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“All ah we is one.” A term often used by persons in the Caribbean to describe the synergy and bond among both the countries and its people. It also suggests that the Caribbean is the same and that we function as a unit.   Caribbean societies are inescapably heterogeneous...the Caribbean has long been an area where some people live next to others who are remarkably distinct. The region—and indeed particular territories within it—has long been multi-racial, multi-lingual, stratified, and some would say, multi-cultural (Premdas, 1996). The disagreement with this statement will be discussed further.

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Culture is defined as the ways of life or people built on their socialization. Hence persons living in the same country or society will develop traditions, behaviors, values, and norms. These characteristics are usually passed down from generation to generation but as life continues cultural erasure, retention and renewal can take place.

The content of culture and customs engages a wide assortment of practices that can be operationalized to examine the claim of a core of shared symbols and artifacts. These include music, dance, festivals, food, aesthetics, architecture, visual art, writing, education, socialization, games and sports, leisure, kinship patterns, attire, languages, dialects, accents, rituals, folklore, myths, material artifacts, etc. These factors are configured into a cultural mold that gives a unique shape to the Caribbean mind (Premdas, 1996). As we know the Caribbean has a wide range of different cultures which creates separation. In every Caribbean country, there is a different way life and society has created its own culture. Even though different Caribbean countries may part take in one another’s culture. The Caribbean may share some commonalities when it comes to the historical past. However there certain histories that are distinct to each Caribbean country which creates a culture within that specific space and further lends itself to what is known as Caribbean culture.

For instance, Caribbean music as a generic type is variously associated with salsa (Puerto Rico), son (Cuba), reggae (Jamaica), calypso (Trinidad), meringue (Dominican Republic), all marked by a common Afro-Caribbean rhythm in the use of drums and percussion so that a unified musical region can be conceived. The musical variations are seen as existing along a single all-embracing continuum of prototypical Caribbean sounds. By the same reasoning, one can construct a variety of Caribbean foods, food preparations, and tastes on a scale characterized by distinctive culinary sharing (Premdas, 1996). Through slavery, indenture-ship, and migration the Caribbean is racially diversified. Furthermore, these races have brought and despite colonization kept their culture which in turn we are able to take pieces from it and establish our own form of culture. For example, doubles, which is East Indian food but it is now part of Caribbean culture. This can be seen as part of culture retention.

Despite evidence of caricature among cultural practices within the Caribbean, there are elements of distinctiveness. Lewis (517) adds that “A constant theme in today’s West Indies is that we should stop imitating other peoples, and do our own thing. We should be different, and West Indian.” Pearce (caribbeanculturalstudies.com) cites Glissant’s of the forest metaphor to explain Caribbean cultural identity whereby: “The forest is characteristically dark and impermeable...Within the forest of Caribbean Cultural Studies...can exist a diversity of species, or rather, concepts/approaches that are unique to the region. Specific theories can form canopies, which keep Caribbean difference impenetrable (Daly-Novoa, 2015). In fact, each Caribbean country has its personal attributes in regards to culture especially the countries of Cuba, Puerto, and the Dominican Republic whose culture closely resembles Latin America.

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In the Caribbean, religious beliefs and practices, formal and informal, are pervasively present and immensely diverse. There are Hindus (including the Arya Samaj, Sanatan Dharma, Shivites, etc.), Muslims (including Sunni, Shia, and Black Muslims), Christians (including Roman Catholics, Anglicans, Methodists, Moravians, Presbyterians, Baptists, Adventists, Seventh Day Adventists, Lutherans, etc.), numerous spiritist, syncretist, and indigenous religious groups (such as Rastafarian throughout the English-speaking Caribbean, Santería in Cuba, Winti in Suriname, Vudun in Haiti, Shango mainly in Trinidad, Spiritual Baptists, etc.) and proliferation of Pentecostal and evangelical churches. Adding to this diversity is the fact that in the Caribbean many persons are practitioners of several faiths simultaneously, finding no dissonance in accommodating syncretist or spiritist rituals and beliefs to a formal attachment to an established faith (Premdas, 1996). As previously mentioned as a result of Caribbean history religion has been passed down and taught throughout the years. Some even became more creolized. With all these different religions existing in the Caribbean, it refutes the idea being and the different religions propose a divide.

Haiti has had one of the toughest times in regard to religion because Caribbean persons and other countries outside the Caribbean often ridicule them for their religious beliefs. Through colonialism, Christianity was taught and that’s why it’s practiced in many Caribbean countries. Religion is even taught in schools to this day. Voodoo has been as tenacious and indomitable deity Ogun and the spirit of the Haitian people; the remains the most publicized and notoriously stereotyped of Afro-Caribbean religions. This notoriety results from Voodoo’s status as the most despised religion in America; vilified for its alleged cabal of evil practices. Just the word mentioned ‘Vodou’ and the American mind conjures up any number of sensational images: deadly “black” or evil magic, the sticking of poisonous pins in dolls, satanic rituals, gross sacrifices of humans, zombies, hex- casting witchcraft demonic spells, infamous human-preying zombies, blood sucking-vampires and African cannibalism (Murrell, 2010). Due to colonialism, there has been hatred for any other but this particular religion faces it the most. In claiming the phrase “all ah we is one” suggest to me togetherness and therefore Caribbean people shouldn’t reprehend another Caribbean on what they choose to believe.

