Caribbean Pluralism

1
Caribbean Pluralism

• 1. Defining the Caribbean
• 2. Independence and After
• 3. Question of Cultural Identity The Dragon
  Cant Dance

2
Just Beyond Your Imagination

• Imagine awakening to the warm caress of the
• Caribbean sun. Palms whisper and coves
• beckon. Languid sands stretch below you.
• And a breeze embraced by turquoise waters
• gently cools you. This is your wake up call,
• inviting you to live out your daydreams and
• begin your most important beginning, in
• Paradise.

3
Globe and Mail, July 10, 1992

• As darkness falls on West Kingstons battered
• streets and shantytowns.the toughest slums
• in the Caribbean pulsate with life and the
• threat of death. Reggae music thunders from
• giant banks of loud-speakers. Rowdy bar
• patrons spill into graffiti-scarred alleyways
• where small bonfires burn. Marijuana smoke
• of mind-addling potency hangs in the air (A1).

4
Globe and Mail, July 10, 1992

• And however offensive it is to say so, it is
  clear
• on the streets of Metro Toronto, and to a
• lesser extent in Montreal, that this criminal
• subculture has been exported, blending into
• an array of negative Canadian factors to
• produce a lethal, racism-formenting witches
• brew (A7).

5
The Dragon Cant Dance

• He didnt officially join the PNM. He was
  suddenly shy
• and awkward before its compelling promise, before
  
• the important people running around with long
  words
• on the tip of their tonguesThe elections came,
  the
• PNM wonHe couldnt understand what they had
• won. Maybe Yvonne might be able to explain to
  him.
• She went to high school, she knew things. But
  white
• people were still in the banks and in the
  businesses
• along Frederick Street. The radio still spoke
  with a
• British voice. He couldnt understand (80).

6
G.K. Lewis

• Independence goes far beyond questions
• of a national flag, a national anthem and a
• national emblem and becomes a question of
• psychological survival. West Indians, as
• persons, this is to say, have to emancipate
• themselves in their innermost selves from the
• English psycho-complex (Challenge to
• Independence (513).

7
Dragon Cant Dance

• I wish I did walk with a flute or a sitar, and
  walk right
• there in the middle of the steelband yard where
  they
• was making new drums, new sounds, a new music
• and sit down with my sitar on my knee and say
• Fellars, this is me, Pariag from New Lands. Gimme
  
• the key! Give me the Do Re MiAnd let his music
  cry
• too, and join in the crying. Let it scream tooWe
  
• didnt have to melt into one. I woulda be me for
  my
• own self. A beginning. A self to go in the world
  with,
• with something in my hands to give. We didnt
  have to
• melt into one. They woulda see me (224).

8
Dragon Cant Dance

• They had jobs now, had responsibility now for the
  
• surviving of families, they could no longer
  afford
• rebellion at the Corner. They felt guilty turning
  away
• from it. Yet, they needed to move onThey had to
• choose, they felt and, it was because they were
• unable to hold in their minds the two
  contradictory
• ideastheir resistance and surviving, their
  rebellion
• and their decency because they felt they had to
  be
• one or the other in order to move on, they needed
  to
• cut ties with the Corner. So it was that Philos
  calypso
• became a statement for them all. This would be
  the
• epitaph to their rebellion (178).