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Behaviour patterns in history
MICHAEL BURKE
Thursday, October 11, 2007
Historians state that October 11 is the date when the Morant Bay Rebellion took place. If they are right then today is the 142nd anniversary of that rebellion. At the same time, there have been some serious sporadic outbreaks of violence. A Seventh-Day Adventist pastor has suggested compulsory military training and there is merit in the suggestion. But solutions like doctor's prescriptions or mechanical repairs should come after there has been an examination of what has gone wrong.
An act carried out in the Morant Bay rebellion should raise a certain question. When Paul Bogle marched from Stony Gut, the demonstrators stopped at Church Corner, Morant Bay, surprised the military guard and grabbed the guns before proceeding to Morant Bay. Where did they learn such a tactic? Was it inherited from the Maroons in Portland? Did it come from neighbouring Haiti, which has had bouts of turmoil ever since its revolution of 1804?
Whatever the answer might be, it reveals that such things did not start in 2007. While the maroons fought for a worthy cause, as did the rebels at Morant Bay in 1865, criminals are using many of the same tactics today. But that is nothing new as many ex-soldiers have become criminals over the centuries. This includes the pirate Henry Morgan who came here as a soldier on the fleet led by Admiral Penn and General Venables in 1655 when the English captured Jamaica from the Spaniards.
We hear about the number of guns on the streets of Haiti and it is believed that there is a connection between that and many of the illegal guns in Jamaica.
A negative family pattern developed during the 31 years between the abolition of the slave trade in 1807 and full emancipation in 1838. The abolition of the slave trade meant that people could neither buy nor sell slaves. So they bred slaves to work on the estates. The negative family pattern was stemmed only by the Free Villages set up by the Baptist Church.
In 1938, workers rebelled on the sugar estates and on the wharves in Kingston. It would result in a constitution by 1944. All adults would have the right to vote for their own government. Eventually, political independence would come in 1962. And since the 1950s the opportunity of the children of the Jamaican masses to go to high schools has been widened to the point where education is now universal. But our education system has not really addressed our own needs.
The problem of illegal guns in Jamaica did not start with politics. While some politicians might have increased the problem, the fact is that illegal firearms in Jamaica go back to the end of the Second World War. Many soldiers did not return their guns to the armouries but instead sold them illegally.On September 1, 1957, there was the terrible train crash at Kendal in Manchester. The subsequent commission of inquiry revealed that hooligans had boarded the train and had interfered with the train's mechanical parts. But why did we have hooligans 50 years ago? Would children with both parents at home do that?
I have learnt that the incident was not an isolated case but something that had been going on for years. Ask Monsignor Robert Haughton-James, the Vicar General of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Kingston. He told me of when he was a boy in 1952 and being on a train on its return journey from Montego Bay. According to the priest, "Everything went totally out of control."
Were these the children of those who went on the Empire Windrush to England to build back England after the war? Were these the children born outside of the marriages of their fathers? And with the increase in the illegal gun trade the problem has exacerbated. The answer to this problem lies in an overhauling of the education system. If anything good came out of the Kendal crash it was that it stopped the hooliganism that for some reason or other always took place on the return journey from Montego Bay.
We cannot stop the cable or the Internet. But as I have written before, schools in Jamaica have to be places of unlearning just as much as they should be places of learning. The bad things taught in society can only be unlearnt in the schools. All schools are going to need volunteers. What is needed in the schools is training in a whole new mindset. There needs to be a written manual in morality, values and attitudes. And it should be put in the form of a catechism with questions and answers. And who is going to write it, you ask? It looks like I will have to do it myself.
There is a need for the return of boarding schools. And as I have argued before, if boys and girls at the high school level attend separate schools, it would cut teenage pregnancies by half. It is unfair to teenagers who are at the age when their hormones are raging to be distracted and tempted by their opposites. Unwanted children get little or no upbringing, which leads in many cases to criminal behaviour. Think on these things.
