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"Religious festivals are important for families. Religious festivals help us to pass on principles and ethics to the next generations.  All different religious festivals bring the same message of love, tolerance, and understanding.  On these occasions, we express our gratitude to God, for the special thing or event that originated at this particular festival." (Admin 2014)

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"Festivals are an expressive way to celebrate glorious heritage, culture, and traditions.  They are meant to rejoice special moments and emotions in our lives with our loved ones.  They play an important role to add structure to our social lives and connect us with our families and backgrounds. They give us a distraction from our day to day, the exhausting routine of life, and give us some inspiration to remember the important things and moments in life.  Festivals were started to pass the legends, knowledge, and traditions onto the next generation.

All festivals are cultural in one way or another.  There are many types of cultural festivals such as National, Religious and Seasonal.  They all serve the purpose of bringing happiness to our lives and strengthen our sense of community.

National Festivals connect us as a people of a nation.  National festivals connect citizens to important moments of a nation’s history such as carnival. Carnival reminds of our history and it solidifies patriotic spirits in society.

Overall in simple terms, universally all festivals are related to harmony, peace, and happiness and seek to bring everyone together."(Admin 2014) In this way, festivals are a catalyst for reducing intolerances and mistrust at all levels.

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Music is an important component of culture. Music serves as a form of communication, religious and spiritual worship, artistic expression and community celebration. A variety of celebrated music genres were born out of the region's history. One such genre is calypso. The birth of calypso can be traced to the arrival of the enslaved West Africans, who used music as a form of communication and self-expression. Calypso can be traced from West African Kaiso music. Similarly, the current Caribbean region utilizes music to "discuss" politics and social issues as well as celebrating life and its events. Another genre like this is Reggae. Reggae has strong spiritual emphasis and also deals with poverty, politics, and Rastafarianism. Music serves allows us to express pleasurable emotions that manifest itself as dance, makes us be closer to God through spiritual emotions portrayed from the music, and has the power to address pressing social issues. The music we create is heavily affected by our historical background and it shows in the present day. The influence of music on cultural and social aspects is quite strong and it, being a way to address issues facing our society, shows that it is a vessel for reducing intolerances and mistrust at all levels.

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Sports can be a way to create an environment where people can come together; where they can work towards a common goal, show respect to each other and learn to share. Several factors contributed to sports being useful in building relationships between different groups, including its non-verbal way of communication. Sports is a way of coloration in a collective experience and establishes direct physical contact. Partaking in sports is a way to look beyond our differences. Socially sports can promote self-esteem and achievement, politically it can promote the island and regional integration and reflect the region's collective political perspectives. Cricket reflected the ideals of the empire with the stress on fair play, physical well being and going the extra mile. These were psychological motives that encouraged the athlete but also made good citizens of the Imperial subjects. Although slaves were emancipated, there was the constant need to be reminded that they were a distinct race separation from the Africans. Cricket became the new cultural institution by which England tried to socialize the population sand reinforce hierarchies in its colonies. Despite this, cricket clubs were formed throughout the West Indies but there were separate clubs for aristocratic whites, merchant-class whites, coloreds (mulattos), and blacks as segregation was still common. Certain tactics such as the bouncer were used by the west indies fast bowlers to fight against the undercurrent of racism within the game in 1976, eventually defeating England 5-0 in their test series in 1984. This victory shows the importance of sports and was essential in the ongoing process of dispelling intolerances and mistrust.

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Anything but white skin was seen as lesser.

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After the Emancipation act, older slaves were to be "apprentices". That typically meant as a transition between slavery and freedom. The idea was that the slaves were learning how to be free and were to get a wage. They were forced to work and reluctantly complied. Unfortunately, the situation was not much better than slavery as disobedient apprentices were punished, so it was either you comply or you get punished. You could only purchase freedom with their master's consent.

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Another example can be seen where the East Indians, Chinese and Whites, were brought under the guise of indentureship but once here faced a similar harsh condition, mainly the East Indians. (Hugh Tinker) argues that this was a new form of slavery as they could not leave their employer, demand higher wages, they were not treated for illnesses and furthermore had to pay their planter for contracting diseases, were prosecuted as criminals and imprisoned easily and could not live off the estate. Their religions were viewed as paganism and were referred to as low life.

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The roots of mistrust and intolerance began from the grossly unfair treatment of people who were sold from West Africa and used as slaves to benefit the colonial system here in the Caribbean. They were not allowed to practice their culture and religions as plantation owners feared that they might have revolted. " The institution of slavery usually tried to deny its victims their native cultural identity. Torn out of their own cultural milieus, they were expected to abandon their heritage and to adopt at least part of their enslavers’ culture. " (Hellie). The plantation owners were intolerant towards other's cultures. Nunn and Wantchekon theorized that slaves were supplied by ethnic groups that initially had lower levels of trust of those around them and that these lower levels of trust continue to persist today", further solidifying the idea that mistrust and intolerance began during the slave trade and that it is still present today. (Nunn 2009). The examples linked to this box describes some situations from Caribbean history and which might have led to the development of mistrust and intolerance in future generations.

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Conversely, differences in culture may not necessarily lead the Caribbean to be characterized by grave intolerances and mistrust at all levels, as these differences are what makes us unique and is basically what defines us as a region. I personally think there are way more benefits. Cultural differences should be maintained, and tolerance should be taught such, that one's cultural origins can be remembered and used as motivation for future betterment. While there can be mistrust and intolerances between cultures in the Caribbean, we must realize that we have a lot more in common than not and that we should put our differences aside to work toward a better nation.

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In a region like the Caribbean, where the current day’s population demographics backgrounds are quite diverse, ranging from the influences of East India to Africa (Factbook), there are many different cultural influences from many different places. This might lead to the characterization of the Caribbean by grave intolerances and mistrust at all levels, because different cultures may see things differently and have different ways of going about whatever matters may present itself. An example of cultural differences presenting itself is in parenting.  "Parenting requires interpersonal skills and makes emotional demands (Santrock, 2006). According to Santrock, most parents learn parenting practices from their parents - some they accept and some they discard. The author argues that when parenting methods are passed on from one generation to the next, both desirable and undesirable practices are perpetuated. These practices may be cultural values that have been passed on from one parent to another. " (Amos, 2013)

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Culture is the life force of a lively society and can be expressed in a variety of ways such as; through the stories we tell, remembering our history and past, through the sports and festivals we partake in, our music, and how we imagine the future. Culture is our identity. A society’s ability to creatively express its culture fosters a sense of identity in the individuals of the society and can help individuals to better understand other cultures as well. "Social identity facilitates bonds of cooperation and makes us feel accepted." (ROOPNARINE, 2006). But how does this play into the theme of the Caribbean being characterized by grave intolerance and mistrust at all levels?

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My experience and purpose. (Start here and follow the arrows)

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My experience and purpose. (Start here and follow the arrows)

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The concept of mistrust and intolerance is not new to me, and this semester, I got the chance to expand my knowledge on the subject. I have had the luxury of living in a time when this concept of mistrust and intolerance is not as prevalent and I was fortunate enough to learn about it in the study of Caribbean Civilization. I personally have never had to deal with this kind of oppression, but partaking in the study of Caribbean Civilization, allowed me to better understand how common mistrust and intolerance was in history, and how it continues today. I will focus specifically on the cultural aspects of the Caribbean region as that is where I have the most knowledge, discussing the historical, social and concepts of identity and how it relates to the Caribbean today being characterized by grave intolerances and mistrust at all levels.