Abel: Some cultural icons teaching violence

In a globalised world, Jamaica’s cultural and performing arts are arguably the most prominent remnants of the island’s heritage and folk history. But even these sometimes steer children on a path of violence and trauma, renowned consultant psychiatrist, Professor Wendel Abel has posited.

While dancehall music and other violent portrayals of Jamaica have long been at blame, Abel, in his address at last week’s 2025 GraceKennedy Lecture, dared to include the performing arts, even as he acknowledged that his remarks may rankle some Jamaican cultural icons.

This year’s lecture was held at The University of the West Indies (UWI) Regional Headquarters in St Andrew, and was titled, ‘Breaking the Cycle of Childhood Trauma’.

It explored how childhood trauma affects cognitive, emotional, and social development and the long-term consequences of these on people’s physical and mental health.

“Even some of our cultural icons, and I know I’m going to take a hit for this, [but] we teach children some of the dialect and it’s about cursing people, and some of what they are learning is violent, and you send them to the Festival [of Performing Arts] and they get a medal and we clap them. What is it we’re teaching them? To develop these dysfunctional behaviours? We have to address these things in the popular culture and take a zero-tolerance approach to it,” Abel charged.

“As a society, we have to look at the normative attitude towards violence, the popular culture, the music that encouraged violence and abuse, the overexposure in media, and, of course, the political culture,” Abel continued, explaining that these are among the “groundwater” issues the society often doesn’t talk about.

Intergenerational trauma

Abel’s lecture explored the pangs of intergenerational trauma, the passing down of traumatic experiences from one generation to the other, and historical trauma, where suffering and poverty have extended into Jamaica’s culture from the oppression of slavery. He explored also the impact of parental trauma, alcohol and substance abuse, and the relationship between toxic stress and physical illnesses such as heart disease that occur later on in adulthood. Individuals who suffer such high stress, and traumatic events also die earlier, he posited.

However, Fae Ellington, broadcaster and former Jamaica Cultural Development Commission (JCDC) chairman, described Abel’s comments as a tricky situation, with which she agrees to some extent.

She blamed both the raucous modern material being published, as well as the portrayal of some famous works, like poems by Louise Bennett-Coverley, ‘Miss Lou’ by some performance teachers.

“The way some of the teachers are training some of the students is to take the poem and turn it into a ‘cuss out’, rather than treat it with the kind of nuanced approach. When we become performative with the dialect, some of us make it loud, and it is something I’ve spoken about a lot when I was a judge at JCDC and on the board many years ago,” Ellington charged.

“Teachers and the students have to understand that the dialect is not just used to cuss ... He (Abel) perhaps did not have the time to expand on what he meant but I understood it because I see it often,” said Ellington, who was also at the function.

“I don’t know how the JCDC is going to respond or handle what Dr Abel said. And then those (raucous) performances usually get loud applause from the crowd. So it is a very, very tricky one,” she underscored.

Principal Lisa Holmes Shirley of Effortville Primary School in Clarendon, which prides itself as the only institution of its kind that teaches the cultural arts as a subject, and which has been dominating JCDC festivals, also agreed with Abel. For that reason, she has placed restrictions on some skits and categories of performances where her students are concerned.

Mentioning how one improv session turned out in “one cussing on the stage. Because they just got back into their natural self. And regardless of what the conflict was, their natural state was just to get back to the cussing and quarrelling,” she said, bringing into light the essence of what children in today’s local society view as cultural. She cited Junkanoo and ‘Ananci’, cultural legacies which also glorify violence, deception, and trauma.

“We do not want our children portraying anything that is violent. What we want to avoid is people saying: ‘Oh yeah, dem used to that’.”

corey.robinson@gleanerjm.com