On The Map: CARIBBEAN XENOPHOBIA: WHERE WILL IT END?

June 13, 2009

CARIBBEAN XENOPHOBIA: WHERE WILL IT END?

by Norman Girvan

The thought-provoking article by Barbadian artist Annalee Davis Thoughts on the ‘Amnesty’, which first appeared in the Stabroek News of 25 May 2009, has drawn attention to the human implications of the treatment of Caricom nationals in Barbados and the alarming rise of anti-Caribbean xenophobia in our region. This must concern everyone who cares about the quality of human and social relations among members of the Caribbean ‘family’ andthe impact on Caribbean integration where it matters most–at the level of ordinary citizens... keep reading

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We accept cheques or International postal orders included with your complete return mailing address and sent to Annalee Davis. Email Annalee for the mailing address.

You may also contact Annalee to schedule a screening at your school, university, artists' collective or gallery, community group, library, place of worship, private sector entity or government department. This can include a Panel Session which allows the issues raised by the film to be constructively discussed with the Director, invited Pannellists and the audience.

*Close Encounters - Contemporary Art by Caribbean Women, The Art Gallery, Florida Gulf Coast University, February 18 - March 19 2010 www.artgallery.fgcu.edu

*Rockstone & Bootheel: contemporary west indian art - at Real Art Ways, Hartford, CT, USA November 12 2009 - March 14 2010. Visit www.realartways.org for more info.

*The Barbados Society of Technologists in Agriculture, First Quarterly Meeting, Barbados Yacht Club, 7.00pm, Tuesday, June 12th 2009

*The 4th Annual Latin American and Caribbean Film Festival, Atlanta, Georgia, Saturday, June 13th 2009

*Ninth DC Caribbean Filmfest 2009, Wednesday, June 10th at the Charles Sumner School, 1201 17th St., NW., Washington DC 20036. 6.00pm - FREE. Discussion will follow screening. Call 202.223.1960 xt 137 or email info@transafricanforum.org for more information.

*Master in Caribbean Studies Class, Universidad Nacional de Columbia - Presented by Prof. Yolanda Wood. May 16 2009

*Décima Bienal de La Habana, Cuba, March - April 2009

*International Lens Film Series in conjunction with Ifeoma Nwankwo of the English Department, Vanderbilt University, TN, USA October 15 - 17

*3rd Annual Trinidad & Tobago Film Festival, Port of Spain, Trinidad - Two Screenings at Movietowne, September 20, & at UWI, St. Augustine, September 22 2008

*The Star and Shadow Cinema, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, United Kingdom, September 17. Introduced by Andrea MacDonald of MAS-SAMple, Skype discussion to follow with Newcastle audience and me in Barbados, facilitated by Andrea.

*CARIFESTA X, Georgetown, Guyana - International Conference Centre, Liliendaal, (next to CARICOM Secretariat) 7.30pm, August 25 2008 Discussant - Dr. Allisa Trotz, Moderator - Simone Mangal

* Annalee has been invited by Sydney Simmons to be his guest on Talk Yuh Talk, a radio programme on Q 100.7 on Thursday August 21st 9.00am - 10.30am. Tune in on your local radio or visit www.cbc.bb and tune in on line. The focus is On the Map as an intervention into the CSME and discussion about regional integration.

*Roxbury Film Festival, Boston, USA July 28 - Aug 3 2008

*Barbados Workers Union (BWU), Solidarity House, Harmony Hall, Bridgetown, Barbados on Tuesday, July 15th, 2008 at 7.30pm. Discussion moderated by Peter Wickham.

*ACS Crossroads Conference, University of the West Indies, Kingston, Jamaica, 1.00- 2.30pm July 5th, 2008 - Discussant - Kamau Brathwaite, Moderator - Ka-mau Amen

*Orlando's 1st Caribbean Film Festival 2008, Saturday, June 21, Two screenings at 1.18pm & 5.18pm followed by groupd discussion at the Valencia Community, 1800 S. Kirkman Rd., Tel (407) 299 5000. Organised by the Alliance of Guyanese Expatriates, the African American Culture Society, the Valencia Community College & the Guyanese American Culture Association of Central Florida

*Caribbean Studies Association Conference, San Andres Columbia with discussants Dr. Linden Lewis & Abayomi Manrique, May 27, 2008

