By George Alleyne
Wednesday, August 6 2008

The mental slavery of descendants of slaves, referred to by Ghanaian President John Agyekum Kufuor during his recent State visit, had resulted from a psychological campaign waged by Europeans determined to “establish” the racial “inferiority” of non-Europeans.

Alvin Toffler, the noted thinker, had pointed this out on page 90 of his work, The Third Wave, published in 1990 by Bantam, in which he emphasised that the cultures of colonised countries had been ridiculed. In addition, “….the colonial powers hammered a deep sense of psychological inferiority into the conquered people that stands even today as an obstacle to economic and social development”.

One of the most vicious attempts to advance the superiority and inferiority myths was made by 19th century French anthropologist, Paul Topinard, who sought to rank people by their “types” of noses! Topinard even created a chart in which he ranked people “from the heroically straight European nose, through the weak and stunted East Indian nose to the scarcely human ‘Negro’ snub nose”. C A Bayley, in his What Language Hath Joined, a review of Thomas R Trautmann’s Aryans and British India, which he wrote for the Times Literary Supplement of August 8, 1997, touches on Topinard’s absurdity.

Perhaps the nearest example of the psychological damage to slaves, semi-slaves and colonials has come from the shortsighted denial of equal opportunities to women and girls, in even coloniser nations, including obstacles placed in their way from accessing positions at the summit tacily “reserved for men”. Ironically, the economic and social development of many countries has suffered through hobbling of the potential of their female citizens. In turn, as a result of this discrimination many women and girls in different countries appear to believe in the absurd notion of male superiority. Happily, however, the thinking is fading as girls persist in outshining boys in examinations. But I have strayed.

Feelings of inferiority are so ingrained in former colonised people and/or descendants of slaves and semi-slaves whose countries have achieved political Independence from, say Britain, that they insist on retaining dominion status for their countries and having the British Monarch as their titular Head of State. In turn, some clamour for the retention of the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council as their countries’ final Court of Appeal. In so doing, they convey the impression, perhaps inadvertently, that only the British can dispense justice for them, final Court of Appeal wise. And this, although the English speaking Caribbean possesses Judiciaries of the highest calibre.

Psychological slavery takes many forms. Some years ago in San Fernando a club which had a “whites only” membership rule, which not only prevented a prominent medical doctor of African descent from being a member, even though his English wife had been admitted, but refused to allow him to enter the building when he dropped off or returned to collect his wife. Should he be early when he went to collect his wife he had to remain in his car or near to it and advise a club employee that he was there to meet her. The message would be relayed to the doctor’s wife and the husband would sit in his car and wait until his wife was ready to leave.

The 19th century British imperialist, James Anthony Froude, contended that “craniological measurements” had demonstrated that Africans were inferior to Europeans. Richard Waswo would refer to Froude’s outrageous claims in his book, “The Founding Legend of Western Civilisation: From Virgil to Vietnam, page 229, published by the New England University Press in 1997. However, Froude’s nonsensical “theory” has long been discredited by 20th century scientific studies which have shown the effect of malnutrition on the development of the brain “of the foetus and of the infant child”. UNICEF in its 1997 Annual Report published its findings that undernourished pregnant women gave birth to babies, who were then underweight and had an IQ which, on average, was inferior by five points to that of normal children.

“The main river to cross”, Ghana’s President Kufuor has noted, “is not physical anymore. We are not free, because we are not mentally free.” If Trinidad and Tobago can combine the inferred UNICEF hope of sufficient nourishment for pregnant women with Government’s policy position of free education from primary school to University (the second being for those who qualified themselves) we may be able to shake free from the shackles before long. Or as the late great Bob Marley stated in his Redemption Song: “Emancipate yourselves from mental slavery; None but ourselves can free our minds.”

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