2 September 2002, 1412 words
In intellectual discourse here, it is an article of faith that our society was defined by the colonial experience. The only disagreement - and even that term is hyperbolic - is whether the balance falls on the good or bad side of the ledger. Nobody doubts the premise, though.
But to analyse our society on the basis of colonialism is an oversimplification. Many of the sociocultural attributes that our intellectuals attribute to colonialism can be found in societies which were never colonised. Take, for example, the shibboleth that our preference for one-man rule is a holdover from massa days. How can this be so when most of recorded human history shows, not only that aristocratic rule was the norm, but that most of those leaders oppressed and exploited their followers? Even in Europe, the norm until quite recently was rule by kings, who were themselves supposedly appointed by God.
Clearly, then, human beings have psychological traits which favour the elevation and hero-worship of an individual (aided and abetted, of course, by a small group of elites). The fact that leadership in many cultures should often be hereditary is also not surprising: the logic of "blood" can be traced directly to the intuitive grasp humans have of genetic heritability.
So the enslaved Africans, coming from a tradition of chiefs, would have easily acquiesced to their new masters, as would have the indentured Indians, familiar as they were with a hierarchical society ruled by Brahmins. We can therefore dismiss our predilection for a Maximum Leader as specific to our colonial history.
We can also dismiss the argument that it is colonialism which always makes us look to the Mother Country for validation. There are two grounds why this other article of faith, like so many such articles, is untrue. First, as with the Great Leader, it is a habit in many cultures to claim authority from some source outside the society. The ancient Greeks, founders of Western civilisation, used to claim authority from the even more ancient Egyptians, even though they in fact knew very little about Egyptian culture. The persistence of Latin and Greek as scholarly languages in Italy, Germany and England had a similar root.
Second, it was (and is) in a sense rational to view the Mother Country as superior. Human beings interpret the world in terms of power, and it is obvious to the average person that the developed societies are richer, more organised, and more competent than our own. Within any group, the average person, within their limits, always imitates the elites as a way of attaining status. So, given that for most of our history our society's rulers were white Britons, it was inevitable that those criteria would have shaped the mores of our local elites. (This would not have been true of the average person, again quite rationally, because the lower-classes didn't have the wherewithal to imitate the British rulers: only the middle- and upper-classes had sufficient education and money to become true mimic men.)
Yet even the matter of whiteness is not as straightforward as our social "scientists" would have us believe. The idea that, because of colonial conditioning, men view light-skinned women as more attractive is not, strictly speaking, correct. Anthropologist Pierre van den Berghe has found that in all cultures, including African ones, females of a lighter complexion than the group norm are considered more desirable.
The readiness with which we have accepted these basic myths about the consequences of colonialism is tied up with what Lloyd Best has called our culture of unresponsibility. It is part and parcel of our unwillingness to take any blame for the negative aspects for our condition. Paradoxically, however, we are quick to claim credit for the positive attributes of our culture.
What all this means is that, if we want to really understand how colonialism has defined our society, we need to separate those effects which have to do with the universal historical experience of hierarchy and those which were specific to British imperialism. It would seem obvious - but obviously it isn't - that such an exercise is crucial to finding ways and means of making our society developed.
The main millstone colonialism has hung around our national neck is that of political prejudice. This is rooted in the racial prejudice between Afro- and Indo-Trinis, but prejudice itself is innate to human beings. It is our colonial history which, by putting these two groups here, has undermined the democracy that is absolutely crucial for progress in the modern world. The 18-18 impasse, by forcing us to confront the limitations of ethnic loyalty, has at least sparked a discussion on the need for political reforms that will deepen democracy.
But that deepening won't occur unless we also deal with issues which transcend group loyalties. And this we are reluctant to do. In the same way that the Afro-Saxon elite worshipped the Mother Country in the colonial days, now we find that elite Afros and their Indo counterparts are harking back to their ancestral lands. It is ironic, but perfectly logical, that much of what is called "African culture" in Trinidad is really taken from a Black American idea of Africanness - even Kwanzaa was invented in Los Angeles. In similar fashion, the brand of "Indianness" promoted by the Maha Sabha bears a striking resemblance to American puritanism and capitalist ethos. The calls for reparations are also part of that dependent mindset, for victimhood is a short-term strategy with limited benefits.
It is always easier, of course, to be loyal to an illusory and self-created idea of perfection than to the concrete and imperfect reality that's in your own backyard. But this is the essence of dependence, for it is only the insecure who constantly shout about racial pride. In this regard, it is useful to contrast the shrill rhetoric about being culturally "African" and "Indian" with the relative muteness of debate on Carnival. This is at least partly because Carnival is a living culture: cultural rhetoric is usually used to defend what is defunct or irrelevant. So, although Carnival's main practitioners are Afro-Trinis, nobody really defines Carnival as an African festival. And, although Carnival's historical roots are in French culture, nobody asserts than Carnival is therefore an imposed form.
The reason, of course, is that Carnival is the one cultural form in which we have complete confidence; and we have that confidence because it is an indigenous expression. The only criticism comes from sexual puritans among the Muslim and Hindu communities, whose cultural loyalties lie outside Trinidad. And even in the Hindu group, Indian cultural forms like Phagwa and chutney are being integrated into the Carnival culture.
Our confidence in Carnival is a sign of true independence. By contrast, insecurity explains why ethnicity is celebrated far more than Trinidadianness in this place. The opposition to Trinidadianness is reflected by the opposition to renaming the Trinity Cross: and that related adherence to Christian politics is another consequence of colonial rule that retards our independence of mind to this day.
It is perhaps useful to note, however, that many of the deficiencies we attribute to colonialism are really just a consequence of youth. But neither colonialism nor youthfulness can be used as an excuse. They must only be tools to better help us overcome those deficiencies, and do so with relative quickness. Unlike the big countries, our island-state does not have the resources which allows for leisurely development nor for too many errors. Indeed, size is not the only issue: rapid adaptation is crucial for all in this fast-changing and globalised world. In this regard, our islandness - `i.e. being small and open - can be an advantage.
But it can only be an advantage if we take rational advantage of it. But to be rational requires first of all requires confidence. An independent mind is, first of all, a confident mind. It is confidence which allows the openness to other cultures, and it is confidence which allows you to embrace your own, warts and all. And, in any group, confidence comes from being indigenous - in our case, from being Trinidadian, which means being open to all sorts of influences and taking and rejecting such influences, not on the basis of ethnic or racial loyalties, but on the basis of what works for the common good. When we start doing that, only then we will be on the road to real independence.
Copyright ©2002 Kevin Baldeosingh