*Association of Caribbean Women Writers Conference, Grenada, 2.30 - 4.00pm with discussants Dr. Shalini Puri and Dr. Denise deCaires Narain - May 22, 2008

*Barbados Community College, April 18th

*Reel World Film Festival, Toronto, Canada on Sunday, April 6 2008, 1p.m. at Theatre 6, Carlton Cinemas on Yonge/Carlton

*Department of Language, Linguistics & Literature., UWI., Cave Hill Campus Barbados, April 3 2008

*Cave Hill Film Society, UWI, Cave Hill Campus Barbados, March 28 2008 at 7.45pm with Discussant Alison Saunders Franklyn, Director of Hit For Six

*Virtual Caribbeans Conference, Institute for Cuban & Caribbean Studies, Tulane University, New Orleans, Feb 29 2008

*Business Management Studies Graduate Programme, UWI., Cave Hill Campus Barbados February 6 2008

*Brooklyn Museum of Art - August 31, 2007–January 27 2008

*Barbados International Film Festival, Olympus Theatre, Sheraton Centre, Best of Caribbean Section, December 9 2007

Statement

The Caribbean was the cradle of New World globalization. Our people all came from somewhere else, into the belly of the Americas.

Characterised by waves of migrant experience, the Caribbean became a place of confluence, transience and hybridity which for years romanticized the struggle to be whole, to become one Caribbean people. In spite of this ideal, we remain as fragmented as ever, locked into nationalist crevices, linguistic divides and exclusivist cultural legitimacy.

The repeated production of idyllic images of an eternal playground for tourists on the one hand, and notions of the region as fragmented, failed and chaotic on the other; mask a complex history, leaving Caribbeans ambivalent about a sense of self.

We must answer the question, both creatively and critically, what is the Caribbean? What image of ourselves do we wear and to what extent do these images represent who we actually are? What is the truth of our own lived realities and how do we speak to each other of this reality?

The challenge is to remove the mask created by the visitors’ gaze, to see through the rigid stereotypes, and to honestly reflect on our states of being.

My work exposes tensions within the larger context of a post-colonial history and the more recent experiences of post independence and 9/11. More personal explorations of home/land, longing and belonging, and creoleness, serve as cartographic meanderings of Caribbean space, and investigations of the self within that space; in an effort to discern the territory.

September 9 2007
St. George, Barbados

(complete text)

I am the complex Creole
My context is the Caribbean

An archipelago crocheted into a crossbreed
Of carnival, class and comess
Cognizant of Columbus
And the Commonwealth
That created these confused colonies
Correctly criticized for the callous treatment
Of the Amerindian
And the reconstitution
Of a Caribbean caste system

Several centuries later
My coronary artery crackles
When I think of the creatures
That created this cacophonous confusion

And although we collide
There is more chaos than community
Some feel like foreigners
As though uncharacteristic
Of these now ex-colonies
Our natural native islands

I celebrate the chorus of the Creole Chant

But I have a creed that I wear
Like a crest on my chest
My credentials are that I am created equally
Credible from my cranium to my coccyx

I cleave to no church, temple nor country
I sing the canticles
And practice a yoga
I chant
I breathe
I made my jappa and wrote a creed
I owned a crucifix
And acknowledge the crescent

I anoint myself with a communion of
Cinnamon, coffee and cumin
Cocoa, cotton and cane
It is with composure and compassion that
I conceive my compatriots as compatible
Whether Cuban or Guyanese,
Christian or Muslim, Hindu or Jew

I contemplate a Caribbean conservatory
That is a consanguineous conscious community
Confidently confirming a conglomerate
Who speak patois, Papiamento, Spanish and Creole

I celebrate the chorus of the Creole Chant

As a complex Creole
Confronting this crossroads of centuries
I cannot condone the corruption
Nor those who configure the conflict –
I outcast them from community

I contradict the unicursal way
And commemorate the cobweb we have become
I come to you
Not as a comedian
Nor as a clown
I come to you as a coalition
Of combustible matter
A civilized collective
Sometimes caustic, but never counterfeit
I am a cordless creator of culture
Conveying my codes
To a community that isn’t convinced
Of the credit of cultural producers

And now I wear coronet
A continuous circular

In my cipher
I chuckle
I weep

I celebrate the chorus of the Creole chant

June 13, 2009

CARIBBEAN XENOPHOBIA: WHERE WILL IT END?

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Creole Chant

(complete text)

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