Island People

Title: Island People
Author: Joshua Jelly-Schapiro
Year: 2016
Publisher: Vintage
ISBN: 978-0-385-804990-0

Earlier this year, after reading Nanjala Nyabola’s Traveling While Black and realizing I didn’t know much about the Caribbean, I bought this book to remedy that situation.

I bought this book for many reasons, one of which is because it was written recently. Thus, I hoped it would:

Regarding the first bit, he talks a bit about the aborigines on most of the islands including how one group displaced another. Displaced being a euphemism for genocide probably. The discussion however was pretty thin because the next genocide to happen, happened so quickly that even oral records of what came before were apparently not available. Or perhaps the author did not bother to check, and I would not blame him because given how few the natives were and how little their impact on the world was, I doubt their history had much that would be interesting.

The book groups the region conventionally into the Greater Antilles covering the large islands of (Cuba, Puerto Rico, Hispaniola and Jamaica) and the Lesser Antilles which are all the other islands to the south and the Bahamas to the north. The Bahamas, being north of the rest is in the Atlantic Ocean and thus not geographically part of the Caribbean. It is included in the region for cultural reasons.

The book began with Jamaica and the guy just kept on and on about reggae and Bob Marley, the people around him, what Jamaicans think about him now, what foreigners think about him when they come to Jamaica and so on. It was as if the only thing in Jamaica worth writing about was reggae, Bob Marley and the people related to them. Even discussion of politics was linked to these things. I did not like the chapter and threw away the book multiple times in frustration while reading it. But something kept drawing me back. I was able to power through it and the second chapter on Cuba. And I began to like it. By the middle of the third chapter, on Puerto Rico, I was really enjoying it. I was enjoying it because of the author’s focus on music. Wherever there was a popular musical style, he would write extensively about it. Reggae and ska for Jamaica, conga and rumba for Cuba, mambo and salsa for Puerto Rico, and calypso for Trinidad and Tobago. Whatever his reason for doing so, it enabled him to write an unusual book. However, it is also a bit of a weakness because where there was no music, the quality of the writing would sometimes flag. Alternatively, this might have been due to the nature of the places. These are small countries with few people that are so completely dominated by the bigger powers around them that nothing is allowed to happen. This means there are few avenues for unusual people to emerge - tragedy or via the arts. And perhaps music being the more conducive for gregarious people, it is easier for one to have a favorable impression of the musicians and their milieu.

Once I had settled down, I realized that he wrote about other things besides music. Its just that his style treats politics and history as afterthoughts. He was interested in ordinary people living their lives. And so, he would travel, sleep, and eat how the ordinary people do. He often mentioned off handedly (but I suspect deliberately) how he sought out the cheapest hotel, or the cheapest food, or the non-touristy means of transport. Ordinarily, this could be taken as getting the real feel of the country. But, I wonder, what makes the experience of the poor and the powerless more genuine? While it may be good intentioned, it is just poverty porn. If those poor ordinary people got the opportunity to live it up, it doesn’t mean their new experience is any less genuine. Further, his preference for what he thinks is the ordinary experience mirrors how people from poor, black African nations behave when we visit the West. We are scorned for going to malls and other plebeian activities rather than going to museums and other trappings of “high culture”. Well, we are trying to get an authentic experience too. Seeing how the ordinary people live is a better indicator of the country than learning about historic buildings and stuff like that. I also compare his frequent mentioning of his choices with Ms. Nyabola’s. It does not appear Mr. Schapiro experienced any difficulties in his travels. He could go where he pleased when he pleased, he had some access to the rich and powerful and I suspect he would have had more if he wanted. This is unlike Ms. Nyabola who had to plan her trips to contend with barriers designed to hamper her ease of movement.

One of the reasons I bought the book is to learn more about the region. And I did learn quite a bit. I learnt that Haiti, while a slave colony of the French, was the richest colony in the world. That it is now the poorest country in the western hemisphere is instructive of the nature of that kind of wealth. Haiti, like Zimbabwe, went from supposedly rich to supposedly poor. However, what kind of wealth is that if it was generated by having a few people oppressing a great number and expropriating their production? The wealth came from sugar production and after the Haitian revolution, the ex-slaves resolutely refused to plant sugarcanes. The nation’s reversion to a less focused and more natural form of agriculture (subsistence) along with over 60 years of hostility from the world powers might have contributed to its poverty. However, its failure is inexcusable despite these fetters. Other countries – Dominican Republic, with which it shares the island of Hispaniola, and which identifies with the European derived Latino culture, prospered in the 20th century; Cuba, despite more than 50 years of US hostility is a capable nation with a fantastic social welfare system. It can be convincingly argued that Haiti’s condition (along with the failure of countries like Liberia and Sierra Leone, which did not have its disadvantages) is further evidence that black nations along with Muslim nations have not engaged well with the modern western world. Why this is so is probably cultural since Islam has no genetic component. Maybe we black people peaked long ago or are yet to get on top of the wheel of history. One reason why I would want there to be a life after death is so I can observe if we eventually become rich and powerful and stop being prey for the rest of the world. Since the seeds of future greatness often lie in the turmoil of history, maybe our current chaos and incapacity are creating traits that will enable us engage better in future. Although such incapacity is not encouraging. Recently, there has been a clamor by former colonies for European countries to return artefacts taken during colonial times. One argument against that is the lack of capacity in the former colonies to provide the quality of care that would preserve those artefacts. An example is the case of a Caymanian origin schooner – Goldfield. Built in the Cayman Islands, it ended up in the US? How? The book does not say. It was returned after a clamor by the islands for a return of their heritage. It sank shortly afterwards.

Each of the islands has a unique flavor. The people of Barbuda (part of Antigua and Barbuda) are said to be the biggest and strongest because the slavery there was not harsh. The island was only conducive for herding which did not require much supervision. Thus, the slaves were left to their own devices with the masters only coming over occasionally to get animals for slaughter. Their relatively easy lives were coupled with sufficiency of nourishment. Another island that was not suitable for agriculture was Dominica. I had always thought that natives in the Caribbean were completely wiped out. But it turns out those on the island of Dominica were not. They survived because that island is not only unsuitable to plantation style agriculture but is also mountainous. While the author talked to one of them, there really is nothing interesting about him. Further buttressing an earlier point about an absence of interesting stuff prior to European contact. The native cultures also do not appear to have influenced the current culture of the region. This is understandable given how few of the natives there are compared to the imported population. Slavery in Cuba was also not as harsh as in other places because Spanish slavery, being tinged with Moorish practice, allowed slaves some autonomy. Cuba and Puerto Rico are similar in being heavily Spanish but have diverged because for 50 years, Cuba has been cut off from the capitalist West and thus its culture has developed differently. Barbados is ordered and stuffy. The Cayman Islands are laid back and have a reputation as partyers. Martinique, being still part of France, is yet again different. More affluent but lacking the verve of the others. He omitted some islands - St. Kitts & Nevis, St. Lucia and maybe more. Perhaps he did not visit them.

Another reason why I bought the book is that the author is a journalist. My favorite author is James Michener, who was a journalist. The first book of his that I read is probably Tales of the South Pacific. I had hoped this book would be like that one. And in a way it is. Although Mr. Schapiro’s writing style - long difficult sentences full of tenuously linked clauses; cannot compare to Michener’s simple, elegant, and beautiful prose. While looking for books about the Caribbean, I saw that Michener had written a novel about it. I bought that one too. Though I am yet to read it.

This is an okay book. It should only be read by a purposeful reader, because while it becomes light reading upon familiarization with the author’s style, it is not an easy read.