Ray­mond Ram­char­i­tar

With the PM's trav­els far and wide to "sell" the coun­try, and the in­vest­ments in es­tab­lish­ing our in­tel­lec­tu­al prowess at the UTT, the UWI and var­i­ous in­sti­tu­tions, like the "Com­pet­i­tive­ness Coun­cil," it might be worth­while to take a look through out­side eyes at our ef­forts at prov­ing we just as good as white peo­ple. To find the da­ta for this as­sess­ment is hard enough, but to find it all in one place, well, one would have to be, as the Cre­ation­ists say, "blessed." Ap­par­ent­ly I am so favoured. Some time ago, search­ing a lo­cal book­store for a recipe book for peo­ple who are more smart than lucky, I stum­bled up­on an in­trigu­ing (un­re­lat­ed) col­lec­tion: Carib-bean Dis­patch­es: Be­yond the Tourist Dream, a com­pi­la­tion of 42 ar­ti­cles on tourist trulling through the Caribbean, edit­ed by Jane Bryce and pub­lished by Macmil­lan (2006). The ar­ti­cles come from ex­pats and lo­cals through­out the An­glo-Caribbean. Some con­trib­u­tors' bi­ogra­phies are vague on the is­sue, but about 11 of 28 con­trib­u­tors are ex­pats, and they con­tribute about half the 42 ar­ti­cles. Col­lec­tive­ly, the in­sight on the met­ro­pol­i­tan per­cep­tion of the Caribbean's char­ac­ter, and the com­plic­i­ty of strate­gi­cal­ly po­si­tioned lo­cals, is rare and valu­able.

Take Je­re­my Tay­lor's ar­ti­cle, "Fit­ting In." He was tired of be­ing no­body in Eng­land. He want­ed some­where "black" (sic), and found Trinidad, where he "be­came" a jour­nal­ist, crit­ic, Civil­is­ing Mis­sion­ary, and pub­lish­er be­cause lo­cals were so stu­pid. He sup­ple­ment­ed his in­come by sell­ing tales of lo­cal apish­ness (like the 1990 coup) to the for­eign press, who were al­ways glad to show the for­mer colonies as de­gen­er­ate zoos. This overt con­tempt is re­fresh­ing­ly frank, but it's not the rule: oth­er ar­ti­cles show a politic "re­spect" for and in the post-mil­len­ni­um Caribbean. The ex­pats still see the place as an un­civilised fron­tier. But now they like it-em­brac­ing the or­gias­tic prim­i­tive. Lit­er­al­ly. Ian Craig, for ex­am­ple, went to Cu­ba look­ing for love. But rather than seek it from a pro­fes­sion­al, he want­ed to force a whole­some Cuban girl to sell her­self. He found a "de­mure...light­skinned mu­la­ta...who wore an un­forced smile," and who "seemed to like me." So he tried to get cozy, and is in­censed that she need­ed mon­ey to sup­port her child (pp51-53).

A per­son named Si­mon Lee, who ap­par­ent­ly re­sides here, went to Haiti look­ing for "cul­ture." At a voodoo cer­e­mo­ny, a "pe­tite, fiery houn­si" gives him the eye, and "takes my hand in hers and mo­ments lat­er we're on the mil­let mat in her hut..." Ap­par­ent­ly he was "the an­swer to her prayers" (146). (If words like "STDs," "horse­whip­ping," and "in­stant de­por­ta­tion" oc­cur to you now, noth­ing's wrong with you. Like Tay­lor, and many ex­pats el­e­vat­ed be­yond their sta­tions, this per­son came here as a "teacher." The out­puts of our ed­u­ca­tion sys­tem now be­gin to make sense.) Lis­ten to an­oth­er teacher: the ed­i­tor of the col­lec­tion, in Tri­ni-dad for Car­ni­val, and "with a few bot­tles of Carib cours­ing through my veins" she goes to the streets where "bod­ies bump and grind as we move for­ward half-naked and anony­mous." Then she feels "some­thing hot and hard against my back, and can't help be­ing aware that all along the road, dark al­leys beck­on..." (64). Yeah. Not all the pieces are so ex­plic­it, but many seethe with de­bauch­ery: Lee's piece on crick­et de­votes much space to mak­ing a spec­ta­cle of rum-swill­ing na­tives. Rob Leyshon's piece on Shake­speare mas' be­gins in a rumshop (129).

Fas­ci­nat­ing­ly, the lo­cals seem de­ter­mined to vin­di­cate the ex­pats' per­cep­tions. Bar­ba­di­an Robert San­di­ford opens an­nounc­ing: "Life in the Caribbean to many out­side the Caribbean (and a good many in it, too) is a Car­ni­val... African Bac­cha­nal!" (125). Ja­maican Kim Robin­son's piece is ti­tled "I Mus' Play Mas," be­cause "with all its in­san­i­ty-[it] is what keeps me sane" (148). And since noth­ing warms the met­ro­pol­i­tan tourist's cock­les so much as gib­ber­ing na­tives, the in­dis­pens­able ar­ti­cles in "Cre­ole" Eng­lish were sup­plied by Philip Nan­ton and Oonya Kem­padoo. But the Caribbean is not just good for rum, gib­ber­ish, and ex­ploit­ing des­per­ate women. There are trees too. Pol­ly Pat­ul­lo's "Gar­den­ing in Do­mini­ca" war­bles: "I have a gar­den in Do­mini­ca, an is­land which is all gar­den" (27). Ian Mc­Don­ald writes of be­ing "wrapped in won­der" up the Es­se­qui­bo. These pieces (and many oth­ers) make the lack of run­ning wa­ter, bad roads, and de­cay­ing in­fra­struc­ture seem charm­ing.

Of course, there are ex­cep­tions. Andy Taitt's "Sign­ing for a Mad­man" is an in­ter­est­ing piece, but out of place here. An­nalee Davis dared to be dif­fer­ent with a po­em: "I am a com­plex Cre­ole / my con­text is the Caribbean." (Per­mit me a cou­plet of my own: "your po­em is as sub­tle as syphilis / and about as good as an ana­gram of this.") Look­ing at this "book," I won­dered if a herd of drunk­en, de­praved West In­di­ans went to Eng­land and wrote glow­ing­ly of their en­coun­ters with un­der­age pros­ti­tutes, drug deal­ers, and sug­gest­ed its crime-rid­den coun­cil es­tates were the norm, would it be pub­lished by a main­stream British pub­lish­er and mar­ket­ed as an idyl­lic look at Eng­land? In oth­er words: what mo­ron in Macmil­lan thought this was a good idea to pub­lish? I have a good idea who, but as I hope to have this pub­lished, I'll stop here. And say that de­spite my gall, this spec­i­men might be the most overt ex­am­ple of the phe­nom­e­na I've de­scribed, but they are repli­cat­ed end­less­ly in jour­nal­ism, fic­tion, trav­el writ­ing, and acad­e­mia. And we (by which I mean all but me) seem to love it. The most as­ton­ish­ing thing about Caribbean Dis­patch­es is that no one in UWI, among the na­tion­al­ists, the gov­ern­ment, or else­where, ap­pears to have no­ticed it, or seems to care. (Dis­clo­sure: I've had dis­cus­sions with Macmil­lan, who were not in­ter­est­ed in my work. Thank God.)