Intolerance and Mistrust: The Bane of Caribbean Unity
Beautiful, warm, scenic and relaxing. These are words usually used to describe the countries of the Caribbean by the many tourists who come to visit every year. However, the Caribbean today, is also characterized by grave intolerance and mistrust. Why? By closely examining Caribbean history, society and concepts of identity, we can identify some key factors that can be used to shed light on this issue.
Through the history of the Caribbean we can see the events that took place that are responsible for generating considerable mistrust in the people of the Caribbean such as the system of slavery and their post-colonial leaders. In present society, we can note the gross and deeply rooted intolerance towards homosexuality and towards the standards of beauty more suited to us as is seen in the blatant preference for the Eurocentric standards of beauty. Looking at our concepts of identity, we can also identify levels of intolerance in our attitude towards our own language and we can also see the mistrust that people have towards their own government and between governments.
Therefore in this article, we will discuss how our history, concerning slavery, our societal views on homosexuality and preference for Eurocentric beauty standards, and our identity in terms of our attitude to language(music) and towards our government have led to the Caribbean becoming notorious for its grave intolerance and mistrust.
“A people without knowledge of their history, culture and origin is like a tree without roots.”- Marcus Garvey
It is a well-known sentiment, that knowing and understanding one’s history is a good indicator as to why a certain group of people behave the way they do and continue the traditions that they practice. And it is no different for the topic of this article.
Why are the people of the Caribbean so intolerant towards certain practices and why are they so mistrustful?
One of the ways, we can find answers to this question is to first, look at our history, and one of the most obvious reasons is the system of slavery.
“We are not makers of history. We are made by history.”- Martin Luther King Jr.
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