The news media showed pictures of the immediate family and family friends. What I found amazing is that it appears that only light-skinned Cubans are trying to escape from their homeland. I saw the Cuban basketball team in the late Olympics. I have also seen pictures of Cubans in a television special one by Harry Belafonte. What I saw were dark-skinned Cubans having the time of their lives. It made me wonder, in light of what I have been told by African people living in Florida, that the light-skinned Cubans are more racist that some southerners. What is really going on in Cuba, and what is this Elian Gonzales issue about? The more I got into thinking this way, the more questions were raised. Why are most of the people trying to escape from Cuba light-skinned? Why are the majority of the athletics in the Olympics dark-skinned? The women's basketball team and the volleyballs teams were the bomb. They were some big, pretty sisters. I also thought of the Haitians. Why are Haitians sent back to Haiti and Cubans allowed to stay in America? They are both supposedly oppressed people. The Haitians are dark and the Cubans, who are trying to escape, light. Is there something more than meets the eye?
The genesis of these carnivals carries the intent of resisting on some level, by Caribbean migrants, the otherwise alienating conditions of life in migration, to "carnivalise" these landscapes with some of the joy and space commensurate with Caribbean carnival. Indeed, Caribbean intellectual contributions have had successful impact on the development of U.S., European and African thought. Still, the Caribbean in most imaginings, and in particular to those who do not know it well, is the place of "sun and fun," a vacation land devoid of serious engagement with the world. Caribbean carnival then is the climax of all those "sun and fun" constructions. Yet, there is a history and politics to carnival - a "carnival of resistance" beyond the outer face of "carnival of tourism" - that demands exposure.
These articles mostly concerned [Castro]'s cracking down on terrorism and crime committed against tourists in Cuba. In reaction to incidents of hotel bombings, and in one case, the murder of an Italian tourist, Castro's government had passed a series of strict new laws to deter crimes that would further injure the country's leading source of foreign currency - tourism. One evening in Santago de Cuba, I was discussing the race issue with a few Cuban friends, among whom was a loyal Castro supporter who had fought for four years in Angola with the Cuban army. He argued that what was happening in his country wasn't so much a problem of racism as it was an honest attempt on Castro's part to protect the country's main source of revenue, tourism, upon which the U.S. embargo had made Cuba dependent. Although the once-again blatant debasing of my friend's civil rights incensed me, I did understand his point. Most of the tourists now coming to Cuba are from predominately white European countries, or they are upper-class whites from Latin America. Most of the tourists now coming to Cuba are from predominately white European countries, or they are upper-class whites from Latin America. Most of these white tourists come to Cuba with racism ingrained in them from their own cultures. In fact, it is unofficially acknowledged that a large percentage of the foreign currency in Cuba comes from sex tourism, which generally comprises white men drawn to Cuba by the lure of "exotic" mulatto women.
Friday, Oct. 29 was Kweyol Day, a celebration of island identity and culture. While the official language of the Commonwealth of Dominica is English, 80 percent of the population speak Kweyol, a legacy of early French settlement. Kweyol language and folk culture, after being sidelined, dismissed or denigrated during the British colonial period, has played an important role in forging the identity of independent Dominica since 1978. People's irritation with a late start was quickly dissolved. After the Stars, the Vodou rhythms of Haiti's seminal roots music band Boukman Eksperyans reverberated through Festival City. Named after the Vodou priest who presided over the ceremony that ignited Haiti's slave rebellion, Boukman Eksperyans has been at the forefront of taking the Vodou beat into the arena of world music. Tabou Combo, the most famous and long-lived Haitian Konpa band, seemed reluctant to leave the stage, but from 5 a.m., Festival City was overrun by WCK, [Dominica]'s marathon bouyon band, with whom I was still chipping at breakfast time. Not even a large pot of extra-strong Dominican coffee could revive me, and I retired battered and rambling in Kweyol, to recover in Trinidad.
"It is a play about two people who love each other," explains Greta Mendez, the play's Trinidadian-born director. "The external elements of racism have affected their relationship. "As the battle is raging in Trinidad, [Elvira] and [Rohan] are raging. They are having their own coup and trying to work it out." "I call it the battlefield of heart and soul" "The divide-and-rule syndrome is still happening and the play is saying, `Let us look at that'." * Coups and Calypsos runs until February 28 at the Oval House, 52-54 Kennington Oval, London SE11 at 7.45 pm each night. Tickets from £5.50; box office: 0171-5827680.
