Nicolette Bethel on the Cuban Revolution

Bahamian anthropologist Nicolette Bethel makes some astute observations on the significance of the Cuban Revolution:

"In many ways the Cuban revolution parallels Haiti’s, which succeeded 155 years earlier, and the success of each revolution depended as much in many ways on the reactions of the countries beyond as it did on the will of the people within the nation. Haiti’s revolution ended in abject poverty and long-term chaos for that nation — not because of some inherent flaw in the idea of freedom for slaves and descendants of Africa, but because of the intolerable demands placed on the nation by the slave-owning countries around it. Cuba’s is sliding into poverty, but despite the best efforts of the Cuban exiles in Miami, and despite the fondest wishes of those who believe Communism is an unworkable system, chaos has not yet begun."

"I am not a communist. However, I am fundamentally an admirer of Castro’s Cuba because Castro achieved what the rest of this region, with all its variable riches, cannot even imagine achieving: a sense of self in a post-colonial world, a justifiable sense of pride in that self, and an understanding of the place of oneself in history — all of which are rare in the post-slave societies of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries."

Read the rest of the article here.

Today in Caribbean History

New Year's Day marks the remembrance of two significant events in Caribbean History--Haitian Independence Day and Cuban Liberation Day.

On 1 January 1804, following history's first and only successful slave rebellion, Jean-Jacques Dessalines declared Haiti's independence, making Haiti the second independent country in the Western Hemisphere and the first Black Republic in the world. Today, Haitians throughout Haiti and the Haitian diaspora will eat soup joumou (squash stew) in remembrance of this momentous event.

On 1 January 1959, Cuban revolutionaries led by Fidel Castro succeeded in wresting power from right-wing dictator Fulgencio Batista. Today marks the 50th anniversary of the Cuban Revolution.

Bahamas Historical Society -- January Meetings

The Bahamas Historical Society has an exciting line-up of meetings and speakers for the new year. Please join us for the following presentations:

1. Thursday, January 15th, 2009 – Ward Minnis: “National Identity, Tourism and the Fergusons of Farm Road, 1970-74.”

When majority rule came to the Bahamas in 1967 the black population was in an exuberant mood. Despite their newfound pride though, blacks were still working to serve whites because of the country's economic dependence on the tourism industry. Reports of tourist harassment were soon on the increase and the new government worried that low levels of tourist satisfaction would have dire economic circumstances.

Enter "the Fergusons of Farm Road." This radio soap-opera was designed to educate Bahamians on the importance of tourism to the economy and to thus encourage them to improve their attitudes towards white vacationers. The show started in 1970 and became immensely popular. Thus the show exists on the cross-roads between tourism, economic policy, national identity and cultural production, and as such is worthy of study. The show sheds light on the tensions existing in Bahamian society in this crucial phase of its history. Tensions between the government and the governed, between blacks and whites, and between the tourist and the native, issues of gender, race and the potential for black leadership are all there in the surviving episode scripts. The show also raises questions about the media as a form of social control.

2. Thursday, January 22nd, 2009 – Dr. Munir Rashad, Secretary of Jamaat-ul-Islaam of the Commonwealth of the Bahamas: “The History of Islaam in the Bahamas.”

By inviting Dr. Rashad to talk about the history of Islam in the Bahamas, we hope to illustrate that Bahamian history and culture is indeed rich and multi-facetted. May this be the first in a series of lectures to include groups that are often “overlooked” in the Bahamian mainstream.

3. Thursday, January 29th, 2009 – Dr. Peter T. Dalleo: “‘That Boasted Land of Negro Liberty’: Afro-Bahamian Sailors and the Union Navy During the U.S. Civil War.”

Dr. Dalleo has identified 62 sailors about whom he will present a group profile that includes their place of birth, occupation prior to enlistment, age at enlistment and where enlisted, names and types of vessels on which they served. He has chosen a few of them to highlight as examples of types of actions in which they were involved and an assessment of their contribution to the war effort. He will also speculate about the reasons that they enlisted in the Union Navy.

