CIPRIANI COLLEGE OF LABOUR AND CO-OPERATIVE STUDIES.

Course Code: CAS 130.

Course Name: Caribbean Studies.
Lecturer: Mr David Muhammad.
Assignment/ Coursework: Explain what the Term Caribbean Identity Means to You.
Give Details on How the Region has made a Contribution to
World Culture.


Student Name: Ansar Abdal Karim.
Student ID: 2011030571.
Date: 30
th
July 2014.
Explain what the Term Caribbean Identity Means to You. Give Details on How the
Region has Made a Contribution to World Culture.

The Caribbean region has long been looked upon as the gateway from the old world of Europe to
the new world of the Americas. This view of this rich region is the cause for the present
composition and the headache of defining a truly Caribbean identity. The question begs as to
what in fact constitutes a Caribbean Identity and what has been the benefit of this to the world.
The term Caribbean comes from the word Carib, one of the early peoples who inhabited the
region. The search for an identity or a commonality that is specially Caribbean has perplexed
historians, sociologists and politicians alike. Is there one identit6y that incorporates the disparate
threads of this region? Or is it in fact a series of identities that has shaped and is continuing to
shape the regions identity or identities? In essence, Caribbean identity can be traced to four
main sources- the regions geology and geography, its history and colonial experience, its
peoples and ethnicity, and globalization and the reciprocal contributions to culture between the
Caribbean and the world.
The obvious identification of the Caribbean is as a geographical/ geological phenomenon. It is
made up of over 7,000 West Indian islands, (the vast majority in The Bahamas) surrounded by
Caribbean Sea and ringed by the coastlines of mainland North, Central and South America, the
archipelago of West Indian volcanic islands to the east. The co-ordinates of this Caribbean Basin
as it is sometimes called are between 60 and 90 degrees west longitude, and between 5 and 30
degrees north latitude. There are a small group of large islands and a large group of smaller
islands. The larger islands are collectively called the Greater Antilles and this lies in the north of
the Caribbean Basin. The smaller islands excluding the Bahamas are called the Lesser Antilles
and are made up of an outer arc Windward Islands and an inner arc called the Leeward Islands.
In addition there are traditionally mainly English, French and Dutch speaking lands of Central
and South America such as Belize (formerly British Honduras), the Guianas, now Guyana,
Suriname and French Guiana, Curacao, Aruba and St Marten. The Caribbean as a geologic entity
puts it as the Caribbean Plate the smallest tectonic plate on the planet. It pushes outward from the
main mid Atlantic ridge. While these two phenomena do not shape by themselves a Caribbean
persona they help to delimit the region.
A compelling unifying phenomena that defines the Caribbean is the shared history of the region
especially as it pertains to the last 500 plus years. The year 1492 is looked upon as a watershed
time in the history of the region. It was in that year that Europeans under Christopher Columbus
first made contact with the New World of the Caribbean. That is a common thread for the region.
The contact with Europe changed the face of the Caribbean forever and brought an invading,
exploiting behemoth up against a largely pastoral people. This relationship, started with
discovery, ran into servitude and subjugation of the native people, to their ultimate decimation
and or assimilation and finally the replacement of the indigenous populations with introduced
indentured labour from Europe to work on the newly formed plantations of exploitation in the
New World including the Caribbean. Dissatisfied with the low level of gold and precious stones
from the region, the Europeans sought other avenues of exploitation, including the removal of
virgin forest and replacing it with sugar and cocoa for the European market. This led to the
importation o slave labour in the form of Africans from mainly West African coast of Ghana,
Ivory Coast, Nigeria and Sierra Leone. This action of the Europeans, called collectively as the
Trans Atlantic Slave Trade, is by far the most unifying factor forging a Caribbean Identity. A
people were rooted from their homeland, forcibly transported across the Atlantic where over 200
million men, women and children perished in the Middle Passage and were dumped into the sea
en route to the Caribbean shores and the wider Americas. Those who survived the journey of
rape, whippings, cruelty, starvation and cramped conditions, were then exposed to land-based
oppression unimaginable. These people were dehumanized, robbed of their language, culture,
traditions, family life and religion, all in an attempt to make them docile and submit to the
imposed slave conditions needed for plantation work. As a result of this decision by the various
European nations in degrading an entire race of people, the Africans in the Diaspora of the
Americas have remained second class citizens in their adopted homeland. There is no uplifting
history except in the instances of revolt rebellion and resistance to the chattel slavery imposed on
them. Indeed a Caribbean Identity cannot be seen without reference to this darkest of period of
human civilization and is certainly the most important in seeking to define and frame a
Caribbean Identity. While not trivializing the work and contribution of others in the tapestry of
Caribbean development the work of the African as major stakeholder in this project is without
question. Take for example the Europeans who remained. Their legacy in forming this Caribbean
Identity is one of shame rather than pride. Yet for all their misdeeds towards other peoples
including the native populations and enslaved Africans they have managed to remain at the top
of the social and economic strata of society to date. History has defined a master and servant
identity in the Caribbean that is race and ethnicity based. This identity is forged from a lopsided
arrangement that persists to today and relegates those who enabled and shaped the region to
economic and social marginality as hewers of wood and drawers of water. When providentially
the slave trade and slavery ended on paper it remained as a social entity and so colour is of major
importance to Caribbean people. The upper strata of the society still looks like the Europeans,
while the vast majority of Africans occupy the lowest social and economic strata of societies in
the Caribbean touched by slave history. This is an abiding identity throughout the Caribbean.
Even where other people have been introduced into the region their lot has always been better
than the enslaved Africans. Entitlements were always unfavourable to the latter. Land
distribution, repatriation, cultural heritage, educational opportunities and compensation for the
end of slavery were all done disadvantageous to Africans. So today, the Caribbean identity is one
