), because these progressive peoples have learned from their past. For us black people, things are not exactly so.

Many of us black people don’t know where we are going. This is not too surprising, as we don’t know where we are really coming from. We don’t understand, it seems, how to build prosperous and orderly societies. The ones that we do try to build usually fail, largely because we try to make these societies look like something that we are not. Since we don’t have any record of ever building any prosperous and orderly society (because we don’t know our past) we have nothing to use as any form of template from which to build one today, or even tomorrow.

The same is true of many of our problems today. Many of the wars and diseases that are destroying our societies are occurring repeatedly, like a recurring decimal, because, it seems, we can never learn from our past. We don’t uncover our past to find out why this group of black people is always at war with that group, or why we always seem to be suffering from one disease after another, or why must we always remain the most backward people on the planet. We don’t know because we don’t know our history and as we don’t know, we will always be stuck with these problems. I think the time has long passed when, as a people, we really need to start digging up our past - our very distant past, by ourselves. It is clear that, at this time, we don’t know our past and we don’t know how to know our past. We cannot always remain a people totally dependent on others for knowledge. Its high time that we start working our brains, and we can start by uncovering our past - ourselves.

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We all bought into the theory that the surest way to a better life is a good education. However, many of us have painfully discovered that that is not always the reality in Jamaica. While I do believe in the value of tertiary education, I do wonder sometimes if there aren’t other equally important or even superior factors that influence professional success in Jamaica.

Factors such as:

1. The social circle one’s family belong

2. Residential address

3. The political party one is aligned

4. The academic institution one attended

5. Networking skills

6. The faith-based/social institution one is integrally a part

7. Color and breeding

8. Money/Possession

Educated workers are in high demand in many first world countries, therefore many Jamaicans who are not well-connected locally have to explore these better earning possibilities elsewhere. Any wonder why many Jamaicans are heading overseas to work and study?

Caribbean economies are suffering immensely from one of the highest rate of brain drain in the postmodern world. A recent study revealed that eighty per cent of Jamaicans who study overseas remain in that country to live and work. While the remittances are flowing into our economies as result professional emigration, the cost to the exporting or “drained” country far exceeds the financial benefit of remittance inflows. Remittances are less than 10 per cent of earned income from our expatriate workers while 90 per cent of earned income is spent in the importing or adopted country. So, while the Caribbean economies are receiving record levels of remittances in relation to other regions of the world, the financial benefits of retaining our educated workforce far exceeds the contributions of remittances of Caribbean nationals working overseas.

I challenge Caribbean governments to seriously pursue policies to retain educated workers in the region and thus earn significantly more than the pittance we celebrate as remittance inflows.

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So why the cynicism and suspicion? It may be, because in the past whenever persons and nations have claimed that they were chosen by God to lead, they have tended to impose the will of God, rather than sought consensus; have been impatient with and even hostile to those who wouldn’t not accept the will; have sought to convert people and even to subjugate them and where there has been resistance and have even wielded the sword to bring submission. In short they have tended to lead by faith rather than by law, example or moral suasion. The Catholic Church has in the past been guilty of this; as is militant Islam, I now. Similarly, is President George Bush, who asserts that he is on a divine mission to rid the world of terrorism, and is conducting his foreign policy, in opposition to good sense, sound diplomacy, and even the advice of some in his party.

So the cynicism and suspicion with respect to Ms. Simpson Miller is understandable. But there is something I would like to suggest: maybe God has indeed chosen Mrs. Simpson-Miller to lead Jamaica, but it may not be for Jamaica’s good. People tend to think that whenever God chooses it is always for their good; but it can be for their ill. Especially where nations are concerned this is true for a nation usually gets the leaders that it deserves. Except for Israel, there is hardly any benevolent government in the Middle East, a region of the world whose people, have tended to turn on each other in war rather than live in peace. Since Mrs. Simpson Miller is confessed born-again Christian, an example from the Bible will suffice to illustrate this.

By circa. 1052 BC The theocracy of Israel had sunk into idolatry, violence and oppression at the hand of their enemies; they cried out to God for a deliverer and he chose Saul, to be there first King: “Now the Lord had told Samuel in his ear, the day before Saul came saying ‘Tomorrow about this time I will send you a man the land of Benjamin, and you shall anoint him commander over my people Israel’” - 1st Sam. 9:15.

