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The danger of a single story was an enlightening speech told by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. While watching this speech, I began to think of the single stories I have been told or exposed to in my life. The most significant was the one told to many young Caribbean people: the story of the discovery of the Caribbean, told through the eyes of the Europeans. It was not until doing this course that I realised the damage of our history being told through the eyes of our oppressors. That was when I learned about the term revisionism and the importance of it. For the first twenty-one years of my life, I was told that the “Caribs”, correctly known as Kalinagos, were cannibals: "mythical beings with snouts of dogs who ate men.” We were told that they were savages who were uncivilised and I believed it.

As Adicihie said so eloquently in her speech, “That is how to create a single story: show a people as one thing, over and over again, and that is what they become.” The power of the Europeans was so evident in our history. There were able to not just tell the story of Caribbean people, but to make it the definitive story that was shared to millions of people around the world. The consequence of this was that it robbed our people of dignity. We have so much to be proud of in the Caribbean; it is rich with history that was never told. Revisionism has allowed us to reject that single story. As Adichie stated, “When we realise there is never a single story about any place, we regain a kind of paradise.” Hopefully, this paradise can become our reality.

18 November 2017

Works Cited

Adichie, Chimamanda Ngozi. “The Danger of a Single Story.” Online video clip. YouTube. YouTube, July 2009. Web. 18 Nov. 2017. www.youtube.com/watch?v=D9Ihs241zeg

Livingston, Stephenie. “History Re-Written: Christopher Columbus and the Cannibals.” Florida Museum. N.p. 9 March 2015. Web. 26 Nov. 2017. www.floridamuseum.ufl.edu/science/history-re-written-christopher-columbus-and-the-cannibals/

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Prior to doing this course, I never understood why Caribbean people loved cricket so much and why they felt so much pride every time the West Indies cricket team succeeded. This was until I watched the documentary “Fire in Babylon”. I learned that cricket was brought to the Caribbean by the English "to be used as an instrument of colonisation, as a way to discipline the nigga”. In the documentary, it was stated that, “Our history has been a long and painful struggle against the forces that denied and oppressed us: Babylon. Only through cricket could we win our freedom.” This was a profound statement, one that I had never even thought about.

I was initially confused about the title of this documentary until I learned that Babylon was not a place; it is a practice that is unrighteous. Bablyon is discriminating because of colour instead of treating each other as human beings. Through cricket, these inspiring West Indians were able to carry a message to the “white world” by defeating them on the field of play. They made the cricket field a truly “leveled” playing field. They always had a driving ambition towards defeating England and to use cricket as the vehicle through which they could express rebellion against this British colonising power.

This story about the triumph of my fellow Caribbean people over our colonial masters really resonated with me and I felt immense pride watching that documentary, far more than I had anticipated.

17 November 2017

Works Cited

Riley, Stevan. “Fire in Babylon.” Daily Motion. Passion Pictures. 18 Oct. 2010. Web. 17 Nov. 2017. www.dailymotion.com/video/x3j1fzs.

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Historical Perspective on Haiti's Contemporary Society 

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Historical Perspective on Haiti's Contemporary Society 

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Haiti’s fate was sealed long before the earthquake that took place on January 12th, 2010. Haiti, once considered the Jewel of the Antilles, is now the poorest nation in the Western Hemisphere. When Haiti was under French rule in the 1700s, it was the wealthiest colony in the New World and provided as much as half of France’s Gross National Product. After the Haitian slave revolution concluded in January 1804, Haiti became the first black republic and the second free country in the Western World. However, there was an international boycott of Haitian exports that sent Haiti’s economy into a downward spiral.

France refused to recognise Haiti until they were reimbursed for the loss of land and profit that resulted from the revolution. This immense debt of 150 million francs plagued Haiti’s economy for more than eighty years from 1838 to 1922. Furthermore, the US occupation in 1915 became one of the most detrimental periods in Haiti’s history. Under the pretense of wanting to stop the ongoing violence in Haiti, the US wrote a new constitution and improved the island’s infrastructure. However, this was achieved through forced labour, torture and murder of the Haitian people.

These devastating historical accounts are the basis of Haiti’s poverty and misery. One of the biggest contemporary problems in Haiti is its healthcare system. The earthquake instantaneously destroyed sixty percent of an already dysfunctional health system.  Moreoever, ten percent of Haiti’s medical staff were either killed or left the country. This resulted in a cholera epidemic that affected over 630,000 people and killed over 7,500. Prior to the 2010 earthquake, there had been zero cases of cholera in Haiti for almost a century.

