Glenda Simms, ContributorTHE MAJORITY of people who have moved to differing levels of success through the formal education system in all westernised societies have been exposed to what has come to be described as the 'canon ' in the halls of academia. This canon is that which informs all of us about who we are and who others are.
In a recent radio discussion on one of our local stations Professor Don Robotham reminded the programme's host, Mr. Ronnie Thwaites, that the canon which the Jamaican education system inherited from Britain is weak.
It is within this context that I locate my discussion in this article.
The editorial page of the April 20, 2006 edition of The Gleaner described the confrontation between Jamaican and Chinese workers at the work site of the new stadium in Trelawney as a 'clash of culture, work attitude and management'.
The article suggested that the Jamaican laissez-faire attitude to work will not fit into the new global reality of competition and efficiency. On the other hand, the writer cautioned that "in as much as the Chinese want to get the project moving, they too need to demonstrate some respect for the sub-contractors and the Jamaicans on site."
Like other significant events that are played out in the social and political realities of the Jamaican society, this incident runs the risk of being glossed over without any effort to ensure that some workable solutions ought to be explored to prevent other such situations from occurring.
THINK OUTSIDE THE BOX
In an effort to think outside the box on such issues, I am proposing that cross-cultural education and sensitisation programmes should be used to bolster the established and so-called reformed canon at all levels of our educational system, on work sites, to all workers sent to farms and hotels at home and abroad, and to all persons who would like to live and work in the nation states of the CARICOM region.
Cross-cultural education consciously attempts to get individuals and groups to look inward and try to objectively critique the strictures, limitations and myopic potential of their cultural values and mythology about self and others.
If this process is pedagogically sound, multi-disciplinary and brokered by persons who understand the contours of their culture, the outcomes in terms of personal insights, attitudinal change and the broadening of world view, would guarantee a better quality of communication and understanding between
peoples in the global village.
In the Jamaican context crosscultural education would detangle the romantic cobweb surrounding the motto 'Out of Many One People'. Each group in the 'many' would be challenged to ask themselves some fundamental questions about how they see and treat the other, and how they understand their own strengths and shortcomings.
Sooner or later we would all come to acknowledge the reality that the 'one' out of 'many' cannot be imagined without an honest examination of the social, political, economic and religious forces that have socially engineered the rigid class-based, colour-coded, unequal and patriarchal system that is indeed the lived reality of the Jamaican society.
CROSS-CULTURAL FRAMEWORK
This writer is of the opinion that when Jamaicans are educated within a cross-cultural framework they will be better able to benefit from the free flow of goods, services and human resources under the guidelines of the CSME. Furthermore, they will be better able to deal with the variations on the human theme within the context of a globalised world.
Also, within this world view all contractors and investors who import foreign workers to our shores would, of necessity, be forced to give such workers a good dose of cross-cultural sensitisation through the technical expertise of cultural interpreters, educators and translators.
In this process such workers will gain valuable insights into their counterpart in their host society.
This is not an idealistic view of the world, nor am I proposing that this is an easy task.
My 30 years of living in Canada exposed me to a variety of approaches in multicultural education, anti-racist education, bicultural education, Africentric studies, ethnic studies and First Nations Education.
In this multiplicity of ideas I saw the emergence of new theories of human behaviour , the romanticising of cultures , the rigidity and structural racism of the power brokers and the moments of defeatism of the minorities , but I also sensed the surge of ethnic pride, the assertion of selfhood and peoplehood and the emergence of an openness to a true understanding of the point of view of the 'other'.
To assist us in understanding how our belief system could be liberated through cross- cultural education we should take a look at an understanding of how we think about food items that are consumed by others.
ETHNOCENTRIC SHELLS
This is an easily recognised arena in which people retreat into their ethnocentric shells.
For instance, many Jamaicans would swear that they would not be caught dead eating a bowl of stewed dog meat.
I myself was very sure that I would rather stick to a course of the tails of pigs, foreign cows and headless salted fish from the Canadian Maritime region followed by a long glass of wormy guava juice.
All of this was true until I went to the Philippines and enjoyed a steaming delicious portion of kari kari [a traditional treat] . I had no idea that bits of dog meat were included with the tender morsels of pork and chicken which merged delightfully with the aroma and exotic tastes of the fresh herbs and spices which made the dish so memorable
On the other hand, my Canadian born friend of Jamaican origins freaked out when she ordered a bowl of fish soup and saw the fish eyes floating in the broth with a rather sad and frightened stare.
AUTHENTIC AND GENDER SENSITIVE
There are those of us who would never consider gobbling down a bowl of slimy snails but we munch and salivate on morsels of wilted escargot tenderised in garlic butter.
In the same vein, many of us turn up our noses at cultures in which the tripe of the chicken is routinely cleaned for inclusion in the evening meal. We would rather clean the guts of pigs, goats and cows to prepare our evening meal and our celebrated mannish water which is not considered authentic and gender sensitive without the addition of the animal's testicles.
In short, attitudes towards food afford us a glimpse of how a narrow understanding of self and others can pose barriers to the respect that we need to give to ourselves and to those that we come together with in this very complex and dynamic period in human history.
Glenda P. Simms PhD is a gender expert and consultant.