He turned out to be a colossal failure; he was proud, stubborn, self willed, and greedy - taking the best of the land and the people for himself and his court; so much so that the very God who had chosen him seemed to reverse his word: “Now the Word of the Lord came to Samuel, saying I greatly regret that I have set up Saul as King, for he has turned back from following me” - 1st Sam. 15:11. Saul, Gods choice, left the nation worse than before he had taken it. “Although Israel did not choose its own king, God gave her one who was a mirror of their minds - one who revealed what they held in highest esteem”, says Biblical scholar Walter Bixendale, on the downfall of Saul (The Preachers Commentary).

So Mrs. Portia Simpson-Miller maybe more right than she herself realizes. She may indeed have been chosen by God, as was Michael Manley, who came with promises of “betta must come”, which he couldn’t fulfill; Edward Seaga, whose personality wouldn’t allow him to effect the deliverance he came promising; and Percival Patterson, who put loyalty to party above that to country. Like them she may be the best the country had to offer to itself and to God.

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Residents of Denham Town and its environs are largely marginalized by the social structure, unskilled, predominantly self-employed and for some their employment is referred to have “hustling” which means selling of illegal items and doing that which is necessary to attain money.

The police who continuously have to venture into those communities to solve brutal murders, and compete with the culturization of the people, which is anti-police mediation, neglect the same group of residents. One media in the retaliation against the structure and that of the security force is the barring of roadways, the burning of tires, and this explains the psychological condition of the people’s frustration with the social system. This is within the construct of the wide access to guns, and expression of the citizenry. All of this is observed, lived and experienced by the students who are called upon to function in an entirely different whole from that to which they are accustomed when they venture into the educational sphere.

School

School is not viewed by the average students has a place of social advancement or learning that is vital to their development but a safe play from which they are able to forego some the turmoil at home or within the wider community. Hence, when the educators seek to impart knowledge, and values to their students, the pupils are highly frustrated as teacher, and students have completely different foci.

Denham Town High school is one of the recently upgraded secondary schools that within the Ministry of Education’s new initiative to make all secondary school of equal value. Despite the name change and having a new principal, the institution is on the outskirt of the wider community. The institution shares the same geographical space with the Electoral Office, adjacent to the Denham Town Primary school, opposite the Tivoli Gardens community that is divided by a major roadway (i.e. Spanish Town Road), approximately fifty kilometers westerly of the Denham Town Police station and some thirty kilometers south westerly of the May Pen cemetery. Even though the school is within arms length from the Police station, the premise borders the two political divides, which makes for a particular psychological state of school personnel, students and parents. Those harsh realities make for a devastating impression on the psyche of the students and school personnel, which also may explain the social deviance and the low performance of the pupils. Could the opprobrious nature of the pupils’ environ lends itself to a number of the exhibited behaviours, which in and of itself be a cry for assistance?

Even though the teachers are prepared to impart particular set of values to the students, they are predominantly middle class ideals that are not the social experiences of the children. The reality fuels social conflict; pupils view life in an entirely different sphere from their teachers, who are not willing to understand the meaning systems of their pupils. Although the educators’ value system seems correct to impose on the students, the irresponsiveness of the teachers to use their pupils’ experiences as the medium of teaching oftentimes creates division.

The socio-geo political environment of the students who attend Denham Town High school is a multi-spatial one. A preponderance of the pupils is drawn from the environs, while the teachers are amalgamated from various areas in the Kingston, St. Andrew, St. Catherine and Other Towns. Compare the non-academic staffers, who are mostly drawn from the same zone as the students, there is a wider divide between teachers and students than non-academic staffers and students. This helps to explain the perspective that each group has of the other, and the perception that teachers formulate of their students and their parents, and adds to the tension between the parties.

The Denham Town High School is a few paces south of Tivoli Garden High, approximately one-hundred meters southerly of St. Andrew Technical, some sixty kilometers easterly of St. Anne’s High (formerly St. Anne’s Secondary) and is in walking distance from Kingston and St. George’s College. Those realities are not the dilemma that arise but contributes to the social stigma and the isolation of the student population. Students who attend Denham Town High School are mostly draw from adjacent primary school, Denham Town while the other schoolhouse pupils from a plethora of communities in and outside the area as well as different primary, all-age and secondary schools. Compounding to the geo-political space of the majority of the students of Denham Town High is the social stigmatization and the socio-educational biases against them for attending the institution.