A Critique of Bahamian Theology and Religion

As I tend to be suspicious of anonymous newspaper columnists, I don't normally read the weekly column by "Simon" in the Nassau Guardian. Last week's column, however, offers a helpful critique of the shortfalls and limitations of Bahamian popular theology, particularly as it was articulated by the Bahamas Christian Council at this year's Independence celebrations.

Amongst other things, "Simon" challenges the prevailing ethos of prosperity theology which teaches that bad things never happen to God's faithful.

Moreover, the notion that God has spared the Bahamas from natural disasters and has instead allowed other lands to be ravaged is spiritually presumptuous and scientifically problematic.

To wit, why do natural disasters happen to good people in various locales on the planet while seemingly more sinful people are spared from calamity? Perhaps it has more to do with geography, chance and the scale of national development.

The thousands who perished in Myanmar did so because of an accident of geography, and because of substandard housing, bad infrastructure and a corrupt government. Not at the caprice of a vengeful God.

Natural disasters tend to ravage the poor because they do not have the means to protect themselves, as do the more affluent.

Additionally, "Simon" points out that the Christian Council (not to mention other publicly outspoken preachers) tend to disproportionately focus on narrow questions of personal morality while ignoring broader questions of social concern.

Rather, the focus was on the usual host of sexual sins and personal morality, while other issues of human dignity and social solidarity were largely ignored.

Access to health care, poverty alleviation, educational reform and the preservation of God’s earth, gave way to a relentless preoccupation with fornication, homosexuality and adultery.

It is not that such matters should be ignored. But a myopic focus on these is like cutting the Bible into a third and ignoring the rest of Scripture.

Since I have sought to address both of these concerns in my own teaching and ministry (see here and here), I am glad to see that others concur.

A Propensity for Imitation

William Watty, former president of the United Theological College of the West Indies, has observed that the Caribbean church has a high propensity for imitation:

It is here in the Caribbean, not in Europe, that you are likely to find the classic and pristine expressions of European denominationalism. It is in the Caribbean that you will hear Moravians talking about Jan Hus as though he was burnt at the stake last night. It is in the Caribbean that you will hear Methodists talking about the conversion of John Wesley as though Aldersgate Street is around the corner and they were there that night, that you will see Anglicans celebrating as though Newman, Keble and Pusey had them specially in mind when they inaugurated the Anglo-Catholic Revival, that you will hear Catholics speaking as though Pius IX took care to canvass their opinion specifically before he enunciated the Dogma of Papal Infallibility.

If we were to substitute the United States for Europe, we would find that Watty’s illustration could easily be extended to include the twenty-first century Bahamas. Consider, for example, how the books, movies, television programs, and personalities that are currently fashionable in American Evangelical culture have influenced Bahamian Christianity. Local Christian book shops prominently display stacks of Rick Warren’s Purpose-Driven Life, Tim LaHaye’s Left Behind series, and Bruce Wilkinson's Prayer of Jabez. Cable Bahamas regularly pipes in religious programming from the major U.S. television networks, making household names of personalities like Joel Osteen, John Hagee, Benny Hinn, T.D. Jakes, Kenneth and Gloria Copeland, and Juanita Bynum and, just a few years ago, Bahamian movie theaters were packed out by church groups attending showings of Mel Gibson’s Passion of Christ. Given this influence, we should not be surprised that many Bahamian clergy have chosen to imitate the message, method, and promiscuously wealthy lifestyle of U.S.-based television preachers.

Quote of the Week

"It is not an accident that, in nearly every social or political crisis through which the peoples of the Caribbean have passed in recent times, the ministers of the Churches, whether their training was received locally or perfected abroad, have invariably been strangely silent or else represent a position which is reactionary and alien to the legitimate aspirations of the majority of the people. It reveals a form of training and preparation for the ministry of the Church which fosters attitudes of elitism, escapism and alienation which in a struggling post-colonial society are quite unprogressive and, at times, even obstructive."

William Watty, former president of the United Theological College of the West Indies and author of From Shore to Shore: Soundings in Caribbean Theology.

Leading Caribbean Intellectuals on Education

". . . for an institution that is often celebrated in Antigua is the Hotel Training School, a school that teaches Antiguans how to be good servants, how to be a good nobody, which is what a servant is. In Antigua, people cannot see a relationship between their obsession with slavery and emancipation and their celebration of the Hotel Training School . . ."

