How has a once fairly peaceful, law-abiding, easy-going society metamorphosed into an edgy, hair-trigger place where violence is often the first reaction to the slightest provocation and where life has been devalued just like the national currency?
Make no mistake, this is a wounded society. It may be hard for the wearers of rose-coloured glasses to admit, but Jamaica is suffering from serious, chronic, psychological trauma. The society has become hardened and vulgar, where innocent childhood is, for many, a thing of the past, where people behave as if there were no tomorrow, and where life itself has lost its once sacrosanct value.
Behavioural scientists have time and again demonstrated that a lack of tactile contact seriously impairs the development of the young. Simply put, children who are deprived of the pleasant, soothing stimulation of caresses, cuddling and physical contact grow into adults who don’t have certain social skills and coping mechanisms. They are emotionally stunted and their default reaction to the behaviour of others is aggression, anger and hostility.
Consider the generations of children who have grown up without that close nurturing. Parenting is often left almost entirely to surrogates whose primary concern is merely to secure enough sustenance for the little ones. They may mean the children well, but life is so harsh that most of the time all they can give the children is a rebuke for their behaviour. The old folks used to say you can’t spoil children by giving them affection, only by giving them things.
In one celebrated experiment, animal behaviour specialists separated a baby chimpanzee from its mother at birth. They could see and hear each other, but not touch, although the infant still got its mother’s milk. Another baby chimp was allowed the usual contact with its mother, which cuddled, nursed and comforted it. The difference in the development of the two infants was striking. The one which interacted normally with its mother thrived while the other one did not develop as fully – either physically or emotionally.
In another study, scientists observed the elaborate system of communication through touch that elephants employ. Females form large extended family units in which all take part in looking after the young ones. As they travel around in search of food and water, one member or other of the group is always caressing the infants with their sensitive trunks. Males also travel around in fairly close-knit bands and part of their communication is through those amazing trunks.
Our skin is the body’s biggest organ and is laced with nerve endings. Skin serves as an early-warning system by sending signals of pressure or pain and is a source of pleasure from a parent, nurturing adult or sensuous lover. Children need constant affectionate touching to become confident adults who are comfortable in the company of others.
Another behaviourial study examined whether stress at an early age can affect the way the brain develops. The researchers took a piglet which had been weaned early and was under stress and put it into a pool which had a small platform at one side. The little creature frantically and aimlessly thrashed around the pool, ignoring the platform even after crashing into it. The piglet behaved the same when it was put back several times. In contrast, the normally weaned, stress-free piglet swam purposefully around the pool until it found the platform and climbed up to take a rest. Each time it returned to the pool, it swam straight for the platform, showing that it was learning normally.
The researchers also repeatedly placed both types of piglets in turn on a cross-shaped platform one metre off the floor. Two of its arms were enclosed with transparent plastic panes and two were left open. The stressed piglet repeatedly went to the enclosed areas, completely shunning the open parts, while the unstressed piglet comfortably explored the whole platform with no sign of fear. Transfer that concept to people who grow up in the pressure-cooker conditions of the crowded, cramped and besieged garrisons. Their brains develop differently from those whose lives are subjected to far less stress. Things go haywire when the body is subjected to constant stress and is always reacting in the danger mode.
Beside all this is the fact that the economy is in shambles. Here, much of the pressure comes from outside and it affects the entire Caribbean region. The Caribbean as we know it was created by rampaging European powers. At first, the people forcibly transplanted from Africa built the mercantile system and the early industrial economies of Europe by the sweat of their brows and backs as well as by the blood their slave-driving masters so freely spilled.
As the colonial system developed, the islands provided important markets for that mercantile system. When they cut the moorings and became independent, they still relied on special access and preferential terms of trade with the old colonial powers. As globalisation spread, the Caribbean was left to wallow and flounder in the cruel waters controlled by outfits like the World Trade Organisation, the World Bank and the IMF.
Jamaica’s national debt amounts to 130 per cent of its Gross Domestic Product, a daunting prospect. Other Caribbean countries have smaller, but no less daunting mountains of debt and limited access to traditional markets. When Bill Clinton was president of the United States, he sent an emissary to the islands to scout out the outstanding issues to be discussed at an upcoming summit with Caricom leaders. When the poor fellow arrived in one Eastern Caribbean island, the prime minister greeted him with an impassioned enumeration of his dismal trade prospects. “About the only crop we can get a ready market for in your country is ganja,” was the gist of his contention.
One of the reasons the dons have become so entrenched and powerful is that the government, spending more than half its annual budget merely to service its enormous debt, cannot provide the social services its citizens deserve. So these criminal kingpins fill the vacuum and accrete considerable power and influence to themselves. Many people see in the conclusion of the Dudus affair a new beginning for this beleaguered island. One of the first tasks facing those embarking on the rebuilding is to address the grievously compromised health of the patient.
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