The first in the series of UNESCO-sponsored lectures to commemorate the bi-centenary of the Abolition of the Slave Trade got underway on Wednesday 24th May, with Professor Rex Nettleford, Emeritus Professor and Vice Chancellor of the University of the West Indies. Under the overarching theme for the series “Black Enlightenment and Self-Mastery: A 21st Century Imperative” Professor Nettleford’s topic of discussion was “The Psychic Inheritance”

The lecture presented by the eminent Professor Rex Nettleford, as part of the commemoration of the 200th anniversary of the Abolition of the Slave Trade, promised to be an enlightening, informative and intellectual feast and he delivered all that and much more. He discussed the psychic inheritance of those of us who, as part of the African Diaspora, comprise the majority of the population of the Caribbean region. He highlighted the long history of low self-esteem that has plagued black people over the last five centuries and showed how those who profited from slavery and the slave trade have deliberately inculcated this in order to maintain hegemony over a numerically stronger population.

These are themes with which we are all familiar, but very rarely have the majority of our writers, historians, artists and social commentators challenged the dominant concept of social development in the Caribbean as a passive imbibing of the “civilization” of European colonisers. Professor Nettleford is certainly among the first thinkers that have posited the formation of an authentically Caribbean civilization by those very enslaved Africans who, we have been taught, were brought here naked, both literally and metaphorically.

The truth is, that through the tools of memory, mask, myth and metaphor, our enslaved ancestors were able to survive the forced migration to these shores with their sense of self intact. They were able to maintain and manage a sequestered mental space in which the traditions and customs that defined them as individuals and as various peoples of Africa, sustained them with dignity through centuries of degradation in the West.The evidence for this is everywhere; in our language, music, dance, festivals and even our food choices and preparation, yet most of us believe that we have nothing of Africa in us. We believe that our “Africanness” has been essentially obliterated and instead that we in the Caribbean are a blank slate capable only of mimicking the mores of the “mother country.”

Professor Nettleford described how, from the very beginning of our life here, we have been active in synthesizing a new identity for ourselves based on our experience here and have simultaneously developed a unique culture while fooling our enslavers through highly developed mockery of their stereotypes, such as practising sabotage under the guise of being “lazy.” He punctured fatal holes in the popular conception of black people as having made no significant cultural or civilisation al contribution to the world.

Perhaps the most gratifying part of Professor Nettleford’s presentation was his outlining of the fact that we here in the Caribbean have much to teach the world about the globalisation that will define the future. We have lived with and thrived under a multi-cultural society for the entirety of our history in this region and have emerged into the 21st century as a uniquely heterogeneous people. Caribbean people are an amazing synthesis of a wide variety of cultural and ethnic influences and yet we have managed to live largely without the violence that is known to accompany the so-called “clash of civilisations.” This should be a well-deserved source of pride for us, and just how we negotiate this identity will have profound implications for our future, as well as that of the globalised world at large.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, August 15th, 2007 at 3:50 pm and is filed under music & arts. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.