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When i hear the term "Caribbean Civilization", I quickly lose interest as I commonly archeive in maths or subjects that have a lot of maths in it. When i started this course, I personally questioned myself as to why a Mathematics Major(Special) would need to do Caribbean civilization. A few weeks into classes, my performance in all the mathematics classes was surprisingly low, depression followed me around until I got my marks back from Assingment one for Caribbean Civ., Surprisingly i didnt fail it and it happen to be the only course that i was exceling in. So confused as to why this was happening but it made me take a different perspective on this course, that was I may have a hidden potential in Caribbean history. But all jokes aside, This cousre have changed my life one way or another, it was very informative, I came to respect my country, Trinidad and Tobago, and the Caribbean more as to see all the hardship and encounters we had to face and still be able to walk among ourselves in harmony and unity and to grow with an exclusive set of people.

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In this music video, its from the Trinidadian Soca Artisit Machel Montano entitiled "Happiest Man Alive". This music video is a portrayal of the dance styles from carnival in Trinidad. Even though the settings of this video was not taken in the Caribbean, it still holds essence of Caribbean culture. The diversity of ethnicity of the dancers portrayed how diverse the people are when celebrating carnival. This is a smart outlook on culture diversity and culture expressions. This video was a unit exercise in the course. I personally find this video rellevant to my topic of Culture Diversity, hence the reason i am elaborating on it. The message I learnt from this music video and unit course 8 which relates with each other is that race and ethnicity does not affect cultural diversity in the Caribbean.

Source Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=na5eNkT21Ds&feature=youtu.be

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Machel Montano - H.M.A. (Happiest Man Alive)  | Official Music Video | Soca 2014| Trinidad Carnival

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SUBSCRIBE TO THE CHANEL NOW: http://bit.ly/1daMZwo Official Music Video for Machel Montano's 2014 Soca Music hit H.M.A. (Happiest Man Alive)! Directed and Produced by Damian Marcano for Blue Cinamon Group. Co Produced by Doug Miller and Zen Arts https://www.ZenArtsLA.com Dance choreography by Jason Young Song produced by Alex "Kubayashi" Barnwell.

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Firstly, carnival came from the french that was a Mas tradition started in the late 18th century slave owners construted masquerades (mas) and balls before the season of lent was started. The Africans enslaved were not able to partake in Carnival, so they created their own. This became the carnival of Trinidad and Tobago that is celebrated today. This carnival, from the Africans, was how Trinidad and Tobago calypso was formed. The calypso music was firstly used as messages sent by the africans slaves in the plantation, that mocked the slave owners. As the Africans traditions was prohibited as seen in Unit 4 of this course. The use of these messages was refined throughtout the years and became the calypso music we know now.

Carnival is celebrated as a double national holiday, Carnival Monday and Tuesday, which has alternating days throughout the years. This holiday is celebrated by every race and ethnicity and forgieners as seen in the picture below. Carnival has its own culture within the Caribbean as many other countries celebrate carnival differently. One thing in common about all the carnival festivals is that, it was formed by the previously enslaved people of the Caribbean.
This information was collected to support Unit 8 of this course. In unit 8, there was an exercise which specified Trinindad and Tobago carnival. As Trinindad and Tobago carnival is a direct link to cultural diversity, I personally find this exercise extremely appropriate. Unit 8 also focuses on Trinidad and Tobago in regard to cultural expression and I find this unit highly relevant. I learned from this course especially in Unit 8 that our cultural expression is a direct link to our cultural diversity.

