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Thursday 30th November, 2017.

This Caribbean Civilisation course in The University of the West Indies, is a very informative course for those who may not known much about the Caribbean and it's history. I found myself really proud to be from the Caribbean after doing this course. It taught me a lot about my Caribbean identity and just about the Caribbean on a whole. The lecturers and my tutor were so helpful and really knew what they were teaching and that made me want to learn even more about the course. The topics that we did that really stood out to me were Slavery, colonialism and gender roles. Hearing the series of events that took place during slavery just really resides in me and makes me have a greater respect for my ancestors, my country and the other Caribbean countries.
I was never able to watch the live lectures so I would just watch the recordings when it came out and I really liked how Dr. Campbell would play songs at the beginning. His plenaries were very informative and I know that I won't forget what has been taught to me. I always enjoyed going to my tutorials because my tutor loved putting us into groups and having us discuss various topics and questions. Each class, I learned something new and I just really enjoyed the class. I also really liked how they provided the choice of an online tutorial or a face to face tutorial. Personally I prefer face to face and I wanted the lectures to be face to face because I would be more attentive. But overall, the recordings were a good experience as I have never had an online class before. I'm really glad that this course is a foundation course and that everyone, (especially Caribbean students) is forced to do it because at the end of the day, it teaches us about our past and allows us to have greater appreciation for the past and everything that our ancestors went through.

Image: The University of the West Indies, taken by myself.

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Immigration Situation Between Haiti and The Dominican Republic

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Immigration Situation Between Haiti and The Dominican Republic

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Wednesday 29th November, 2017.

Even though the Dominican Republic shares the small island of Hispaniola with Haiti, there is a lot of hatred and racism coming from the Dominican Republic's side towards Haiti. Thousands of Dominicans of Haitian descent are having their citizenship being taken away and they have to prove that they were born in the Dominican Republic. This is because of the racist immigration policy that the Dominican Republic initiated towards Haiti. A racist immigration policy is the ability of a country to prohibit persons of a certain race or ethnicity to enter into their country. The constitutional court in the Dominican Republic put forth the racist immigration policy in 2013 to denationalize citizens in the DR  (Dominican Republic), who were of Haitian descent. Even if one just looks like a Haitian, they are being questioned about whether they were born in the DR or in Haiti. Some persons would get their birth certificates stripped from them even though it said that they were born in the DR. This was all because of discrimination and racism. This hatred leads all the way back to when Haiti gained independence from France in 1804 and the Haitian troops occupied the DR. It is stated in DR textbooks, that the Haitian troops committed atrocities during their time in the DR (Rojas, 2013). The Dominicans of Haitian descent were made stateless, as in they had no place to go. The image below shows the Haitians holding up signs saying that the Dominicans are racist and warning people to not travel there. It is unbelievable how two islands which are joined together, can have so much discrimination against one another. Haiti is already one of the poorest countries in the world and many of them go to the Dominican Republic in search of work to provide for themselves and their families. Haiti became so poor because they were in debt to France due to their independence. They also were hit by a massive earthquake in 2010 that devastated the country, hence Haitians moving to the DR to work. In 1937, there was a massacre called the Parsley Massacre, where the Dominican Republic soldiers rounded up Haitians or those who looked Haitian and asked them to pronounce a Spanish word 'perejil' (which means Parsley) and if they failed, they were murdered (Alarcon, 2016). "Stripping away anyone’s citizenship is a violation of international human rights law" (Alarcon, 2016). I think that larger forces such as Caricom needs to step in and help Haiti through this disaster.

Works cited

1) Alarcon, Javiera. "It’s Really Happening: The Dominican Republic Is Deporting Its Haitian Residents." Foreign Policy in Focus, 2016.

2) Rojas, Richard. "Dominican court ruling renders hundreds of thousands stateless." Reuters, 2013.

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Monday 27th November, 2017.