MICHAEL BURKE
Thursday, October 11, 2007
Historians state that October 11 is the date when the Morant Bay Rebellion took place. If they are right then today is the 142nd anniversary of that rebellion. At the same time, there have been some serious sporadic outbreaks of violence. A Seventh-Day Adventist pastor has suggested compulsory military training and there is merit in the suggestion. But solutions like doctor's prescriptions or mechanical repairs should come after there has been an examination of what has gone wrong.
An act carried out in the Morant Bay rebellion should raise a certain question. When Paul Bogle marched from Stony Gut, the demonstrators stopped at Church Corner, Morant Bay, surprised the military guard and grabbed the guns before proceeding to Morant Bay. Where did they learn such a tactic? Was it inherited from the Maroons in Portland? Did it come from neighbouring Haiti, which has had bouts of turmoil ever since its revolution of 1804?
Whatever the answer might be, it reveals that such things did not start in 2007. While the maroons fought for a worthy cause, as did the rebels at Morant Bay in 1865, criminals are using many of the same tactics today. But that is nothing new as many ex-soldiers have become criminals over the centuries. This includes the pirate Henry Morgan who came here as a soldier on the fleet led by Admiral Penn and General Venables in 1655 when the English captured Jamaica from the Spaniards.
We hear about the number of guns on the streets of Haiti and it is believed that there is a connection between that and many of the illegal guns in Jamaica.
A negative family pattern developed during the 31 years between the abolition of the slave trade in 1807 and full emancipation in 1838. The abolition of the slave trade meant that people could neither buy nor sell slaves. So they bred slaves to work on the estates. The negative family pattern was stemmed only by the Free Villages set up by the Baptist Church.
In 1938, workers rebelled on the sugar estates and on the wharves in Kingston. It would result in a constitution by 1944. All adults would have the right to vote for their own government. Eventually, political independence would come in 1962. And since the 1950s the opportunity of the children of the Jamaican masses to go to high schools has been widened to the point where education is now universal. But our education system has not really addressed our own needs.
The problem of illegal guns in Jamaica did not start with politics. While some politicians might have increased the problem, the fact is that illegal firearms in Jamaica go back to the end of the Second World War. Many soldiers did not return their guns to the armouries but instead sold them illegally.On September 1, 1957, there was the terrible train crash at Kendal in Manchester. The subsequent commission of inquiry revealed that hooligans had boarded the train and had interfered with the train's mechanical parts. But why did we have hooligans 50 years ago? Would children with both parents at home do that?
I have learnt that the incident was not an isolated case but something that had been going on for years. Ask Monsignor Robert Haughton-James, the Vicar General of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Kingston. He told me of when he was a boy in 1952 and being on a train on its return journey from Montego Bay. According to the priest, "Everything went totally out of control."
Were these the children of those who went on the Empire Windrush to England to build back England after the war? Were these the children born outside of the marriages of their fathers? And with the increase in the illegal gun trade the problem has exacerbated. The answer to this problem lies in an overhauling of the education system. If anything good came out of the Kendal crash it was that it stopped the hooliganism that for some reason or other always took place on the return journey from Montego Bay.
We cannot stop the cable or the Internet. But as I have written before, schools in Jamaica have to be places of unlearning just as much as they should be places of learning. The bad things taught in society can only be unlearnt in the schools. All schools are going to need volunteers. What is needed in the schools is training in a whole new mindset. There needs to be a written manual in morality, values and attitudes. And it should be put in the form of a catechism with questions and answers. And who is going to write it, you ask? It looks like I will have to do it myself.
There is a need for the return of boarding schools. And as I have argued before, if boys and girls at the high school level attend separate schools, it would cut teenage pregnancies by half. It is unfair to teenagers who are at the age when their hormones are raging to be distracted and tempted by their opposites. Unwanted children get little or no upbringing, which leads in many cases to criminal behaviour. Think on these things.