By Paul Lewis From Caribbean News Now

Anatol Scott’s document “Reparation in our Backyard” is a ten-page proposal to revamp tourism in St Vincent and the Grenadines (SVG). Tourism in his view “cannot be seen as a developing industry on the island of St Vincent proper” it is a weak industry, and he claims that most stakeholders concur with this proposition. The solution, according to Scott, is to bring more tourists to the mainland, and to abandon the traditional methods of marketing – something Scott does not discuss. I would like to comment on a few aspects of Scott’s proposal though much of it can and will be challenged by others at a later point.

Scott’s tourism linchpin – his magic solution – in this whole proposal is the development of the island of Balliceaux that, unlike other islands, can provide the antidote to the expected rapid expansion of Cuban tourism in the very near future. SVG should use its Garifuna heritage on Balliceaux to save its economy. A big responsibility on the tiny island that threatens to sink it!

Scott’s proposal cannot be seen as a policy document as it is an unfinished paper, lacks substance in many parts, and perspectives in other areas. I had expected a stronger historical background to his proposal. It is not only weak in details, but misleading too.

The final paragraph on page two falls in line with the Afro-centrist and undocumented statement of others that the Garifuna people were here before the 1492 Spanish Encounter, something that Adrian Fraser and myself have spoken about, and the problems with Van Sertima’s theories. Yet Scott carefully inserts the “fact” of their existence before 1492 or earlier.

Scott at his political best has also equated the “wanderings” of the Garifuna people with those of the historic Jews. And while we have consistently used colonial figures that suggest just over 5,000 Garifuna were interned on Balliceaux, we must understand that these are just estimates since others had fled to mountain redoubts, and census reports were hardly accurate then.

Indigenous Issues

In 1795, Alexandre Moreau de Jonnes, the French military adventurer sent by Victor Hughes in Guadeloupe primarily to liaise with the Caribs, and to observe Carib society, noted quite a different cultural configuration in St Vincent. Moreau lived among the yellow Caribs. But Moreau’s estimate of the black/yellow makeup of the indigenous population was different from other colonial sources such as Sheppard and Young, and suggested that there was an overwhelming majority of Yellow (6,000) as opposed to Black Caribs (1,500).

Such statistics certainly challenged the conventional wisdom on racial and ethnic identity among the indigenous peoples on St Vincent. Moreau’s views have not taken hold because of a lack of corroboration from other sources. The time lapse between his observation and documenting his memoirs might have clouded his memory, since he wrote these memoirs long after his retirement from the French service. But it certainly points to the uncertainty of oral history and traditions if they cannot be corroborated by other sources.

Most researchers today, especially Nancy Gonzalez, believe that, by the middle of the 18th century, Carib society, traditionally identified as Back and Yellow Caribs, became conflated into an indigenous person with both African and Carib genes.

But the issue for many indigenous people in SVG today is that some folks feel more Carib as opposed to Black Carib/Garifuna and have a greater identification with the Carib /Kalinago ancestral label. Moreover, historically some areas in the Carib community such as Sandy Bay were known as the home of Yellow as opposed to Black Caribs.

At the “Islands In Between Conference”, Guyana, 2010, I presented a paper on “Indigenous Survival and Continuity in SVG” that clearly indicated, among other things, the growing acceptance of the Carib identity in the area traditionally labelled as the Carib community, north of the Dry River.

There was a noticeable increase from the 1991 to the 2001 housing and population census in the number of persons identifying themselves as indigenous. Significantly too, in pulling together data for my paper, a class size survey was administered to upper level secondary and primary school students to interrogate the question of Identity. The results indicated a far greater number of the respondents identified themselves as either Carib, Kalinago, Black as opposed to Garifuna.

This desire by some elements to pigeon-hole all indigenous people into a Garifuna identification is unacceptable to many. And to connect this with the Garifuna issue, we must remind ourselves too that culture is dynamic and never static, and is constantly in a state of flux. There are always distinct changes and cultural nuances over time, brought about through interaction with different cultural and physical environments. Therefore, today’s Garifuna culture is not the original culture as is suggested by some commentators.

Diasporic Suffering

The folks in the contemporary diaspora are suffering too, claims Scott. But lumping the people in the diaspora and the Garifuna together is a red herring. Those in the diaspora are free agents. They chose to be there. They made that choice to enhance career opportunities, access higher education, complete family reunions, etc. And apart from the bona fide refugee claimants, they are not victims – except for the inability of developing nations to fulfil the increasing demands of the populace, and in this sense those who remain here are victims too.

Those in the diaspora have to work out their “diasporic double consciousness” and determine where they eventually want to live.

The suggestion of the assignment of an embassy staff member to deal with diasporic matters is quite useful. I suspect though that such affairs are routinely done by someone there. But your assignment of this officer to liaising with and monitoring the 500,000-strong Garifuna community in North America is interesting, and this may well involve a payment for services, since they are not registered Vincentian citizens. You have also framed the requirements of this office so nicely that it calls for someone who already lives in the diaspora! Suggestions?

Much of what Scott proposes in the basic St Vincent plan is already being done either through the Ministry of Tourism, the Tourism Authority or SVG Hotel and Hospitality Association. Success is another matter though, and the government has been rather skimpy in allocating credible funds to the tourism sector.

Moreover there is a problem with competing organizations – the Ministry of Tourism and Culture and the Tourism Authority. One or both should go, and the private sector must assume greater responsibility for developing tourism, with the government still playing a coordinating role. So there is nothing new here except his proposal of a weekly or bi-weekly excursion to Balliceaux.

IMAGES:
Garifuna “warrior” on Balliceaux facing Battowia
Paul Lewis was born in Canouan, St.Vincent and the Grenadines. He is a graduate of the University of Windsor, Ontario,Canada, with a BA(Hons.) and MA in History; and a BEd, University of Toronto. He is involved in social, political and environmental activism

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