Jamaica Kincaid, author of A Small Place

"Our approach to education is mercenary. What is important is the marketability of skills, not the training of minds. Too many PhDs at the College of the Bahamas spend their best hours teaching Bahamian students the basic critical skills our high schools have not taught them, and the subjects that expand the mind and spark students’ creativity are undersubscribed and underfunded. Too many Bahamians believe that the purpose of college is get a degree, and not an opportunity to explore the world of ideas and to learn how to think."

Nicolette Bethel, Director of Culture
Ministry of Education, Youth, Sports and Culture
Nassau, Bahamas

Quote of the Week

". . . Antigua got its independence from Britain, making Antigua a state in its own right, and Antiguans are so proud of this that each year, to mark the day, they go to church and thank God, a British God, for this."

Jamaica Kincaid, author of A Small Place

Theological Education in the Bahamas, Part IV

This is the fourth of a five part series that previously appeared in News from Daniel and Estela Schweissing between February and August 2006. A more in-depth theological treatment of this topic can be found in the upcoming edition of the American Baptist Quarterly.

RECOVERING THE TRADITION OF BLACK RADICALISM IN BAHAMIAN RELIGION

We’ve all heard the old Chinese proverb, “Give people a fish, and they’ll eat for a day; teach people to fish, and they’ll eat for a lifetime.” For decades, missionaries and international development workers alike have used this proverb to explain community development strategies that move beyond charity to empower the poor with the skills and education needed to improve their standard of living. But increasingly, we are beginning to understand that training and education are of limited value when employment opportunities are scarce or the few jobs that are available don’t pay a living wage. At the international level, we have frequently ignored the complex social and economic structures through which wealthy nations often prosper at the expense of poor nations. But simply placing the blame on wealthy nations does not fully explain the problem of global poverty. Within poor countries themselves, growing economic disparities between the wealthy ruling class and the impoverished masses can be attributed to government corruption, misuse of international aid, illiteracy, soil erosion, overpopulation, civil war, and a myriad of other factors. Even on the local level, well-intentioned development projects are often appropriated by pastors or other community leaders, enabling them to broaden their power base at the expense of those whom a given project was originally intended to help. With these things in mind, we are now recognizing that it is not enough to simply “teach people to fish.” We also need to consider the question, “Who owns the pond?”

Western missionaries have been slow to ask this question, in part, because our theology fails to explicitly address the root causes of poverty. In contrast, the religious faith of black Bahamians and other Afro-Caribbean peoples has long played a significant role in challenging the injustices of five-hundred years of slavery and colonialism. From the earliest days of slavery, religion often inspired slave uprisings and revolts against white plantation owners. Most slave resistance, though, tended to be more subtle—stealing food, procrastination on the job, refusal to give up African beliefs and customs, individual escapes, and formation of fugitive slave communities in the mountains. By the late eighteenth century, mass conversion of Caribbean slaves and freed blacks to Protestant Christianity provided new avenues of resistance to slavery and racial discrimination. Much to the consternation of British colonial officials, non-conformist churches—especially the Baptists—often provided sanctuary for runaway slaves as well as allowing slaves and freed blacks alike to become full-members, hold church offices, and even become preachers. Eventually, Baptist led slave resistance in Jamaica became so violent that it significantly hastened the legal decision to end slavery in all of the British colonies. Following emancipation, religion continued to fuel struggles for racial equality and, later, independence from British colonial rule. This tradition of religious resistance—referred to by some scholars as black radicalism—reached its climax in the Bahamas with the achievement of black majority rule (1967) and Bahamian independence (1973).

