2 Responses to “The Case for a New Caribbean Identity, Marc Ramsay”

• Mervyn Claxton (28 February 2011 ber, 2010) on February 28th, 2011 at 7:36 am

  I agree wholeheartedly with Marc Ramsay’s cogently argued case for a new Caribbean identity and his proposition that the Caribbean has not succeeded in building an integrated society because of our failure to forge a genuinely Caribbean identity. His view that “the history taught to our children is still disproportionately focused on slavery and migration, as opposed to our immediate pre-Independence history and our political and economic history to the present”¦ the history taught to our children must answer the crucial question of how we came to be one new people” is one that I not only passionately share but I have also expressed it on a number of occasions, in several fora.

  I particularly agree with Ramsay’s conclusion that, in the absence of a common regional identity, we will continue to be handicapped in our efforts to achieve regional integration. He described in very graphic, and accurate, terms the heavy price we have paid for our failure to forge a common identity: “The world has a place for the Caribbean. That place is at the bottom of the global ladder.”

  In a paper posted last July, “Resolving the Crisis of Governance in Caricom”
  http://www.normangirvan.info/claxton-resolving-caricom-governance-crisis/
  I explored the imperative need for a Caribbean identity and suggested ways in which we might achieve it. Pointing out that Caricom countries share a history of slavery, indentureship, colonial rule, acculturation and cultural alienation, economic exploitation, constitutional evolution, and post-independence regional collaboration, and that there is a marked similarity in their economic circumstances and future prospects, as well as in the geopolitical challenges and problems they all face, I suggested that:

  “Those various elements, taken together, can and should be used to forge a persuasive overarching narrative which could give a uniquely Caribbean stamp to a regional governance paradigm that would be capable of accommodating our national differences; a historico-cultural narrative that would embody our hopes and aspirations, capture our collective imagination, and crystallize the essence of our historical experiences and our cultural specificities in a manner and a form that would establish a dynamic link between our different pasts, our shared present, and our common future; a narrative capable of stimulating our creative abilities and mobilizing our cultural energies in pursuance of a common endeavour; a narrative that would define, underpin, and cement our unique Caribbean identity; a narrative that would project, to the outside world, an image of ourselves, our culture and our history, of which we can be justifiably proud; a narrative that would give us the cultural confidence to forge our common future on our own terms, rather than on those determined by others; a narrative that would empower us to seek solutions for our problems, where necessary, outside of Northern paradigms.”

  In the paper, I described the stunning achievements, in terms of democratic governance, of two of Caricom’s ancestral cultures (India and Africa) which, as I demonstrated, equalled or surpassed Britain and Europe in the quality and originality of all aspects of their democratic governance. I suggested that those achievements of our ancestral cultures should be the foundation on which we should reconstruct a cultural confidence which had been destroyed by centuries of disparaging narratives propagated by European colonial powers. I also argued that those achievements should give Caricom peoples the confidence and the inspiration to seek alternative modes of democratic governance outside of Northern governance paradigms. However, I pointed out that, since they are so little known, an extensive, informed public debate on those ancestral achievements is needed so that the general public in Caricom would learn the truth of their ancestral history and be able to draw confidence from it.

  I argued that, however necessary the spread of that knowledge may be, it would not suffice to fully restore the cultural confidence of Caricom peoples and suggested that:

  “In addition, they [Caribbean peoples] need to develop an overarching historico-cultural narrative of the kind suggested earlier in this paper [one that would project] an image that would allow them to deal with the rest of the world on advantageous rather than disadvantageous terms; an image that reflects their ancestral identity rather than deny or reject it; an image that would constitute a cultural bulwark against the assimilation of values which dehumanize, diminish, or disparage them; an image that would be a cultural mirror which accurately reflects their real qualities (and defects) rather than those created in the lurid imaginations of foreigners. Finally, it should be an image that would send a message to the rest of the world that the African and Asian Diasporas [in Caricom] have not only survived the Middle Passage, Indentureship, Apprenticeship, and the various ordeals and humiliations to which they were subjected throughout the colonial and post-Emancipation eras but that they have emerged all the stronger for it, ready to assume their rightful place in the modern world, as a unified regional entity.”

  Mervyn Claxton

• christopher campbell on February 28th, 2011 at 10:53 am

  I fully support Mr RAMSAY’S call for a peaceful revolution we must as Jamaicans change this corrupt system that is now in charge of our country.This does not have anything to do with the two major parties,we are well aware of how deep the corruption runs.I am not only willing to give my personal support but also monetary support a revolution is not cheap.I am calling on all well thinking JAMAICANS to through the bums out, these people cannot be reform they are too old and tainted.The future is taken by the bold do not waste this time in history.