Cross culturalism and the Caribbean canon

Dr Joseph Rajbansee recently presented a paper to the Education and Culture Seminar: “Cross Culturalism and the Caribbean Canon” at The Faculty of Humanities and Education UWI, Trinidad January 7 - 10, 2004 entitled “Indo-Derived Constructs as Elements: In the Caribbean and Diasporic Cultural Canon.”

This column is a brief summary of the major points discussed in the paper presented. The paper replete with Hindu references has four parts. The first tells of the need to have an indigenous cultural base, technology, methodology and content as the bases of national education via the humanities and the educational processes. The second shows glimpses of instances of our national leadership and me, as we failed in our actions for we lacked a sound indigenous cultural base. Dr Joseph Rajbansee began: “Our humanities study and resulting practices made us more empathetic to the foreigner than our own brothers and sisters. The third takes one part of our indigenous culture — the Indo (largely Hindu precepts) from its religious aspects and draws content, technology and constructs which can be used to underlay one aspect of a national thrust to education and the civilising influences promised by a humanities grounded education. The last sections stress that success in the Diaspora in its Caribbean and larger manifestations depends on possessing a sound indigenous cultural foundation even if only as a safe haven with in which one could retreat or attack with full force as the circumstances warrant... Without indigenously derived cultural constructs our present national education, and for that matter, all efforts have no place to retreat to except chaos. This is what TT and many Caribbean countries are actively doing. They are retreating into chaos.”

Need for an indigenous cultural base in the educational process and in liberal arts studies: “Today Indos are in need of similar mechanisms of transcendence. They cannot resonate. The perceptive among them hang with keen ears at society’s gates listening for a deeper sounding and meaning of their name. Without an indigenous-based cultural education or ambience for themselves and the rest of the population they hear nothing. This is not some simple romantic notion of artistic authority or prophetic urgency. They need this for theirs is the task of entering the competitive arena of self-promotion in the hope of attracting gainful employment and a chance at least to buy some bread or rent a room, if not change the world. Only a culture-based education can fortify them for this task. “Without the cultural gift of image, rhythm and metre, they like the poet are doomed to roam the unfrequented spaces of the world like the unbaptised douens of folklore, inhabiting bamboo patches, calabash and silk cotton trees. No one gathers to hear the douens output, input or throughput. The bamboo patches, calabash and silk cotton trees only get furtive glances. To change we must complete the task of recharting the ruins, particularly of an Indo (Afro) soul splayed across a hostile world. Only in so doing can we climb from the decrepitude of Douendom.

“Instead of culture-based education we are offered cricket, Christmas, Carnival, chutney, cocaine, chillum, Carib and fundamentalist bigotry as alternatives to make us feel good (euphoric) about ourselves. The latest national cure is the soca festival. The kora sounds of Senegal and the harmonious melodies flowing from the Bansuri of Krishna — sounds of self-assertion gave way to the steel pan pounding out the music of the dispossessed, depressed, suppressed and oppressed. No wonder short term euphoria turns us into depressed, down pressed, suppressed, oppressed and dispossessed beings. We can only execute the dance of life according to the music we hear. In this paper I am not asking for an Elysian India (or Africa) only a culturally relevant one to Caribbean needs to serve as one of the winds beneath the national wings. I am trying to be as one person told me King of the flute players — this is what my last name implies.” Indo derived constructs for any Caribbean and diasporic cultural canon: Dr Joseph Rajbansee asserted “We need a new national prance and caper to get us beyond wining and getting on bad; going down low, wining on a bumpsie and putting our hands in the air and wave. Until we incorporate insights from our past cultural traditions our graduates at all levels can be no more than a living testimony to clerkdom. We are in dire need of significant actors grounded in the realities of our culture. Until that is realised our schools even the best prestige ones will only be monasteries peddling received dogma and not seminaries whose inhabitants search of the true noble and beautiful.”

“The elements of culture are those aspects by which a society defines itself. Its music, language, food, clothing style, traditions, religion, literature, and social norms are examples. In the tradition of the plains Indians, tribes could tell each other apart by dress, hair style and beading patterns, even from a distance on the prairie. Another way of thinking about culture is when humans talk about ‘us’ and ‘them.’ Culture is what makes ‘us’ different from “them.” The differences among us are what bring strength to the national biogenetic, biodiversity and cultural diversity to the national weave.” Cultural canon and balls needed for the diaspora: “Instead of trying to deny the other the Indo experience can be used to accommodate all those who want to be accommodated. Those who do not wish to be accommodated but instead wish to overcome should be given the full force of Durga and Kali, also integral parts of the Indo tradition. Those bent on destroying the Indo in us should be treated as Rawan in Lanka for trying to steal and destroy Indo values as represented by Sita. The examples inscribed here are there not only for the Indo but for the entire nation and the world to see. The time has come for all Indos as well as all of the dispossessed to insist that their perspectives be accommodated in the national educational panorama.