Poverty and inequality are the driving forces behind the severity of the diseases in Haiti. Around 80 percent of the population lives in poverty (less than 1 USD per day) and 54 percent live in absolute poverty. People die from treatable or curable diseases every day. Over 5000 Haitians die per year from tuberculosis, a disease that has had curable medicine for over fifty years. HIV/AIDS takes the lives of more than 7000 people every year despite it being treatable with anti-retroviral drugs. AIDS is the leading cause of death of Haitian people between the ages of 15 and 49 years old.

The problem with the healthcare system is that there is no system. The earthquake destroyed the infrastructure in Port-au-Prince, shutting down electricity, transport, water and sanitation systems. Healthcare facilities are inadequate as they have insufficient medical and support staff, technology, treatment and even electricity. Haiti has the lowest electricity coverage in the entire Western Hemisphere and this has resulted in many fatalities.

The causes of Haiti’s desolation are ultimately human due to greed and power. The last five centuries have generated a nation whose people are so poor, infrastructure that is almost nonexistent and an island so feeble, that if another major natural disaster was to hit, its impact would be severely felt.

24 November 2017

Works Cited

Doctors Without Borders. "Haiti: Access to Health Care Still Lacking." Online video clip. YouTube. YouTube, 17 Jan. 2012. Web. 25 Nov. 2017. www.youtube.com/watch?v=sFt3e-of8C8

Ekine, Sokari. “Haiti’s Struggling Healthcare System.” New Internationalist. N.p. 25 Feb. 2013. Web. 24 Nov. 2017. www.newint.org/blog/2013/02/25/haiti-healthcare

Fragala Smith, Karen. “Reasons behind Haiti’s Poverty.” Newsweek. IBT Media Inc. 15 Jan. 2010. Web. 24 Nov. 2017. www.newsweek.com/reasons-behind-haitis-poverty-70801

Henley, John. “Haiti: A Long Descent to Hell.” The Guardian. N.p. 14 Jan. 2010. Web. 24 Nov. 2017. www.theguardian.com/world/2010/jan/14/haiti-history-earthquake-disaster

iam Cheyna. "Haiti The Untold Story." Online video clip. YouTube. YouTube, 24 July 2011. Web. 25 Nov. 2017. www.youtube.com/watch?v=6nskDm2yhPA

In Haiti. "In Haiti: A Road Trip Documentary (English)." Online video clip. YouTube. YouTube, 6 Sept. 2013. Web. 25 Nov. 2017. www.youtube.com/watch?v=FoZ2DTeUCO8

Redmond, Helen. “Haiti and Health care.” Plenty International. N.p. N.d. Web. 24 Nov. 2017.  www.plenty.org/haiti-and-health-care/

Remy, Julie. “Health Care Underprioritized in Haiti Reconstruction.” Doctors Without Borders. MSF USA. 8 January 2015. Web. 24 Nov. 2017. www.doctorswithoutborders.org/article/health-care-underprioritized-haiti-reconstruction

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As a student in the field of social sciences, I am used to writing objective, fact-based essays. This is why Caribbean Civilisation was such a daunting course for me and one I tried to avoid. Moreover, since I did not enjoy Caribbean Studies for CAPE, I felt as though Caribbean Civilisation would be just like it. I was so wrong. Over the last few months, I have felt so enlightened by the various topics I have learned. I have genuinely enjoyed learning about the Caribbean and the plethora of people that make it such a unique place to live. Other than the basic information I learned as a child and teenager, I was so ignorant about the true history of the Caribbean. During the course, I actually felt ashamed by how little I knew and how unable I was to participate during class.

I learned so many words that I had never heard before such as revisionism, ethnocentrism, mercantilism and miscegenation. Moreover, Eric Williams’ book, “Capitalism and Slavery” revealed to me that the abolition of slavery was not due to a moral obligation by the Europeans to end slavery, but because it was no longer economically viable for slavery to continue. Throughout the course, I often asked myself, “Why and how don’t I know this?” or “Why didn’t I care enough to know about the Caribbean’s history in the first place?”

Consequently, Caribbean Civilisation has inspired me to explore my own history. Every member of my family is of mixed race and as a result, it is difficult for me to know where my ancestors originated from. I am so proud to call myself a Trinidadian but after doing this course, I am truly inspired to find out what that actually means.

26 November 2017

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Benjai - Trini [2nd Place 2011 Groovy Soca Monarch Competition] -Trini Carnival Soca 2011 2010 http://twitter.com/CanchozI http://en-gb.facebook.com/people/Canchoz-i-Iriefire/100001176711359