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Race is defined as a category based on real or perceived biological differences between groups of people. Perhaps, more than any other feature, race has assumed the role of the most visible marker of Caribbean identity. Often, despite the diversity of the human types that have come to inhabit the region, race refers to the African descent of many Caribbean residents. Observes Gordon Lewis: “a whole school of Black Nationalist writers, following Herkovits, have seen the region as part of the African diaspora, thus tending to overlook its European, Asian, and Arab ethnic components.” The only period when a single racial type had occupied the Caribbean was in pre-Colombian times (Premda, 1996). This shows that the Caribbean wouldn’t be able to identify as one through the race.

A study by the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) has found that the problems of race are most persistent in the Caribbean, compared to other parts of the Americas. The findings of the study, which looked at the "Situation of People of African Descent in the Americas," were released here at a special ceremony on the fringes of the just-concluded Caribbean Community (Caricom) Summit. The study, which examined the issue in the Americas, found although the problem was most persistent in the Caribbean, it was also most subtle. IACHR Commissioner and rapporteur on People of African Descent and Against Racial Discrimination, Prof Rose-Marie Belle Antoine, have suggested the subtle persistence of racial profiling and discrimination in the Caribbean could be because people have grown to accept it. "Colour prejudice is perhaps the most under-reported form of discrimination that we have but at the same time, perhaps, it is the most complained about in informal ways (guardian.co.tt, 2012). Within the Caribbean persons of colour experience several microaggressions due to colonialism. Afro- Caribbean men and woman faced racism and colourism within their homeland.

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Language is another dividing factor within the Caribbean. Language is can be defined as a form of communication whether spoken or written. Even English Creole presents itself in different ways among the different English speaking Caribbean. If the Caribbean can be conceived as a single cultural community, this claim cannot be confirmed on the basis of a commonly shared language. Indeed, the single most potent and evident factor that fragments the region into discrete clusters of cohesive activities is language. Commented Gordon Lewis: “Each colonizing power imposed its language on its colonial subjects, thus leading to a disabling linguistic fragmentation in the region. It produced the well-known trait of insularism.” The English-speaking peoples hardly know their Dutch, Spanish, and French-speaking geographical Caribbean counterparts (Premdas, 1996). The Caribbean is made up of four groups of languages, Spanish, French, Dutch/Papiamento, and English/Patois. Cuba, Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico make up the Spanish speaking Caribbean. Also, Haiti, Guadeloupe, Martinique, French Guiana, Saint Martin, and St. Barthelemy conclude the French-speaking Caribbean. In addition, Aruba, Curacao, Bonaire, Sint Maarten, St. Eustatius, Saba, Suriname makes the Dutch-speaking Caribbean. Countries including Jamaica, Trinidad, Barbados, Bahamas, etc. make up the English speaking.

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Where politics is concerned the Caribbean is well diverse in this area. There are many different political statuses such as Republic, Independent States, Communist, and British Overseas Territories- colonial Dependencies to state a few. Therefore, the Caribbean can also be divided through political arrangements.

The Caribbean is a region of immense political diversity. In its comparatively small area, there exist established liberal democracies, overseas territories variously associated with the United States and European countries, “fragile” liberal democracies emerging from a recent authoritarian past, a “failed” state in Haiti, and one of the world’s last remaining communist states in Cuba. Defining the region in its widest sense to include the “rim” countries of Belize, Guyana, and Suriname, and the territory of French Guiana, it comprises sixteen independent countries and thirteen distinct “associated” or “dependent” territories. The size of political jurisdiction varies from Cuba, with more than ten million inhabitants, to Anguilla, with its ten thousand people. The per capita income includes some of the world’s richest developing states and one of the world’s poorest countries, Haiti (Sutton, 2000). If Caribbean countries are operating under different political systems then they cannot be seen as one. The idea of the term “all ah we is one” will suggest that the Caribbean will all have common views on politics and laws. Hence there would be one political arrangement that the entire Caribbean will follow. However, we can understand that each country in the Caribbean would have shared a different historical which would have contributed to the political past they have chosen to take.

A common Caribbean identity and common Caribbean interests are accordingly hard to find. Although there are formal intergovernmental associations that seek to promote the region, such as the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) and the recently formed Association for the Caribbean States (ACS), they do not encompass every Caribbean state or “associated/dependent territory.”’ In short, the Caribbean is fragmented and divided politically—a region that shares a common past and a common contemporary predicament, but in which the political community remains firmly anchored to island and enclave (Sutton, 2000). It is often difficult to making a generalization in terms of politics in the Caribbean which goes against the idea of all of us being one.

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"Study: Race problems subtle in the Caribbean." Trinidad and Tobago Guardian, June 12, 2012, http://www.guardian.co.tt/article-6.2.426546.1c8ce3385d Accessed on 20th April 2020
Murrell, Nathaniel. Afro-Caribbean Religions: An Introduction to their Historical, Culture, and Sacred Traditions. Temple University, 2010
Sutton, Paul. Caribbean Politics: A Matter of Diversity. National Council for the Social Studies, 2000, http://www.socialstudies.org/sites/default/files/publications/se/6402/640202.html
Accessed on the 20th of April, 2020
Daly-Novoa, Kheera. Is There a Distinctive Caribbean Cultural Identity, 2015
Ralph, Premdas. Ethnicity and Identity in the Caribbean: Decentering a Myth, 1996

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