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rowing up in
his native Jamaica, Shaka recalls that, although his life included a lot of
adventurous exploits, joy and happiness, it had more than its fair share of
feelings of insecurity and worry. He recalls that his feelings of insecurity,
fears and unhappiness would relate to most, if not all areas of his life,
including home life, school, leisure activities, and his emotional and
psychological life.
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haka spent his childhood in an age when
it was normal or accepted for children to be beaten by their parents, older
siblings and other adult relatives, and their teachers. That being so,
Shaka was always aware that if he misbehaved at home, he was liable to be
beaten by his parent or his older brothers, depending on the seriousness and
persistence of the misdemeanour, and there were times when his parent did beat
him. Shaka can recall times when he used to be very angry with his parent and
would swear and throw stones at his parent; which was not the wise thing to do,
as he would be beaten again for it.
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haka can also remember the times when
he would turn his anger in on himself, believing that, by doing so, he would
hurt his parent. On those occasions, Shaka would cut himself and would
repeatedly banged his head hard against the wooden walls of the house, which
would invariably result in his parent chasing after him to get him to stop it.
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haka can also recall that his secondary
school was another place which he associated with a feeling of fear and
trepidation, as all the teachers used physical punishment against the children.
This was done by using a leather strap, which was about 2 inches wide by 24 or
30 inches long by 1/16th of an inch thick, or with the flexible
branch of a conifer tree, which an older teenager would be asked to find.
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ormally Shaka, like the other pupils
who were being beaten, would be asked to hold out his hands, with the teacher
giving him anything upto 6 or more lashes in the palm of each hand. ~There were
times when the lash would sting so much that Shaka would delay in putting
forward the other hand, or refused to do so, whereupon the teacher, especially
some of the male headteachers, would hold him by grasping the front of his
short trousers, by putting the non-striking hand over the top and grasping it,
and beat him over each shoulder.
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his being so, Shaka, again like other
pupils, would endeavour to be on the right side of their teachers, which could
mean bringing mangoes and other fruits for them, and volunteering to do errands
for them, such taking and collecting the post to and from Seaforth Post
Office. Something which Shaka did and looked forward to doing;
especially when it would mean him not being present for subjects which he found
more difficult to do.
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