All the schools which are within close proximity of the institutions are perceived as boasting students of higher academic capabilities, varying socio-economic background and come in from a different geographical locale. It is subjectively perceived that Denham Town High house students of the worst socio-economic status who are drawn predominantly from within the violent environs of the school. Coupled with the low academic achievement of the parent(s) and the fact that they are mostly from the area (i.e. Denham Town, Rose Town, Hannah Town, Lizard Town, Tivoli Gardens, Wilmot “Rema” Gardens, and Arnette “Jungle” Gardens) further add to the demise and negative perception of the children. The students are seeing as underachievers by the mere fact of being transferred from Denham Town Primary, and so the expectations of them in regard academic achievement are rather low. On the other hand, students who attend Tivoli are seen as on a high rung of the educational ladder and so are those pupils who attend St. Andrew Technical and to a lesser degree those children who are schooled at St. Annes. The educational divide is even wider when one begins to compare this institution with other school like Kingston College and St. George’s College. Both schools boast a rich heritage of high achievers in academics, sports, businesses and many of their past students are even prominent demagogues. This further cripples the psyche of the students Denham Town High, as high achievers are few and rare.

Parents, teachers and the wider community level much of the exclusions of the students of this institution on them. Because expectations of them are low and students are cognizant of this, in addition to be aware of the socio-educational bias to, they are in; the students’ internal motivation and self-esteem is battered, and this may explain the psychosocial behaviour that they display at school. The school is a social agent of change, and if the teachers are brought to the acceptance of the low expectations of the pupils, they are highly likely to exhibit the same tendencies as the public on the students.

The frequently held belief by the publics on the people who reside in Denham Town is negative, and oftentimes the innocent children are labeled and “left for dead”. A recently published article by one the top media houses in Jamaica summaries the dilemma of the stigmatization based on the level of violence in the community. Earl Moxam, a senior Gleaner writer, penned on January 5, 2005 an article under the caption ‘Plan to cut murder in Jamaica’, and the emphasis was on inner city communities to which Denham Town was one singled out. Moxam cited the Deputy Commissioner of Police, Mark Shields as saying, “What we want to do is to bring a consistent and professional approach to all homicide and shooting investigations in Kingston & St. Andrew, to start with, by bringing together a task force of about 120 police officers who will be totally dedicated to ensuring that we have a professional approach investigations". This is another outside label for the students who continue to be belittled by the social agents instead of harnessing their value, worth and self-expectations in an attempt to stimulate social development.

When a Gleaner writer, Mr. Howard Campbell, wrote under the caption ‘St Andrew south: a community at war’ to which Denham Town is mentioned, how are we to view the people who reside in South St. Andrew? The label does not only apply to adults but the students, and often times they are ostracized and stigmatized by the wider populace. A reporter for the Jamaica Observer, T. K. White, on December 28, 2005 in an article titled “Cops flood 'Jungle' Police dragnet in violence-torn South St Andrew communities” quoted Mr. Mark Shields:

The operation is in a specific area: Jones Town, Craig Town, Denham Town and Arnett Gardens," Shields told the Observer. "It is intelligence-led and it is based on where the killings are occurring the most. Our intention is to tighten our grip on those communities in Jones Town, Craig Town and surrounding areas in order to bring some peace and tranquility back in those communities, as the people there are frightened, they are traumatized and they are crying for our help and we are trying to answer the calls (Whyte, 2006).

The psychological stresses that are levied against people of Denham Town and other inner city communities in Jamaica are equally meted out against the children of particular socio-economic grouping within the same communities including children who attend the Denham High School. The remarks and particular deviant behaviour exhibited by certain individuals within inner city communities are often times used against the wider space, and children of those zones are mostly withdrawn from numerous educational and social opportunities that are offered to students of other socio-geographical background. People of the wider cross-section of the Jamaica society infrequently recognize labeling, and withheld opportunities as psychosocial stressors for students of the lower socio-economic strata of the society.

PREPARATION FOR NEEDS ASSESSMENT

A study conducted by Lowe, Lipps and Abel (2005) on ‘depression in Jamaican high school students’ revealed that depression was higher among students who attended inner city schools irrespective of gender compared to pupils who attend outside of inner city communities. The research data collected from 457 fourth form (grade 10) students of which there were 322 (70.5%) females and 135 (29.5%) males. The participants were drawn from Inner city co-educational, Elite co-educational, and all schools. Denham Town High was one of the schools sampled in this study. This study forms a pivotal arm upon which this ‘Needs Assessment’ will be launched.