In the video, by Chimamanda Adichie, she spoke about a single story. A single story is the same story that is told over and over about people or a place, that we have no knowledge about. I found that this video was very informative, and I realized that whenever I hear a single story about something, my first instinct would be to believe that story without first hearing from the other side. That's why Chimamanda Adichie calls it "The Danger Of A Single Story," because it is really easy to misunderstand a place or a person just by one story about them that you keep hearing over and over. One prime example of a single story occurring in the Caribbean, is of Christopher Columbus. Everyone thought for years and years that Christopher Columbus discovered the Americas/The Caribbean in 1492, because this was what was told to the people. However, there were people who  lived in The Caribbean 5000 years prior to Christopher Columbus' 'discovery'. But, the public did not know this due to 'subjugated knowledge' according to Michael Foucault. This is knowledge known by the academic community and people of high authorities, but not made known to the public. This is what happened with Christopher Columbus, where he told people that he 'discovered' the Americas/The Caribbean, and people believed him for years. People believed this because "there was no tangible evidence of pre-colonial indigenous writing in the Caribbean, so it was assumed that the native people were devoid of history until the arrival of the 'literate' Europeans" (John Campbell). Like Chimamanda Adichie said, she has misjudged Mexico by the single story she heard, but when she visited the country and saw their side of the story, she realized that she judged based on what she heard. Columbus' voyage marked the beginning of European exploration and colonialisation of the Americas (John Campbell). Another misconception were all the myths that Columbus and his people told about the indigenous people. Such as the 'Caribs' were man eaters and that they would eat their enemies from their wars. It's absolutely crazy to even hear that now but crazily enough, when I was younger, I heard stories about the 'Caribs and Arawak' where the Arawaks were peaceful and the Caribs were carnivorous and man eaters and I actually believed them. But I got older and I learned that this is a terrible myth told by the Europeans. These myths were told to justify the genocide that the Europeans were gonna put upon the indigenous people. It took only 50 years of the Europeans being in the Caribbean, to destroy the people who were there 5000 years prior to Columbus.

Works cited

1) Adichie Chimamanda. "The Danger Of A Single Story." Ted Global, 2009.
2) Campbell, John. "Civilization"  Online lecture,  11th September, 2017.
3) Campbell, John. "Caribbean Demographic Diversity" Online Lecture, 18th September, 2017.

Image below: Christopher Columbus 'discovering' New World or the Americas. By https://artsandculturereviews.wordpress.com

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Caribbean Chattel Slavery and East Indian Indenture-ship. 

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Caribbean Chattel Slavery and East Indian Indenture-ship. 

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Tuesday 28th November, 2017.

Chattel slavery is where the African Slaves were seen as a property and commodities  for the Europeans. The Slaves and their offspring would be owned for life. The slaves would be punished brutally for the simplest offence.  The first image below shows how the slaves were chained together, by their necks and feet and some had their hands bound together behind their backs, depicting chattel slavery. These slaves would be sold or 'gifted' to the owner's family and friends, and were inherited.  Chattel slavery was developed in the Caribbean by the Europeans who targeted only Africans. The white servants did not receive this chattel enslavement as their humanity was recognized in legal and moral codes (Beckles 2013). "It was the most dehumanising, violent, socially regressive form of human exploitation known to human kind," (Beckles, 2013). The women would be sold as prostitutes, the offspring would be seen as slaves as well and were put to work. The chattel slaves could only be free if they bought themselves,  or if their owners freed them, however, this rarely happened.
East Indian Indentured labourers came to the Caribbean under contract from the Europeans, that if they worked in the plantations, they would receive money and land, as well as they saw a better opportunity of life here in the Caribbean. The indentured labourers had more rights than the chattel slaves, and had to work under contract for 5-7 years to pay off their debt and receive what they were promised.  Conditions on the ship were horrible, as they were cramped and outbreaks of various diseases such as cholera, typhoid and measles, occurred, which led to high mortality rates, (Singh, 2013).  The African slaves also endured this experience on their journey to the Caribbean. The second image shows the Indian Indentured labourers on the ship. From the image, it looks so cramped and they didn't have enough space to move about.
The indentured labourers could not ask for higher wages, leave the estate without permission or refuse the work that assigned to them. The basic minimum wage that was stipulated in the contract was 25 cents per day or task for adult males and 16 cents for adult females. The wages varied according to the type of work, season and area (Singh, 2013). In the contract, they had to work 45 hours per week but during crop time, it was six 9 hour days, and Sunday was a holiday. The chattel slaves worked everyday and received no holidays. The Indian indentured labourers were still free by law whereas the chattel slaves were not.

Works Cited

1) Beckles, Hilary McD. "Britain's Black Debt: Reparations for Caribbean Slavery and Native Genocide."  Kingston, Jamaica, 2013.
2) Singh, S. A. "The Experience of Indian Indenture in Trinidad: Arrival and Settlement." Cruse and Rhiney, Caribbean Atlas, 2013.

First Image below: African Slaves bound and chained. By Testeach.com
Second Image below: Indian Indentured labourers in a boat to the Caribbean. By horizonsguyana.com