The Most Honourable
Edward Seaga

Under the auspices of Professor Cross of Nova Southeastern University, the Jamaica Diaspora Southeastern United States Chapter, and Jamaica Awareness Limited, the Most Honorable Edward Seaga gave a survey lecture on Jamaican culture to a large audience last week. The well-dressed assembly listened to a brilliant and well informed presentation.

Mr. Seaga spoke of the powerful underlying dynamics of Jamaican Culture and the fact that Jamaican Culture was very well defined. He spoke of the Jamaica Folk Culture and its hero, the underdog spider, Brer Anancy that has to survive by using his wits, particularly when the odds are against him.

Mr. Seaga tapped into his vast knowledge of informal Jamaican social practices and his personal involvement in the Jamaican musical industry to give the assembly insights into how Ska developed into Reggae; and how Reggae eventually developed into dance hall music. Mr. Seaga’s presentation was scholarly, and his knowledge of early Jamaican music encyclopaedic.

Mr. Seaga examined the dietary practices of Jamaican mothers. He linked the dietary practices of Jamaican children with their deficient development and observed that 47 per cent of Jamaican mothers were still breast-feeding infants at six weeks of age. He noted that many Jamaican mothers supplemented the natural milk with milk powder and soya milk.

Mr. Seaga drew a direct connection between improper nutrition and the inability of some Jamaican children to engage in educational advancement.

Mr. Seaga also examined the tendency of Jamaican parents to engage in corporal punishment. He criticized this feature of Jamaican upbringing. He suggested that excessive corporal punishment leads to over-submissiveness by the child in later years or alternatively, hyper-aggression from the child during adolescence.

Mr. Seaga noted that poverty and malnutrition are critical elements in the ordinary development of “ghetto youths”. He noted that there was a dramatic fall-off in attendance at inner-city schools on Mondays and Fridays, after their parents had received money on the previous Friday.

Mr. Seaga singled out Kapo as an example of independent and powerful artistic genius that came out of the ghetto and was fueled by ingenuity and an African ancestral impetus.

The large audience realised that they had been treated to a unique analysis of Jamaican socio-culture. This distinguished elder statesman was forced to bow to the audience as he responded to the wave of continuous applause at the end of his presentation.

David P. Rowe is a Professor at the University of Miami School of Law and the St. Thomas University School of Law

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