From Lowe, Lipps and Abel’s (2005) study, they ascribe the “Major depression ranked fourth in the world as the most important determinant of human in 1990 and is expected to rank second by year 2020” to Andrew and Szabo (2002) study. One author forwarded a view that showed the importance of emotion and indicated its influence on all other cross-section of the individual’s perception of life (Jacobson, 1971). He said, “Moods seem to represent, as it were, a cross-section through the entire state of the ego, lending a particular, uniform coloring to all its manifestations for a longer or shorter period” (Jacobson, 1971, p.68). According to Jacobson (1971):

From the psychoanalytic study of manic-depressive states, which show a severe pathology of the superego functions, we know that superego formation has a singular influence on the development of affect and mood control and thus of mood predisposition (Jacobson, 1981, p. 76).

Studies revealed that depression is a phenomenon, which emerged in ‘mid-adolescence’ (Lowe, Lipps & Abel, 2005; Angold, & Rutter, 1992). According to Lowe, Lipps & Abel (2005), Sherlock and Bennet (1998) summarized the Jamaican social structure in saying:

Like North American societies, the population of Jamaica has been forged by an amalgamation of fundamentally different cultures: European, African, East Indian and Chinese, all of whom came to work together in neutral territory. However, unlike North America and Europe, out of this merger of different ethnic groups has arisen a society that is stratified by socio-economic class that is largely associated with skin colour (Lowe, Lipps, & Abel, 2005, p.4).

The class stratification of the Jamaican society is one of the medium, which adds to the stress levels of particular social groupings. Lowe, Lipps & Abel (2005) spoke to this when they chose the word ‘amalgamation’ of the society and how the issue of ‘skin colour’ is a measure of class stratification and by extension social opportunities for the typology of classes. They alluded to “physical appearance to bolster ‘self-esteem’ of the Jamaican youths” to findings of Samms-Vaugh et al (2001), which further explains the bleaching phenomenon that is so pervasive in inner city schools, and communities like Denham Town. The children in those zones are acting out a high probability of emotional trauma by bleaching, neglect of authority, compulsive behaviours and the neglect for type of education that they receive in comparison to what they observed being offered to other students in other schools.

The educational system in Jamaica is an evidence of class stratification (Lowe, Lipps & Abel, 2005), this is established through streaming of the children to particular typologies of school, gender placement, and geo-political topologies of institutions (Evans, 2001; Evans, 1999; Leo-Rhynie, 1978), and the students of inner city schools know this. Lowe, Lipps and Abel (2005) credited Thompson (2004) for the typology of schools and the class stratification that is played out therein. Based on that which holds in the present education system, pupils who are placed in the newly upgraded high schools are the ‘low performers’ (Thompson, 2004). This makes for the approaches taken by educators in the delivery of materials, and the attitude toward those that they teach. Therefore, the educational system exposes the children to class stratification and plethora psychological stressors.

Within the space of Lowe, Lipps and Abel’s (2005) study and other researchers, students of Denham Town High (a newly upgraded) school are forced to survive in an hostile socio-geo political environ, and is affecting how they are view, treated, and how they behave within their social space. Lowe, Lipps and Abel’s (2005) findings revealed that students of inner city schools to which Denham Town High was a participant are more depressed compared to students of Elite school, which highlights the need for a ‘Needs Assessment’ of psychosocial state of the children in other to transform their psyche and channel a new path of social advancement through education.

The very nature of the environ, which is dominated by walls, concrete structures, debris, miniscule play ground, lack of adequate and relevant resources and the uncertainty of social conflicts between rival gangs only further go to strengthen the social condition of the citizenry. Hence, the high depressiveness of the students is automatic from their social settings. The pragmatic approach of burying the students with more rules, corporal punishment, neglect, labels, and authoritative style of management only goes to deepen the psychological trauma that they are experiencing from the wider community.

This need assessment arose because of the forwarded situation. In addition to the socio-environmental structure of Western Kingston, Drs. Lowe, Lipps and Abel’s study is the catalysis for this present project.

[**THIS ARTICLE WILL CONTINUE IN THE NEXT EDITION**]

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Instead, over the past two decades, a nation severely compromised by globalization has emerged: a country of unspeakable violence. We now have Parishes where the quest for moral superiority by some only rivals the inherent and intrinsic absurdity of the crass, brutal and uncivilized methods used to promote their misguided notions.

