Burgers
...and coconut water, happy-go-lucky smiling people, rastafarians, reggae, calypso, marijuana, and so on. These stereotypical images are due in part to the Caribbean governments’ proliferation of avid tourism campaigns often void of any African references, the unwillingness of the Europeans to learn about and respect the cultural make-up of other peoples, and the acceptance and perpetuation of these stereotypes by Caribbean citizens themselves. Sad to say, so many of us often engage ourselves, quite aggressively, in petty nationalistic debate over who has the best albeit commercialized carnival, best food, best beaches... Further, the adherence to the above stereotypes serves another agenda, whether intentional or not, it helps to conceal the multiplicity of interacting cultures in the Caribbean, and the inherent conflicts in these cultures competing for scarce resources.
Culture in the Caribbean as I prefer to refer to it, is multi-faceted, dynamic, and rich. At a broad level, culture in the Caribbean has emerged as a result of a forced marriage between European and African cultures, and a later osmotic fusion of this marriage with cultural elements from Asia. At a more definitive level, culture in the Caribbean spans among others, pop, folk, resistance, religious, and class cultures. It is the pop culture of the Caribbean which is amplified, while resistance culture for example, which has played pivotal roles in the emancipation of enslaved Africans and the fight of the underclass, receives little fanfare. It is this culture which heralds people like Sam Sharpe, Miss Lou, Paul Bogle, Marcus Garvey, Uriah Butler, Maurice Bishop, and Walter Rodney. It is this culture which I would like to highlight in this article.
One of the primary motivating forces behind early resistance culture among African-Caribbeans, was the search for an African identity. The Maroons in...
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