The Bahamas’ journey to black majority rule and independence began in 1935, when the National Baptist Convention in the United States began to provide scholarships for Bahamian Baptists to prepare for the ministry at the historically black American Baptist Seminary in Nashville. Having experienced southern racism and observed the early precursors to the U.S. civil rights movement during their studies, Bahamian graduates such as H.W. Brown and R.E. Cooper, Sr. returned to the Bahamas determined to right the injustices faced by the black majority in their own country. These Baptist pastors were amongst the first supporters of the Progressive Liberal Party (PLP), which was formed in 1953 to challenge the political and economic power of the white Nassau merchant class known as the Bay Street Boys. Borrowing from the rhetoric and tactics of leaders in the U.S. Civil Rights Movement as well as nationalist movements against British colonial rule in Africa and the Caribbean, the PLP and its Baptist allies gradually gained the support of the black Bahamian populace they claimed to represent. Using the scriptures to show how God helps the weak to triumph over the mighty, fiery Baptist preachers encouraged unity and solidarity amongst black Bahamians while the leadership of Baptist women doubled the size of the black electorate through their efforts to achieve women’s suffrage.

By late 1966, the United Bahamian Party (UBP)—representing the interests of the Bay Street Boys—caved into growing pressure from the PLP and called for new parliamentary elections to be held on January 10, 1967. They hoped that by scheduling the elections shortly after the Christmas holidays the black electorate would be too distracted with celebrations to adequately prepare. Instead, the religiously zealous PLP leadership quickly pointed out that election day coincided with the day of Passover, the “tenth day of the first month,” when Pharaoh ordered the Israelites to be released from slavery in Egypt (Ex 12:1-3, 31). Such biblical imagery coupled with the theme song from the recently released movie Exodus and the U.S. civil rights anthem “We Shall Overcome” enabled the PLP’s campaign to build enough momentum to achieve an election night tie with the UBP. During the night, the PLP brokered a deal with the largely black Labour Party to form a coalition government, thus ushering in a new era of black majority rule. Years later, Baptist leader and PLP stalwart Doris Johnson recalled: “Thus it was that on ‘the tenth day of the first month,’ black Bahamians emerged from the centuries-old domination of a white power group and crossed over to the promised land of ‘milk and honey,’ on which they could grow more and more able to shape their destiny. They could walk tall and proud in their own land as never before, and humble too, as their deeply religious sense attributed their Glory (sic) in victory, to the mysterious ways of their God.” Once in power, the PLP and its Baptist allies continued their struggle for the equality of black Bahamians, culminating in independence from Great Britain on July 10, 1973.

These events are but one of many instances in which black radicalism has drawn on the story of God’s deliverance of the Hebrews from Egypt to inspire liberation from oppressive social conditions. As a force for social change, radical black religion has always been an important alternative to the missionary theology utilized by the white ruling class as a means of social control. During the slave era, white missionaries justified their ministries amongst black slaves by arguing that the conversion of slaves to Christianity would make them more obedient to their masters (Eph 6:5, Col 3:22) and, thus, better slaves. By focusing exclusively on saving souls, the missionaries gave slaves something to look forward to in the next life (Eph 6:7-8, Col 3:23-24) but forbid them from using their newfound freedom in Christ to seek freedom from their physical bondage here on earth. Following emancipation, such otherworldly theologies continued to insure that former slaves and their descendents remained socially and economically subordinate to the white ruling class. Today, this otherworldly theology of the slave era has largely been replaced by the this-worldly focus of prosperity theology. Having watched their country’s meteoric rise from a backwater colony to a thriving nation in just a single generation, many Bahamians have understandably exchanged admonitions to “obey your master” for alluring promises of limitless wealth. But by emphasizing that poverty is the result of one’s lack of faith in God while ignoring unjust social and economic structures, prosperity theology—like its otherworldly predecessors—still serves the purpose of upholding the privileges of the economic elite at the expense of poor.

The real reasons for Bahamian poverty are much more complicated than what proponents of prosperity theology would have us believe. Just a little over three decades after independence from British colonialism, the Bahamas now faces the economic challenges of neocolonialism. Concealed behind the glitz and glitter of the Bahamas’ multimillion dollar tourist industry, for example, is the hard reality that most profits go directly into the pockets of foreign investors, with only eight cents out of every dollar actually remaining in the country. Nearly forty-years after the achievement of black majority rule, the Bay Street Boys are no longer publicly visible in Bahamian politics. Yet the white minority they represent—just a mere 15% of the population—still controls 85% of the nation’s wealth. Boasting the third-highest per capita income in the western hemisphere, the Bahamas is home to a sizeable black middle class that lives in relative prosperity compared to its Caribbean neighbors. But beneath this veneer of wealth is an even larger black underclass that enjoys few, if any, of the benefits of the modern Bahamian economy while being displaced from unskilled jobs by a growing influx of poverty-stricken immigrants from Haiti, Jamaica, and Latin America.