that shows all people besides Africans with some social and economic moorings from which
their people can rise. Indians were given land at the end of their labour contract and were paid
wages. White slave owners were compensated for the loss of their slaves, Chinese indentures
were facilitated with land and financial inducements to remain and in Trinidad, poor European
indentures and the bastard children of slave owners and their Middle East replacements were put
at the head of the society with the dismantling of chattel slavery. This racial/ethnic imbalance is
as much a part of Caribbean Identity as any other phenomenon and may be argued to be the most
abiding.
Because of the slave trade in Africans, more so than the landing of Columbus on Americas
shores, the Caribbean identity has taken on a distinct flavour in terms of ethnicity and culture. At
first, enslaved Africans were dispossessed of all cultural contact. In this way their way of life
was stripped from them; foods, worship, cultural instruments, family and social structure and
education. It broke the will of a people who had known thousands of years of proud civilization
and culture. In truth many of the slaves kept their culture in the oral tradition and so elements of
it survived albeit disguised in European trappings. Today therefore the songs of the Caribbean,
namely Reggae, calypso, tambour bamboo, the games such as Capoeira in Brazil, the use of
European gods and saints, are seen as adaptations of African culture to slavery-era and colonial-
era periods of history when it was not fashionable or legal to display openly African culture.
Indeed, the development of the steel pan is similar to the use of bamboo as a musical instrument
by the slaves and ex slaves. Since African drums were outlawed, the Africans after slavery began
experimenting with the discarded oil drums as a musical replacement. It is this common
identity of disenfranchisement of a people that has enabled the rich innovations to be presented
to the world, forged in the crucible of repression. In like manner, the use of calypso as a form of
mocking the colonial powers has developed into an international phenomenon and has given way
to Soca. While other contributions are widely acknowledged of other peoples the work of ex
slaves in fostering a Caribbean identity looms large. Indeed the idea of the Indians as part of the
Caribbean cultural landscape is not to be trivialized. The worlds hottest pepper, The Moruga
Scorpion, was a hybrid, the original brought into Trinidad by Indian indentured labourers in their
journeys from Calcutta to the West Indies. The Indian diet has been internationalized from its
adaptation in Trinidad. Roti, Tassa Drum, Curried Duck, as well as Indian songs such as
Pichakaree, Chutney and Chutney Soca have all been added to the Caribbeans identity basket.
Globalization has assumed the position of the great leveller of culture of the world. In actuality it
is seen by many sceptics as another attempt at world domination by European and American
powers socially, culturally and of course economically. After slavery, indentureship and
colonialism, European powers set about maintaining a stranglehold on Caribbean life by the
introduction of the global village. This was seen as a great melting pot of cultures and
economies. In fact it was to promote European culture and economics at the expense of the
emerging Caribbean expressions of culture and economic way of life. Reggae and calypso were
set to eclipse American music as a major influence in the Caribbean. The response was to flood
the Caribbean with American pop music dominated by Afro-America. The end result in most
cases was a fusion of both such that zouk, spouge, dancehall, Soca and rap emerged. Indeed,
globalizations, far from eliminating Caribbean Identity, has caused it to syncretise, bifurcate and
combine with other strains to form new more electric extensions of what is today viewed as part
of the Caribbean Identity. While the everyday dress in the Caribbean is dominated by western
norms, the Nehru style suit is now fully accepted as formal wear. The shirt jack too, typified by
Guyanese politicians has also been made into formal dress. Cultural festivities have been given
to the world from part of the Caribbeans vast reservoir. Notting Hill Carnival in England was
started by a Trinidad woman. Today it is the single largest festival in London. Labour Day in
Brooklyn USA has been developed by West Indians living in New York. In recent years several
carnivals in Germany, Florida and elsewhere have appeared, all with a distinctively Caribbean
flavour. The display of Tan-Tan and Saga Boy by masquerade band leader, Peter Minshall in
Olympic Games in Canada is yet another example of the Caribbean lending its culture to the
world. Cuban music floods the North American market and went viral for the recently held FIFA
World Cup in Brazil. If nothing else, the world has been inundated and blessed by the
contribution of the Caribbean to world culture. The reciprocity is seen in the regions ready
acceptance o outside strains and adapting them to our local conditions. Today therefore
American giant KFC has culinary stranglehold on Trinidad and other larger Caribbean territories.
Music from Europe and North America dominates the Caribbean airwaves, and everyone has a
European name and women try hard to look as Caucasian as possible, using false hair pieces and
skin whitening formulas. As yet, Afro- Caribbean economics of Sou-Sou and self help are yet to
be explored fully. So too unexplored is Afro-Caribbean sociology of the village rearing its
people and policing its own.
The Caribbean, while being the smallest geologic plate on the planet, possessing the smallest
population as a region and the smallest islands and nation states, is nonetheless rich in cultural
diversity and heritage. To speak of a single Caribbean Identity is to do grave injustice to the
Caribbean which has, because of its various threads, been able to spawn a plethora of cultures in
its small geographical space. One Caribbean Identity? It would more read like one Caribbean
space, several Caribbean Identities, each identity based on the unique occurrence in history and
geography of its varied people sewn together in a sprawling tapestry. CARIFTA, Caricom,
University of the West Indies, West Indian Cricket and cricketing greats such as Sir Garfield
Sobers and Brian Lara, FIFA First Vice President Jack Austin Warner, V. S Naipaul, George
Lamming, Derrick Walcott, Norman Girvan, Uriah Butler, Sir Walter Rodney, athletes Hasely
Crawford, Donald Quarrie, Claude Noel and Usain Bolt, Pan-Africanism, Black Power,
International Criminal Court, Law of the Sea Convention, Emancipation celebrations on the
African continent, Back to Arica Movement, Mathematical genius Dr R Capildeo, Eugene Chen/
Acham, Darcus Howe, Stokely Carmichael/ Kwame Toure, among thousands of others, owe
their genesis to the rich West Indian/ Caribbean landscape. It is indeed a Caribbean melting pot
of Identities in a Caribbean Basin of struggle, survival and overcoming.







