ON the Freddie Kissoon Show (yesterday, Monday), there was a weird psychological theory of Vincent Alexander about the mind of the African Guyanese that I told him was mumbo jumbo. Vincent intercepted me to say that it is a Swahili term.
Immediately when he said that, I recalled a response from Eusi Kwayana in a letter in the newspapers advising me not to use the term “voodoo” in a derogatory way because it is a legitimate Haitian term. That was many moons ago, and since then I have not referred to the word and will never do so because it is cultural insult.

I told Vincent that because of what he told me I will not use “mumbo jumbo” any longer, but he did say on the show he has no objection to the use of the term which is not an insult to Swahili culture.
So I am going to say boldly with pellucid forcefulness that I will repeat here in this column what I told Vincent on the show – he is talking mumbo jumbo about African civilisation in Guyana.
Here is Vincent’s theory: Africans (not only in Guyana but the New World) suffer from post-slavery trauma which inheres in them because it has been passed into their DNA. Alexander was unambiguous in his elucidation – each African in this country has a post-slavery trauma which manifests itself in different ways.

He thinks this trauma forced James Bond to go to the PPP. He thinks when a PNC stalwart like Bond goes over to an Indian party and part company with his own race (he did not use that term, he said “community”), it is the working out of the genetic trauma.
Vincent became intellectually suspect when he flatly refused to explain if his theory applies to Walter Rodney who opposed a Black Prime Minister; Joseph Hamilton, Gillian Burton, Patricia-Chase-Green and other Africans who went over to the PPP. The intellectual rebuttal to Alexander’s mumbo jumbo is a task that a final year high school student can demolish.

First, the term “nature versus nurture” is a legitimate scientific process. This is where living one’s life in different social ambiences can attenuate genetic driven factors. You can take twins who are racially charged and put them on different horizons, and one can end up being a racist extremist and one can be ideologically non-racist.

Alexander is telling us that nurture cannot defeat the genetic factors in a human. If that is not mumbo jumbo then the custodians of Swahili culture have to expunge the term from the Swahili dictionary. Perhaps the impeccable example is the death of homophobia in Western culture.
We grew up in these parts of the world seeing people kill homosexuals for fun. One of the heroes of World War II who broke the German codes that caused the Allies to defeat Germany was English genius, Alan Turing, a homosexual who was charged and forcefully castrated. Today, the trauma that led heterosexuals to use violence against homosexuals are gone in these parts of the world.

So traumas could evaporate over time and people are freed from them. Alexander’s theory is worse than mumbo-jumbo, it is dangerously mediocre and insulting to African Guyanese but it also could be a mask for telling Black people that they have no worth if they see the PPP as a positive company to walk with.

You have to watch Alexander as he descended to the level of wild theories that are comical. For example, when asked if it is trauma that sent those Indians who joined the PNC, he said yes. He argued that those Indians were motivated by their trauma just as Bond was.
So what Alexander is saying is not only African behaviour in Guyana is driven by a historical trauma but Indians too. So the theory of historical trauma explains everything but it explains absolutely nothing.
Where is the role of conscience? Dominic Gaskin’s father-in-law was the president of the country and Gaskin was one of the leaders of the AFC who was part of the government. From the time in March 2020 when the election results were being tampered with, Gaskin publicly announced that his conscience would not allow him to support rigged elections.

People make choices on the basis of conscience and those choices have nothing to do with historical traumas in their lives. Finally, is it true that post-slavery trauma is part of African DNA? So after more than 200 years, Africans, through the process of nurture cannot overcome that historical trauma? Anyone who subscribes to that theory is sprouting mumbo jumbo.

DISCLAIMER: The views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the Guyana National Newspapers Limited.