“POST-TRAUMATIC SLAVE SYNDROME” in an oppressive Barbadian society is an underlining cause of the increasing black on black violence and killings in our nation; if you will, a psychological hangover from the violence and oppression meted out to our African ancestors during the era of colonial chattel slavery.
That was the opinion of a member of the audience during a recently conducted public panel discussion at the Cave Hill Wesleyan Holiness Church addressing the causes and solutions to the growing gun violence in this country.
While his submission did gain some audible support from others in the audience, if one really stops to think about it, the level of violence we are witnessing today was not present in our society 50 years ago when as a people we were closer to the slavery era.
While in those days things were financially harder for many than they are today and there was more economic disenfranchisement, Barbados still had a more tranquil society, figuratively deemed a paradise.
What was different? I submit that back then Barbadians generally had more reverence for God, the things of God and His Son Jesus Christ the Prince of Peace.
Church and Sunday School attendance played more crucial roles in family life (even when parents did not go they made sure their children went) and religious knowledge in public schools reinforced the teachings of the Bible and the high moral standards for living which it promotes.
What has changed? There has been a gradual and drastic shift away from interest in the things of God.
Beginning back in the mid-1970s, due to cultural penetration, a revolutionary movement arose in our nation that effectively turned the minds of many of our youth against Christianity, denouncing it and all conventional society (especially the police) as the “Babylon system”.
With belief in the Christian worldview effectively dismantled in the minds of many of these youth, coupled with other societal problems (largely revolving around dysfunctional homes), the floodgates were swung wide open for embracing the communal culture of “holy herb”.
Additionally, fuelled by the culture of gangster rap which emerged in the mid-1980s and early 1990s, the turf wars for the “weed of wisdom” (and other illegal drug varieties), masterminded by an “unseen hand” (so we are told) and executed by the “foot soldiers” of the criminal element, have resulted in the dreadful circumstances of today.
Among all the varied solutions that are being proposed to help halt the bloodletting in our land, the paramount solution is for society in general to wholeheartedly embrace God and His righteous ways for living.
– ROGER MARSHALL
