The microscope: This is no jive – science or sciences
I start our discourse this week with a funny story. When I was in my teens, at one of the family’s Christmas dinners, my uncle, now deceased, in what we call, locally, cracking a joke, told us about this farmer. The farmer’s youngest daughter, the last of seven got into a prominent high school of which the whole family was proud. Every day, on her return from school, he would question her. “What did you do in school today.” The child replied, “science Daddy.” This went on for the first four days of the five-day school week. On the fifth day, the child got home earlier than the usual late evening. Dad asked again, “What did you do today.” She replied, “More science, Dad.” His reply was, “Yes June yuh mus can science wi thieving neighbour fi thief mi big cow, weh mi did plan fi sell fi pay the balance ah yuh school fee.” Laughter filled the room.
Concepts of Science
The term science used in the Jamaican space was not always in line with the dictionary definition – “Science helps us to gain understanding and knowledge, using the procedure of experimentation, observation, and gathering of evidence, The basic areas underlying science include chemistry, physics, biology, and earth science”. However, if I may say, science can take on a whole other notion of spellbinding or spell breaking. This is not so just by chance but deep-rooted in our oral history – “The White Witch of Rose Hall”, “Don’t eat stew peas from strange women”, “Put your head under your pillow when you hear a rolling calf chain being pulled.” Folklore describes a rolling calf as a big white cow that in a former life was a butcher. Many Jamaican songs, more so reggae and dancehall, have hit out at persons who practice spellbinding or releasing activities. On the other hand, the spell casting and spell-breaking science industry seems to thrive and flourish monetarily. Its presence has lasted right down to modern times. My thought is that it seems witchcraft as a ‘science’ is more powerful than obeah – evil worker science. Primarily because we have not been able to spellbind ourselves out of poverty in our 500 years of oppression and our oppressors away from their once open act of savagery through to their neo-conservatism that still has the Negro “kneeling” while being kneeled on.
I will introduce three concepts of science that provide us with the ability to assess a particular issue in a field of study that helps us to make more sense of the world in which we live. They are: (1) the science of business; (2) the science of warfare; and (3) the science of mating. Let’s start with the science of mating. This field of study may seem the least of the sciences, however, it’s the most important as it is people-based and has a direct link to the other two fields of study. Mating goes beyond just sex between man and woman for pleasure – man meets a girl in the party both get to drinking, intoxication heightens the desire and nine months later there is the birth of a baby boy or girl or both (twins). The cycle of struggle for liberty and the pursuit of happiness continues to elude constantly being pursued by any means necessary and for most never accomplished.
On the other hand, the science of mating speaks to the proper relationship that develops into marriage to produce a better future. The science of mating is used in the animal kingdom to produce great horses and pedigree dogs. It is also used by those who engage in this field of study and know it is applicable in the human sphere. At the base of the nations which have been successful and rooted in their culture is family life. Not the science of special baths or olive oil rub down and reading of scriptures from the Bible – the Psalms to be specific.
The science of business is the knowledge of satisfying the natural needs of a human being. A process that takes into consideration the acquisition of wealth, the proper use of wealth or the creation of wealth, the making of produce and the sale and distribution of these products, the creation of a means of satisfying necessities. This is all science, when one does not know it, one is subjected to becoming a servant or worse a slave. You may say that our schools and colleges have been teaching business studies, so what’s my point? Well as I said our reality is stalls on sidewalks or blocked off streets in town centres peddling whose produce? And with the higher learned cohort whose business they give their talents in sustaining other nation’s continuity to possibly oppress and suppress.
This brings me to the third and last science – the science of warfare. One must learn to protect what one develops from an enemy who will rob, steal, or kill for that which that one developed. The science of warfare is a field of study that can free one from an enemy as well as protect one from an enemy. I am of the view that as a people in our sojourns through slavery there had been a deliberate attempt to block every avenue through which knowledge of self and others could enter into our spaces that would have brought about sustainable changes that could curtail and reduce the ills of our community once and for all, while also meeting Jamaica’s National Development Plan Vision 2030 to make “Jamaica the place of choice to live, work, raise families, and do business”. Did you know one of the criteria for Jamaica to achieve this goal to be recognized as a first-world country (developed country) is its population should enjoy universal literacy? More next time, Allah willing.
David R. Muhammad is a former morning host on Visions Television and a former member of the Palace Amusement Media Movie Review Committee. He is currently the Student Protocol Officer of the Nation of Islam’ study group – Jamaica.
