Basil Jarrett | Embrace STEM. But ignore the humanities at your peril

I RECENTLY had the sad occasion of attending a funeral for a loved one in deep rural Clarendon. It was my first ‘country funeral’, and although the departed was known to me, the vast majority of mourners were unfamiliar faces. At the customary ‘set-up’, I was struck by how different this funeral was from the ones I had attended in town. As I engaged with some of the new faces, struggling to remember the names and relations, a familiar sight hit me.

There, on a table in a corner by itself, sat a lonely figure in the shape of a bottle of white overproof rum, unopened and still full to the brim. “Strange”, I thought. “At any funeral, white rum is usually the thing that goes first and fastest. Let me beat the crowd to the first cue.”

STRANGE THINGS

I only poured a toops into my cup, remembering that I had barely eaten that day. I then drowned it with half a cup of soda. “Strange”. The white rum, despite barely lining the bottom of the cup, still overpowered the chaser whose only effect at this point was to add a splash of colour. So I added more and yet more until the cup was near overflowing and the drink was now ‘civilised’ enough for my throat to handle it.

Two sips of my concoction later, I suddenly found myself in the middle of a most surreal experience. Amid the music, the drumming, the singing, the energy and, of course, the white rum, I was transported in a flashback – or was it a vision? – to memories of lessons I thought I had long forgotten. Lessons from high school history classes about the ancestral origins of so many of our Jamaican traditions.

One of those customs, the dead yard, also known as the set-up or nine-night, has its origins in our African heritage. It is a celebration held on the ninth night after a loved one’s passing. The nine-night is not a place for mourning. That comes later. Instead, it is a festive occasion to send off and honour the deceased through food, drinks, music, stories and merrymaking. Behind this is the belief that at midnight, the departing spirit passes through, as it makes its final journey into the hereafter. Christians worldwide have a similar practice, but there is something special about a country nine-night.

DANCE BUSS

Then we hit a crescendo. In town, one would say “the dance buss” as the yard was now packed with swaying, bouncing, contorting bodies, flushed with the spirit of the occasion. And speaking of spirit, it was time to refresh my cup. When I revisited my lonely friend, the bottle was now still three-quarters full. “Strange. It’s 2 a.m. and the white rum still nuh touch. Anyway, more for me,” I thought, as I topped off the tank.

I then went back to the party, because by now, you’d be hard-pressed to believe that this was a funerary event as the dancing and singing and drumming, especially the drumming, continued. In a trance-like state, I remained hypnotised by the beat, syncopating with the drums, until a message out of nowhere, suddenly came to me: “Embrace STEM, young man. But ignore THIS at your peril”.

STEM VS THE HUMANITIES

You see, in recent years, there has been a significant emphasis on STEM – science, technology, engineering and math – education in our classrooms. This emphasis is crucial in closing the education gap between us and developed countries, especially since STEM careers have become increasingly lucrative in this technology-driven world.

The humanities, on the other hand, are ‘soft’ subjects such as history, philosophy, religious knowledge and the social sciences, which study aspects of human society and culture. As important as STEM is, it must be remembered that government is a social science. Science and technology may aid in policing, for example, but reducing crime, school violence and domestic abuse are all social science functions. The humanities, therefore, help us to understand and shape our society in ways that we deem beneficial.

History, in particular, is critical in understanding and influencing the values by which we live now and have lived in the past. It also helps preserve our inherited traditions, culture, monuments, buildings, objects, and artistic representations. It is this history and heritage that defines what it means to be truly Jamaican. It may also be the solution to many of our social problems. Unfortunately, we don’t do enough to preserve this heritage, and with the shifting emphasis to STEM, I fear that we may lose more than our culture.

WE NEED BOTH

This is by no means a call to halt our progress in adopting STEM in our classrooms. Quite the contrary. I am one of STEM’s biggest advocates. But not everyone is left-brain dominant and genetically engineered to be technical thinkers. I myself am an example of that. After years of trying to shoehorn myself into a career in medicine, I finally accepted that my calling lay somewhere else. I’d like to think that medicine’s loss was journalism’s gain and that I have done quite well for myself in this ‘soft’ field. In other words, some engineer may one day build a car that runs off water. But you still need someone to design the ads, train people how to drive it, and very importantly, chronicle the history of its invention.

THE KULLU KULLU

As I staggered out of the wake, cum party, cum history class, I looked over at the by now still only half-empty bottle of white rum standing by itself in the corner. “What happen?”, I asked someone. “Country people don’t drink white rum?”, pointing to the bottle with my mouth. “White rum?” he replied. “No sir. That wasn’t white rum. That was the ‘Kullu Kullu’.”

Kullu Kullu, more commonly known as John Crow Batty, is the raw, colourless, unrefined, by-product from the rum distillation process. Much closer to rubbing alcohol, turpentine and paint thinner, you need a stomach as strong as a vulture’s to drink it – hence the name. It’s also a popular staple at country funerals. Unfortunately however, history classes at JC didn’t teach me this.

His expression then changed to one of concern as he urgently asked, “Wait, tell me suppen, how much of it you drink?” Two days later, the room has finally stopped spinning but I’m still asking myself that same question.

Major Basil Jarrett is a communications strategist and CEO of Artemis Consulting, a communications consulting firm specialising in crisis communications and reputation management. Follow him on Twitter, Instagram, Threads @IamBasilJarrett and linkedin.com/in/basiljarrett. Send feedback to columns@gleanerjm.com