While the white Nassau merchant class and its foreign investment partners have been the primary beneficiaries of the Bahamas’ astounding economic growth, enough black Bahamians have dramatically increased their standard of living in the past few decades to make the fantastic promises of prosperity theology believable to the majority of the populace still living in poverty. In this environment, it is easy to see how entrepreneurial pastors and church leaders have used the teachings of prosperity theology to become wealthy at the expense of their own congregations. More importantly, it is easy to see how the voices of radical black religion that once challenged the otherworldly theologies of colonialism have remained silent against this onslaught of neocolonialism and prosperity theology. With these things in mind, one of our priorities at Atlantic College is to equip our students to recover the tradition of black radicalism in Bahamian religion. By doing so, we hope to provide them with a viable alternative to the “business as usual” doctrines of prosperity theology that fail to challenge the social and economic structures that keep many Bahamians impoverished. To that end, much of the historical, political, and theological analysis described above has formed the basis for reading assignments, lectures, and discussion in my theology classes.

Even though only a handful of my students actually voted in the historic election that brought about black majority rule, most are old enough to remember when their parents voted for it. Or if not, they at least remember their own participation in the Bahamas’ independence celebrations. Most of these same students—typically representing the new black middle class—can also recount childhood stories of growing up in conditions of poverty and attending school when British history rather than Bahamian history was the mainstay of the curriculum. A small number of younger students, though, have no significant memories of either the black radical movement of the 1960s and early 70s or the social conditions that characterized that era. So while older students readily understand the nature of black radicalism and, to a certain extent, its significance for today, younger students generally experience some initial difficulty when it comes to making those connections. And when it comes to understanding the more distant legacy of radical black religion during the slave era, nearly all of our students have trouble recognizing the continuity of that tradition with its more recent manifestations during their own lifetimes. Given that most of my students are either still in school or have only recently graduated, it remains to be seen whether or not they will ultimately make those connections. But if they do, then we hope that their future ministries will find them moving beyond “teaching people to fish” to helping them acquire their fair share of the pond.

COMING NEXT: This newsletter has examined how theological education can facilitate social change in the Bahamas by helping students to recover the tradition of radical black religion. But ultimately, we hope that black radicalism does more than just inform the present ministries of our students. We’d also like to see it inspire them to develop their own theologies. Next, the fifth and final article in this series will show how we are doing this in “Towards an Indigenous Bahamian Theology.”

PREVIOUSLY
Part I: Why is Bahamian theological education important?
Part II: Bahamianization of the Theological Curriculum
Part III: Finding Alternatives to Business as Usual in the Church

Baptist Witness in the Bahamas

As I mentioned yesterday, one of the big projects that I've been working on intensively for the past couple of months is an upcoming issue of the American Baptist Quarterly that will focus on the history of the Bahamian Baptists. Slated for publication at the end of this year, this issue will contain a number of articles by Bahamians and Bahamianists alike that should help to illuminate our understanding of this heretofore largely ignored aspect of Baptist history. Given that Baptists make up approximately 33% of the Bahamian population, making them the largest religious group in the Bahamas, one simply cannot overlook their contributions to the Bahamas. Once released, I hope that this issue will not only be well received by the ABQ's regular readers but also by Bahamian scholars and clergy who would find this topic to be of interest.

Once we have determined how and where this issue of the ABQ will be made available in the Bahamas, I will make that information available on this blog. For those interested in obtaining a copy of this edition directly from the American Baptist Historical Society, the organization that publishes the ABQ, click here. In the meantime, here's a copy of the table of contents along with the author bios to whet your appetite.