Source picture:http://wkris.com/everything-you-need-to-know-about-tt-carnival/

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Cultural Diversity refers to the variety of ethnic groups, such as Indians, Africans, Chinese and Europeans that exist in the Caribbean society. Each ethnicity brought their own flavour of style, their unique practices and complex traditions to the plate, for example, the Indians brought their traditional foods such as curry and other spices, but we can also say that these tradition and practices have fuse itself into each other in some aspects as to being an untouched group, in one form or another, using the example earlier, if we compare the Indians traditional foods such as curry to the curry that is being made back in India, we can easily differentiate the two from each other.
This applies to every other aspect, not only food but also religious practices, music, clothes and the way we talk.
Cultural diversity has had a strong impact on the society greatly, as it has played a major role in molding our Caribbean cuisine. For example, the curry brought to us by the Indians has been incorporated with various local foods to create sublime dishes.
Our traditional music, such as 'Mento' in Jamaica, was brought by the Africans and 'Hindi' music and 'Chutney' in Trinidad and Guyanawas brought by the indians. The beats and rythms have been reconstructed to create music which is uniquely our own, such as 'Reggae' in Jamaica and 'Soca' in Trinidad. This helped influence the Caribbean as it is said that music is life and the Caribbean people strive on music. Music helped put the Caribbean "on the map", especially Reggae, as it help boost the tourism economy.
Religion, which was also affected by cultural diversity, played a major role in the Caribbean. Hinduism and Islam are prevalent religions which are practiced in Trinidad and Guyana, and were brought to the Caribbean by the Indians. Also, Christianity was introduced by the Europeans, which was the most prevalent religion, along with Voodoo and Pocomania were brought by the Africans and is widely practiced in Jamaica and Hati.

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What is cultural diversity ? Diversity is nothing more than a difference from the mass. In almost all cultures, there are a majority and many minorities. Culture is a set of beliefs, values and norms that set standards for a society of which is acceptable behaviour. All cultures have basic standards for social interactions such as eye contact, amount of body language displayed in public, personal space distance, their conduct and how one carries about theirselves and even the way they dress. Cultural diversity makes our country stronger and better able to compete in a new economic world, People from diverse cultures bring linguistic skills, new ways of thinking, negotiating skills and answers to difficult questions. Cultural diversity also makes our country richer, not economically, but by making it a more interesting place in which to live. A good example of this is food, we have meals prepared from all over the globe in one place like Chinese, Mexican, Japanese, Italian, German, French and Indian food. Cultural diversity makes the world a better place by bringing people together to try new things, to experience new things.

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Cultural Diversity at University of the West Indies (UWI),St. Augustine

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Cultural Diversity at University of the West Indies (UWI),St. Augustine

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To many, the basic definition of the Caribbean may be the region that consist of the caribbean sea and its islands, but to us, we have multiple definitions of the Caribbean, which are :

Geographical Definiton: This describes the Caribbean as the area that is washed by the Caribbean sea and it includes most of the Lesser and Greater Antilles islands along with the main land territories of Central America and Northern South America such as Venezuela and Columbia.

Geological Definition: It is defined by the Caribbean plate, which has marked boundaires and margins where it meet other plates. Much of the Caribbean region lies on this Caribbean plate, its boundaries define the caribbean region in terms of tectonic activity. This definition is accurate from the geological perspectives but it leaves out specific countries that are known to be part of the Caribbean such as Guyana, Bahamas and much of Cuba.

Historical Definition : This describes the area that experience european colonization, slavery, plantation system and indentureship, since all Caribbean countries were affected by these institutions, it has been typical to identify a country with specific european power that dominated such as the French, the Dutch, the Spanish and the British.

Problems in defining the Caribbean is that some definitions may include countries that is not associated with the Caribbean where as there are some definitions that will leave out some countries that are known to be part of the Caribbean.

Source Picture: https://www.oceaniacruises.com/caribbean-cruises/

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The diversity of the Caribbean, reflected through our ethnicity, religion, linguistics and other general differences, has a strong base planted in its unique history. Even tracing back to the 14th centry  when Christopher Columbus made the region known to the Europe, the flood gates were accessible for an outbreak of migration from Europe, who not only devestated the indigenous people but also corruption of their social norms, values and beliefs whether or not if they accepted it on the entire region. There was also a need to maximize plantation agriculture and in doing so, it encouraged more bombardment of migration and along with this, they brought their own cultural beliefs values and norms. This intermixing of cultures in varying degrees of strength led to a basin of mixed cultural differences