References
1) Beckles, Hilary, Verene Shepherd 1993, Caribbean Freedom: Economy and Society
from Emancipation to the Present, Ian Randle Publishers, Kingston.
2) Reddock, R et al, 2001, Caribbean Sociology: Introductory Readings, Ian Randle
Publishers, Kingston.
3) Martin, T (2012), Caribbean History: From Pre-Colonial Origins to the Present, Pearson
4) Reid, Basil (2008), Popular Myths of Caribbean History, University of Alabama Press.
5) Williams, E, 1944, Capitalism and Slavery, University of North Carolina Press
6) Williams, E, 1970, From Columbus to Castro: The History of the Caribbean 1492-1969,
Andre Deutsch Ltd, London
7) Howe, Glenford, 2002 Race, War and Nationalism: a social history of West Indians in the
First World War, Ian Randle Ltd.
8) Campbell, John et al, (2004), Caribbean Civilization: Course Material, Faculty of
Humanities and Education U.W.I
9) Van Sertima, I, (1976), They Came Before Columbus: The African Presence in Ancient
America, Random House Inc. NY
10) Brereton, Bridget, 1996, An Introduction to the History of Trinidad and Tobago.
Heinemann Educational Publishers, Oxford.
11) Anthony, Michael, 1985, First in Trinidad. Circle Press.
12) Woods, Donald, 1968, Trinidad in Transition: the years after slavery. Institute of Race
Relations, Oxford U.P
13) De Verteuil, Anthony, 1992, Seven slaves and slavery: Trinidad, 1777-1838.,
14) Roberts, Peter 2008, The Roots of Caribbean Identity: Language, Race, and Ecology,
Cambridge University Press
15) Haley, Alex, 1976, Roots, Vintage Publishers
16) McIntosh, Karel, One Caribbean; Many Identities, Global Voices Newsletter, 30 May
2007.
17) Laughlin, Nicholas, What Caribbean Can Mean, The Arts Journal Volume 2 Number 2
(2006).