I am not sure that crisis is the right word to use but it must be something that has me sitting in a hotel room in Guyana, pondering over the question of what it means to be Anguillian. Not me you know. I am not putting myself in this bracket at all but I am remembering when words like, “proud”, “industrious”, “thrifty”, and “fiercely independent”, were used to characterize Anguillians and I cannot help but wonder what may have been added to or deleted from that list since the Anguilla Revolution.

Ijahnya Christian

My mind goes back to 1984 when I returned to Anguilla and was shocked at the level of ignorance about our island among our senior students. Ten years or so later, during one of the Anguilla Cultural Education Festivals, I remember one of our 6th Formers beginning her panel presentation on the subject with the admission that young persons like herself really did not know what it meant to be Anguillian, because as she and other youth could see, they were more like Americans. Much as my heart ached, one look at our consumption patterns and I could understand that perspective. Several years later, when a friend wanted to take an initiative with an Afri-centric focus, my own advice to her hurt in the giving but I wanted the venture to succeed and she keeps thanking me for the suggestion that the focus be multi-cultural instead. I knew that we needed to have that Conversation about self but I also knew that we were not ready.

It has not all been despair for I remember well one year during my classroom teacher years, a student named Jacqueline Sergeant wrote a poem called, “Peas Soup” and made everyone hungry when she recited it. I was again overcome, when Cheddie Richardson opened the doors of Cheddie’s Carving Studio and again when at CARIFESTA V in Trinidad, held his head high among the ranks of the region’s finest artists. Last year, I again had that joyful, gut moving feeling when, during her valedictory address at the ALHCS graduation ceremony, Monifa Fahie injected a sweet little piece of Anguilla talk that did not diminish but enhanced the eloquence of her presentation. It is hard to describe the feeling but I had it yet again when I heard my grandson, just learning to talk, exclaim, “Aya, Aya, Aya!” during his play one day. I had been worrying about the fact that he was born in America and had neither an Anguillian, Kittitian nor Jamaican passport to remind him of his roots if his mother became careless in helping him to know them. Right then, I knew that he was becoming an Anguillian. Right now though, they live in New York and I am waiting to see if Anguilla will recognize him and his mother as Anguillians when they return.

We tend to become Anguillians during the annual celebration of the Anguilla Revolution and with that comes a strong dose of patriotism but it is not strong enough to propel us to our feet and stand in reverence when our National Song is being played. For the last couple of years, we have practiced singing that song incorrectly and so I have a moment of teeth-grinding in spite of the harmonious rendition of the song every morning when Radio Anguilla signs on. I know that our Chief Minister’s Office has been expressing concern about our dismissive treatment of National Symbols so I hope that he will issue forth a decree for correcting this during his address to the Nation on Anguilla Day. Even if this does not happen, it is one of the areas noted in the United Front’s 2005 Manifesto and it is an area that should be supported by all and sundry.

And then we come to last week-end when it was the worst possible time for me to be outside of Anguilla. After looking forward with great anticipation to “Show Off Anguilla”, I missed it and want to be filled in on every detail when I come home. I know that only the dregs will be left for me to purchase a few gifts to take with me on my upcoming vacation but I’d rather have those than plastic stuff labeled, Made in Taiwan.

I also missed the Prerequisite Course for the International Black Summit but jumped and clicked my heels that someone else – not Hubert Hughes, not Ijahnya Christian, not the other handful of people who recognize Black Africa in Anguilla – well, Oluwakemi Linda Banks has been assertive in this regard over the years and Una Gumbs has some sized 14 and 16 shoes to step into and walk in a path created by her parents – but I was glad the talk was not coming from “then doat’n Rastas.” When they first approached me, I was only to happy to be part of the team but my questions were, “Where are the men?” followed rapidly by, “So you’re going to talk about Black Africa in Anguilla?” They said yes, and that is the other event I want a blow to blow account of when I return home. Anguilla would have had a conversation with itsself, about itsself and hopefully we are on the road to healing.

There is one last observation that I would like to share and it has to do with our expression of culture through the performing arts. I have noticed a tendency, in our speech and in our dress that whenever we need to be formal, that is still equated with being as European as possible. I pulled up one otherwise conscious musician on that when, at the opening of the new Anguilla House of Assembly building, he thought that it was European classical strains we needed to hear on the pan. A similar thing happened recently when two persons produced and edited an educational DVD for me and put European chamber music in the spot where music really made it a better product. I told them I was prepared to wait for them to redo the product and replace that music with some pan. The products of our cultural creativity give us really sound assessments about how we see ourselves.

I know it will be light years before some of us understand that for the Rastafarians to find God in an African Man is just as reasonable and more rational than for us than to hold on to the God presented to us by those who proceeded to commit the most ungodly crimes against the African race. For some of us that day will never come and they will continue to pray for I and I, while I and I will continue to pray for them. However, religion is personal so as our society becomes more diverse, more susceptible to external influence and more complex, we must become more respectful and more tolerant of difference but we will not feel threatened if we have a strong sense of self. I do not know what the rest of you mean when you sing about a new Anguilla, but for me it is about recognizing Black Africa as an act of self-knowledge and discovering, educating ourselves about what we have given and can continue to give to I-manity and about knowing that many of our unconscious and conscious behaviours that we think of as uniquely Anguillian really accompanied us across the Middle Passage.

| Printer-friendly page | Send this article to a friend |

World News