Jimmy Knows. But he is unable to tell you. That’s because his thirty-three year old decomposing body was discovered in his garden in Montego Bay not so long ago. His crime? He was a gay Jamaican. After the thugs had beaten and stabbed him numerous times, they stripped his home of every item of value before walking away with his cash and credit cards. How ironic that those who committed this cowardly act found no moral conundrum in stealing the victim’s property or spending his battyman money. But make no mistake; Jimmy’s story is only one of thousands of such visceral, heart wrenching tales of the wanton savagery that has insinuated itself upon our country, resulting in the coarsening of our nation.

I was born in the sixties, and I can easily echo back to a time where those suspected of being homosexual was the target of unrelenting whispers and innuendoes. Without a doubt, many facing that dilemma-especially school-aged children-must have endured some level of psychological trauma. At least that’s what many gays and clinical experts tell us. But even that unfathomable degree of emotional trauma appears benign compared to what gay men and women in Jamaica now have to bear. As if it’s not bad enough that we make criminals of consenting adults for engaging in same sex liaisons, those who find homosexual acts to be so offensive and morally reprehensible now stoop to murder to punish offenders. This, in violation of man’s law, as well as the very law of God they use to justify their dastardly acts. And like coward bystanders: many of us plant our feet firmly on the ground secure in our adopted belief that God hates gay people. In doing so, we remain oblivious to the fact that we have legitimized vigilantism. The message to the police who regularly target and terrorize gays is equally as clear-proceed, the government will turn a blind eye. The Lord abides your conduct! When the former Prime Minister took to the radio to defend criticism from a political foe that he was a succubus in guise, he made no mention of tolerance, nor did he focus on the fact that whether or not he is a poof, his political agenda should be all that matters.

While we can blame some of our cultural decay on globalization, we cannot lay it all at the feet of this phenomenon. It is certainly true that the heart disease, diabetes, obesity and other maladies caused by the proliferation of foreign fast-food restaurants, for example, is putting a stain on our already meager medical resources, while it kills our citizens. Despite our local currency, most of us speak in, and conduct major monetary transactions in US dollars. We revere the ghetto hoodlums portrayed in music videos, and a lot of our economically deprived youths steal, maim, and even kill to take possession of a baggy pair of jeans or an oversized piece of jewelry, so they too can be in vogue like the Americans. It’s a wonder we haven’t replaced Patios with Ebonics.

But whom do we blame for the rise in domestic violence that is now threatening the very fiber of our families? How do we stem the wave of vicious sexual assaults upon women by deprived predators who promote the ascendancy of the notion that lesbians should experience a real man before they’re sent off to languish in hell? Better still, what do we plan to do about the increasing number of rapes against young girls? How do we tell our children that it’s not OK for their fathers and stepfathers to violate them in the worst way possible? When will we come to the realization that violent bullies in schools pose a serious threat to the educational future of a generation? How do we begin to shake the Nigerian Syndrome where corruption in government is the norm, and political patronage is elevated to an art form? The majority of police officers should be commended for their fine job of protecting our communities. But when will we send a clarion wake up call to that rogue few that demanding bribes from innocent civilians with the threat of arrest is something we will not permit or tolerate?

Whether or not one objects to homosexuality on moral or religious grounds, we all should be concerned with the erosion of our civil liberties. In a democracy, government should stay out of our bedrooms. What’s next? What if the government suddenly decides that one child is all a couple should be allowed to have? What if the government decides that all brown skinned girls will not be granted marriage licenses and makes it a criminal offense to do so? What if tomorrow the government declares that all men should become circumcised? Would that be OK?

In a democracy, freedom is exulted with the proviso and expressed intent that choice, absent a violation of the law, will, and should offend some. It is a price we all should be willing to pay to remain free. The right to privacy should be carefully guarded, for the alternative is to suffer the edict of a dictator. Don’t you dare pay homage to the notion that certain things cannot or should not be changed. This is a myth, as Martin Luther King or Sir Alexander Bustamante would quickly tell you. It is simply a lie. We may not be able to return to the days of innocence where neighbors looked out for our children as part of an unspoken duty of citizenry. We can, however, say no to the violence and the ugly discourse and the untamed rhetoric that’s being promoted by some musical artists in the name of free speech.

Let us call upon the Eternal Father to free us from evil powers, to guide us through countless hours, and grant true wisdom to our leaders from above. Change is on the horizon; we need only to embrace it. We the people should rise up and live out the true meaning of our creed: out of many one people. Who would of thought a few years ago that we would be one of only thirty countries in the world with a female leader? How awesome is that for progress!

Jamaica, Jamaica, Jamaica land we love?

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