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The Caribbean society today, is a combination of various religions and cultures. Many different cultural adaptations can be found all over the islands. Religion takes us way back to the slaves and indentured labourers and also to religions that were developed on the islands themselves. One would say the Caribbean is full of vibrant faiths and cultures. On the arrival of the Europeans, they brought their own religions. Both the French and the Spanish were Roman Catholics and the British were Protestants. The introduction of Catholicism into the Caribbean was based solely on the Dutch and Irish migrants from Britain. In a cultural aspect, our festivals, religions, art forms, customs, values and different forms of self- expressions are quite dynamic. With the foundation of the historical events and experiences of our ancestors/people and our creativity it is moulded and fashion by the creative energies and various influences. There’s also mistrust and intolerance in terms of racism. This project focuses on the way in which grave intolerance and mistrust in both religion, culture and racism and how it affected us as society today.

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The islands throughout the Caribbean were claimed by different people, this lead to the spread of various religions throughout the islands. Indentured labourers and slaves also brought religions with them, that added on to the ones that already existed on the islands.

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There’s great intolerance and mistrust in the religious system of Trinidad and Tobago and the Caribbean. At one point, the government of Trinidad and Tobago wanted to pass the law for the legalization of gay marriages. This all began back in 2017 when Jason Jones an LGBTQ activists born in Trinidad but reside in Britain seek for the law of protecting the LGBTQ community. He back this by stating that “many LGBTQ people feared to be open about their views or orientation”. However, the law was ruled unconstitutional by the judge. “The judge came down on the right side of history in this case by striking down the buggery law and ruling it as unconstitutional” stated Kenita placide Caribbean adviser for rights group OutRight Action International. The Archbishop stated gave his views on the decriminalization of the buggery law  “the Roman Catholic does not support homosexuality, but does not believe that it should be legalized at this time”. This takes us back to history where it was a Christian society and the hegemony male ruled. History shows us that Christianity was dominant, and there we no type of Gay marriages or LGBTQ standings at that time.

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Take for example the pastor who captured and held 69 people both men and women in a cage in Arouca, Trinidad. They were captured and made to do things as modern day slavery and possibly for human trafficking. This links us back to slavery where the slaves were sold from their native country to come to the Caribbean to work on the plantations with so rights nor freedom of speech. These persons were also handcuffed and tortured just as our ancestors so we can see history repeating itself.  They were only given a limited amount of time to practice their religion and culture. Religion preaches and teaches one thing in the services, prayers and then the actions of the superior shows us something way different making it hard for us to trust what they are preaching to us.

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5)“Intolerance and mistrust towards another person religion and culture.”

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5)“Intolerance and mistrust towards another person religion and culture.”

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There has been quite a stigma towards the Baptist and Hindu religion for a long time. Older persons of the Christian cultures always said “ don’t eat anything from the Baptist and Hindu’s because of the prayers”. The East Indians brought their own practices and religion to the islands. Almost one quarter of Trinidad and tobago’s population are Hindus, this shows us that over time the population of Hindus in the Caribbean have grown. Their culture have become more dominant in the country, as one can see not only the Indians but also the Africans take part in the culture in society today. We can also see that in modern day society some Roman catholic schools the children are allowed to wear their traditional wear to go to school. But in the Christian home, children are told to not participate in spiritual and religious prayers. This shows us that Christians have a great mistrust in other peoples religions and also great intolerance towards the other cultures. The Hindus, Baptists and Muslim community were also frowned upon for wearing their religious clothing in public. But as time goes by, we can see that there’s a change in society and everyone can be seen participating in wearing the traditional clothing. However, there’s still the stigma of not trusting the Baptist and Hindus culture. History links us to this when the Europeans banned the African and Indian religions because they feared that the religions would take over or invade their own.

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There are many different religious views on carnival. The Protestants views carnival as an evil festival, they say that participation in the festival separates us from God. However, the Roman Catholic view carnival as basically good, noble and praise worthy. The bad in Carnival is human immorality not the festival as such. This Catholic perspective praises and highlights the good and challenges and confronts the bad, proposing ways of moral conversion for the individuals, thus evangelising the festival as a whole. It is thus possible to participate in Carnival and be in good standing with the Church. (news). In Trinidad, there’s a Catholic carnival band that parades the streets of Port Of Spain every year and goes by the name of Genesis 1- Creation have open up a platform of different views. Can a church be involved in such event? Is it right to participate in the vulgarity and what is said to be bacchanal? Many different spiritual leaders had their views on this, Pastor Winston Cuffie views on this is that “I am not surprised. I do not see anything strange about it as Carnival is part of the Roman Catholic faith.” He also went on to say that his ministry will not take part in such festival because taken a particular moral stance and people have come to respect us for that. However, on the topic of vulgarity take for example the incident that occurred at Zen nightclub with super star Akon and Pastor Dave Alleyne 15 year old daughter. In my opinion, I think that the parents are to be blamed for part and the club the other because how did she get the leave her home at that age in the 15? She must have asked, or left without telling them. Then she lied at the club entrance about her age. This all links to mistrust, as the pastor’s teaches something in his church about proper upbringing and the parents must pave the way for their children.

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The Caribbean is a place with many different ethnicities. They include the Africans, Indians, Spanish and so forth. Ethnicity has been and still is a sensitive matter, this can be seen in the post colonial and underdeveloped islands in the Caribbean. Race defines the social life of citizens in Trinidad and Tobago. Race is the gate way in knowing ones wealth, status, prestige and political power.  “Throughout Trinidad’s history there has been schisms within ethnic, social class, culture, religious and sexual parameters, leading to a lack of social cohesion. The absence of social solidarity has had comprehensive implications of the national identity of Trinidadians. By analysing the historical relationship between the colonizer and those who were colonized we can trace the roots of the “colonial mentality" which plagues many West Indian societies.” (Stewart) .Due to colonialism, one group of people is considered to be superior over the other.

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8)“The ethnicity of Trinidad and Tobago and it’s history” 

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8)“The ethnicity of Trinidad and Tobago and it’s history” 

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The first inhabitants of Trinidad were the Amerindians, the disappearance of these people were a result of genocide when Christopher Columbus and the Europeans came to the island. Diseases, forced labour, rape and wars just to name a few, were prime factors to the extermination of the first inhabitants.  When the indentured labourers (Indians) came, the African’s felt threaten because the wages that they worked for decreased drastically. So this caused a division in both ethnicities. The European planters paved the way into the division of the indentured labourers and the Africans when they kept them separated from each other. The indentured labourers were keep in a more better geographical and more cultural form from the rest of the captive labour force. This action created the stereotypical saying that the “Indians are superior to the Africans”. This shows us that racism has been dominant in our history and it still plays a major role in the Caribbean society today.

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In Trinidad and Tobago, there’s two dominant political parties, “The people’s national movement and the United national congress”. From since the UNC party was created, there has been a division between the African and Indian communities throughout Trinidad and Tobago. Most of the Indian communities supports the UNC and the Africans the PMN, there has always been uproars and exchange of words between the two ethnicities especially around election times.

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Taking everything into consideration, one can prove the statement “the Caribbean is characterized by grave intolerance and mistrust at all levels” to be true. The Caribbean supposed to be a place where everyone interlinks and unite with each other, however, there’s great mistrust and intolerance amongst the people especially in Trinidad. Politics divides the nation into two groups, the Indians versus the Africans. Religion seem to lead us astray, Christianity created the stigma that one religion is superior to the other, so people tend to not take part in Hindu and Baptist prayers or religious festivals.