“The Bahamas: Baptist Witness amidst Slavery, Colonialism, and Globalization”
American Baptist Quarterly 26 (W 2007)
Edited by Robert E. Johnson and Daniel M. Schweissing

1. “Introduction: Baptist Witness in the Bahamas”

By Daniel M. Schweissing

2. “The Great Awakening and Baptist Beginnings in Colonial Georgia, the Bahama Islands, and Jamaica, 1739-1833”

By Alfred L. Pugh

3. “Shadrach Kerr: Priest and Missionary”

By Jim Lawlor

4. “A History of the Baptists’ Contribution to Education in the Bahamas”

By Christopher Curry

5. “The Role of the Afro-Bahamian Pastor as a Catalyst for Majority Rule”

By R.E. Cooper, Jr.

6. “Rev. Julio Laporte: Pioneer Haitian Baptist Pastor in the Bahamas”

By Charles Chapman and Daniel M. Schweissing

7. “Decolonizing Theology: The Role of Theological Education in Bahamian Nation Building”

By Daniel M. Schweissing

8. “An Annotated Bibliography of Resources on the Bahamian Baptists”

By Daniel M. Schweissing

Authors:

Charles Chapman, a retired American Baptist pastor and missionary, has served overseas in Congo (formerly Zaire), Haiti, and the Dominican Republic. He is currently an interim pastor in the Philadelphia area.

R.E. Cooper, Jr. is the president of Atlantic College and Theological Seminary in Nassau, the senior pastor of the historic Mission Baptist Church in Grant’s Town, and the general superintendent of the Mission Baptist Consortium of Churches.

Christopher Curry, a lecturer at the College of the Bahamas in Nassau, is currently pursuing Ph.D. studies in Latin American and Caribbean history at the University of Connecticut. He is a specialist in the African diaspora of the Anglophone Caribbean.

Robert E. Johnson, editor of the American Baptist Quarterly, is an associate professor of church history and missiology at Central Baptist Theological Seminary.

Jim Lawlor, a retired educator, currently divides his time between substitute teaching and historical research and writing. He has researched for Paul Albury, Arthur Hailey and Sir Orville Turnquest on various aspects of Bahamian History. Together with his wife Anne, Jim has written The Harbour Island Story, updated The Paradise Island Story written by Anne's father, Paul Albury, and presented lectures and written numerous articles in journals and magazines on Bahamian History. Jim has recently authored a biography of the late Paul Albury.

Alfred L. Pugh is a retired American Baptist pastor. From 1970 to 1987, he was an assistant professor in the Black Studies Department at the University of Pittsburgh and an adjunct professor of church history and homiletics at Pittsburgh Theological Seminary. He has recently authored Pioneer Preachers in Paradise.

Daniel M. Schweissing is an American Baptist missionary in Nassau where he serves as a theology instructor at Atlantic College and Theological Seminary and conducts leadership training workshops through the Mission Baptist Consortium of Churches. He is also the guest editor for this edition of the American Baptist Quarterly.

Not Showing in a Theater Near You: Why Amazing Grace hasn't come to the Caribbean

Thanks to the persistant detective work of Nicolette Bethel, we finally have an answer as to why Galleria Cinemas is NOT showing Amazing Grace in the Bahamas, at least not for now. Apparently, the movie is in limited release--having opened in the U.S. on February 23rd and, now, slated to begin showing today, March 23rd, in the U.K. and Ireland. In the meantime, Galleria Cinemas' distributor has agreed to let them know when, or if, the film is available to be shown locally.

The irony here is that even though the people of the Bahamas, along with their Caribbean neighbors, are the primary beneficiaries of the abolition of the slave trade, they will not have the opportunity to see the film in conjuction with this weekend's bicentennial observances. Bethel elaborates on this irony:

If the film is not intended to be released in the Caribbean at the time of the Bicentenary of the Abolition, then that is a significant lapse of judgement of the filmmakers and the studio. There is really very little to be gained, either for history or for Christianity itself, to show the film in the homes of the people who perpetrated the Trans-Atlantic slave trade, and not to do so in the homes of the societies that were created by that very trade.

Something is askew.

Yes, something is indeed askew! But given the nature of the pre-film publicity, we should not really be surprised. Nearly a month ago, I observed that:

In the United States and Great Britain, for example, many well-meaning Christians are using the bicentennial of abolition [and the publicity surrounding the release of the film Amazing Grace] to raise awareness of and generate support for campaigns against modern day forms of slavery such as child labor, prostitution, and human trafficking. While I applaud these important efforts, I am concerned that they have largely obscured the legacy of slavery that still persists for Bahamian and Caribbean descendants of the liberated Africans and slaves who originally benefited from abolition.

