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"The Caribbean today is characterized by intolerance in mistrust at all levels."

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"The Caribbean today is characterized by intolerance in mistrust at all levels."

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This statement will be explored through various perspectives.

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Intolerance - An individuals' refusal to accept behaviours, beliefs or opinions that are different from  their own.

Mistrust - To be suspicious of or have no confidence in.

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1) The Geographical or 'Caribbean Basin' definition of the Caribbean is the Caribbean Sea rimmed by mainland territories of Central and South America as well as the lines of Latitude and Longitude.
2) The Historical concept of the Caribbean states that regardless of French, Spanish, British and other Colonial connections, islands with related history can identify as Caribbean.

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The Caribbean is defined by the Encomienda System and subsequent genocide of the Indigenes, Colonization, chattel slavery of the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade, , Indentureship and labour movements that eventually leaded us to our current standpoint today in the 21st century.

One can argue that the Caribbean has been plagued by mistrust and intolerance from the day the Spanish landed on the soil of the 'New World' and forced the Encomienda System of Labour onto the present Tainos and Kalinagos inhabiting these Caribbean Countries. Intolerance of the Indigenes way of life and culture, due to the fact that the Spanish crown was ignorant of and unwilling to accept the Amerindian society as equal caused a subsequent mistrust to form towards the Spanish crown.
This theme is prevalent throughout our history, repeated once more within the Slave Trade, whereby Africans were bought and sold into chattel slavery in the Caribbean. Throughout the institution of slavery, the slaves were beaten, raped and evidently treated as property, less than human beings. This resulted in the slaves, the Black people, to mistrust anyone looking like their oppressors, causing them to avoid anyone looking like their oppressors in fear of continued persecution.
These occurrences paved the way for the shared Caribbean idea of mistrust of newness and penetration by outsiders, with regards to nationality and race into Caribbean society.

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I believe that in Caribbean societies there is religious intolerance. Haiti is a prime example of this as the religious practice Voodoo has been registered as a religious group since 2003 yet those who practice this religion haven’t been able to perform civilly-recognized marriages or baptisms. Trinidad and Tobago’s government has been accused of religious intolerance as some groups claim that the government has decreased financial support for religious ceremonies. There were public calls to adopt legislation to outlaw child marriage and some members of the Muslim and Hindu community believed as though this legislation would infringe on their religious rights. Jamaica has also shown a level of religious intolerance via their “colonial-era law” which criminalizes the practices of Obeah and Myalism as well as Seventh-day Adventists reporting discrimination by employers against their Saturday sabbath despite a “flexi-work week” law being passed by parliament in 2014 which gave employees a right to negotiate working hours.
These examples of religious intolerance all originate from the idealism that Christianity, specifically Roman Catholicism, forced upon Caribbean Society since the 16th century, is the only valid and reputable religion that should be practiced by all. However, instead of completely banning the practice of these religions as was the case in the past, governments are use legislature to reduce the prevalence and strength of religions that do not coincide with our historical norms.

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Racism among West Indian counterparts has been present throughout the past. Stemming from the institution of Slavery, the rigid social structure allowed for black/African individuals to occupy the lower class while White people took the mantle of first-class citizenship.
With the coming of Indians, Syrians, Chinese and other racial groups, the Islands experienced a switch from a planter-class culture to a plural society. All different racial groups sought social mobility, whether through religion, education, skills and training or personal achievements. However, while these different ethnic groups, mainly African and Indian strived to move upward in society, the upper-class remained impenetrable. Hence, Africans and Indians turned on eachother, viewing one another as competition, growing dubious and distrustful of each groups' motives.
Though there has been increasing amounts of mixing between races and continuous participation of all races in traditional Indian or African heritage events such as Divali and Emancipation day, our diverse culture and continuously growing idea of togetherness and oneness of people, our community is still plagued with racial mistrust and intolerance between groups.
This intolerance can be viewed today, mainly among the older persons within our society. For example, it is a common idea among elders of African descent that whenever Indo-Trinidadians share food during Divali, they are actually putting out their evil spirits into the food and into the person in reception. Ideas such as these are being perpetuated by grandparents telling their grandchildren to be weary of individuals of other races in schools, in the work place, and even in Government, as present in Trinidad and Tobago, whereby the two most prominent political parties, the PNM and the UNC are separated in support mainly by race.

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Poem : A Child's Perspective by Kirsten Gaspard

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Poem : A Child's Perspective by Kirsten Gaspard

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Maria had become a friend like no other
A 9 year old Venezuelan girl who treated me like a sister
Though talking to each other could often be a problem
We laughed and played a lot like other children
Until that sad day that Maria told me
That she could no longer stay in school in my country
With her hard-to-find English she tried to explain
Something that caused us both a great amount of pain
She said her mother and father could not get their citizenship papers
And they would all have to go back  home to Venezuela
That was a dreadful day that really taught me
How awful this thing called intolerance could be
Three years have passed and as I make my Secondary school entry
I will learn Spanish as my second language to the best of my ability,
in Maria's memory
And to hope one day that every boy and girl
Would be accepted as a citizen of God's world.

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“PressReader.com - Your Favorite Newspapers and Magazines.” PressReader.com - Your Favorite Newspapers and Magazines., Jamaica Gleaner, 26 Sept. 2017, https:/ /www.pressreader. com/.

capesociology Follow. “Caribbean Studies - Module 1 - Periods of caribbean_history.” LinkedIn SlideShare, 20 Mar. 2017, https://www.slideshare.net/capesociology/caribbean-studies-module-1-periods-of-caribbeanhistory.

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