While I don't believe that any of these oversights are intentional, let alone sinister, I do believe they tell us a lot about the worldview of the of the folks who are distributing and promoting the film. Basically, theirs is a worldview that--consciously or subconsciously--assumes that the evils of slavery came to and end with the abolition of the slave trade and, subsequently, emancipation. It is also a worldview that recognizes that slavery--understood as physical bondage--continues to exist in the world today and, more importantly, it is a worldview rooted in a moral passion to fight this injustice. Hence, they have siezed upon an inspirational event in history and held it up as a model to emulate as they seek to abolish modern day forms of slavery.

For the most part, this is a good thing. The problem, however, is that such a worldview ignores the fact that while abolition and emancipation brought an end to the physical bondage of Caribbean slavery, they did not come anywhere close to bringing an end to the economic systems that allowed and continue to allow one group of people to unfairly benefit from the labor of another (for more on this topic see my post on the legacy of the Atlantic slave trade). More critically, this worldview fails to acknowledge that the Caribbean descendents of liberated Africans and slaves are still struggling today with injustices perpetuated by the descendents of former slave traders and slave owners.

One reason for this, perhaps, is that it is easier to fight against injustices, such as human trafficking or prostitution, in which one is not directly involved. But for those of us--like myself--who are the descendents of countries who profited from the slave trade, it is much more difficult to join Caribbean peoples in their modern day struggle for full emancipation because to do so is to admit that we are still beneficiaries of the modern day economic systems which keep them enslaved.

Even two-hundred years after the fact, there a great need for reconciliation between the countries who benefited from the slave trade and those that were created by the slave trade. The failure of Amazing Grace's promoters to include the Caribbean in their efforts is not the problem so much as a symptom of something much more serious, our failure to recognize that while abolition and emancipation were important steps in the right direction toward mutual reconciliation, they were just the beginning of the journey, not the end.

The Legacy of the Atlantic Slave Trade

This year the Bahamas is observing two very important milestones in its history: (1) the bicentennial of the abolition of the Atlantic slave trade (1807) and (2) the fortieth anniversary of the achievement of Black Majority Rule (1967). With this weekend's release of the new movie Amazing Grace, the former has been getting a great deal of attention.

In the United States and Great Britain, for example, many well-meaning Christians are using the bicentennial of abolition to raise awareness of and generate support for campaigns against modern day forms of slavery such as child labor, prostitution, and human trafficking. While I applaud these important efforts, I am concerned that they have largely obscured the legacy of slavery that still persists for Bahamian and Caribbean descendants of the liberated Africans and slaves who originally benefited from abolition.

While ending the slave trade in 1807 was an important first step towards the liberation of peoples of African descent in the British Caribbean, emancipation was not declared until 1834 and was not fully implemented until after a four-year period of apprenticeship ended in 1838. Even then, the truck system and other discriminatory economic practices served to keep black Bahamians socially, politically, and economically subservient to their white counterparts until the achievement of Black Majority Rule in 1967. While Black Majority Rule succeeded in creating a sizeable black middle class that allowed many Bahamians to escape from generations of poverty, an even larger black underclass still remains today. And the achievement of Bahamian independence in 1973--partly as the result of political momentum gained from Black Majority Rule six years earlier--was largely symbolic. The departure of the British left a void that was quickly filled by the economic, cultural, and occasional political influence of the Bahamas' gargantuan next door neighbor--the United States.

So what's my point? First of all, injustice is multifaceted and expresses itself in many forms such as slavery, colonialism, racism, classism, and neocolonialism--to name a few. Secondly, the elimination of one form of injustice while allowing others to persist does not result in true freedom. Today, many Bahamians are much better off socially and economically then they were just one or two generations ago. Thus, we have developed a false sense of freedom that allows us to ignore the many injustices that continue to remain with us as a result of the legacy of slavery and colonialism. But persist they do, whether we are willing to acknowledge them or not. So as we observe this important milestone in our history, I hope that we will not only reflect on its significance for us today. But that we will also recommit ourselves to the struggle for full emancipation.