Angela Cropper
Feature Address delivered by Angela Cropper to Humanities and Education
Graduating Students at the University of the West Indies, St. Augustine,
Trinidad, 2007.
May I begin
by thanking the Faculty for honoring me with an invitation to present
the Feature Address at this Prize Award Ceremony. I am so pleased to be
here to share this moment with these high performers! I congratulate the
students for the choice they have made to pursue their course of
education in the Faculty of Humanities and Education, and for their
achievements which we are celebrating this evening.
I have been asked to speak on the topic “Our Students: Creators and Cus to d ia ns o f o ur Cu lt ure ”. I
have also been very helpfully supplied by the Faculty with a quotation
from the work of Cultural Anthropologist Margaret Mead for preparation
of my address: “Never doubt that a small group of
thoughtful
citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever
has.” Happily, I am very familiar with this quotation and with Dr.
Mead’s work: I have myself used that very quotation to motivate an
International Conference on ‘Development as if Equity Mattered’ which
was organized by the Cropper Foundation in September 2001. I often use
this quotation for motivating myself and others; and I hope that you,
graduating students and prize winners, will also use it in
that way, especially if you are disposed to give some further thought
to what I will lay at your feet this evening.
The concept of creators and custodians of our culture
is not only intriguing; it is complex, wide-ranging, potentially
far-reaching, and certainly demanding. It is also fundamental to the
future of Trinidad and Tobago and Caribbean society, and to the way in
which we contribute to, and engage with, the global civilization of
which we are a part. For the concept implies that we can create and
sustain the kind of culture we wish to have. It is an active
proposition. It implies conscious choice and commitment.
We know that the concept of culture is
understood at different levels. Perhaps the most ready and popular view
of culture is as the performing arts. Culture is also understood as the
amalgam of customs, rituals, festival, festivities and other forms of
expression by which a group or society comes to be recognized and
distinguished from others. Understood in this way, our culture reveals a
diversity of origins, rituals, and customs that underpin the way we
are, and the way we live and relate to others and the world around us.
These manifestations make us recognizably different from others, whether
as groups within societies or between societies: “You are; therefore I
am” (Title of book by Satish Kumar). Culture is also understood as the
body of intellectual achievements of a particular time or people.
But
this evening I want to look at culture as a way of being – an
accumulation of attitudes, values and behaviour, that may have both
destructive and affirmative facets, and which may be passed on from
generation to generation. I take my bearings here from the work of the
United Nations World Commission on Culture and Development which in its
Report of 2002 held out the view of culture as ‘the last frontier of
development’, and discussed Culture as “the
set of distinctive spiritual, material, intellectual and emotional
features of society or a social group, and that it encompasses, in
addition to art and literature, lifestyles, ways of living together,
value systems, traditions and beliefs.”
With that in mind, I intend this
evening to try and crystallize what may be some facets of our way of
being in Trinidad and Tobago and the Caribbean as a whole, facets which I
think all groups manifest, irrespective of their origins and the
rituals and forms of expression by which they are distinguished one from
the other. Some of these facets have been with us for a long time,
others are emergent [becoming apparent]. These are perhaps
characteristics of our Caribbean culture which unify us – more than
those things to which we often lay claim – though they may be present to
different degrees in the various societies. I n the short time I have I
can only draw these out and leave you to examine them further in the
course of your work as creators and custodians of our culture. And after
your own analysis I would be happy if I am proved to be wrong about any
of them.
Culture of Materialism
The
first facet that I want to draw out is our emergent culture of
materialism. This seems to be our dominant ethic, not limited to the
Caribbean, of course. It may be that we are led along in this by others,
and not having the confidence to formulate and position our own world
view in contradistinction, we allow this to become a dominant facet of
our own culture,
willingly adopted, not resisted. Our capitulation is reinforced by
official endorsement that the monetary value of the product we generate
is the ultimate measure of our progress and achievement and development
as societies. This measure is the dominant one in Trinidad &
Tobago’s
20/20 Vision.
Here, that is in T&T, we have become part of the extractive mindset
of the industrial order, with no concern about sustainability, and
little regard for inter-generational equity. We are scornful of the
notion that humanity must harmonise its demands with Earth’s capacities.
And our materialism is leading us to become disconnected from our
physical place and from one another.
Culture of Individualism
Then
I want to draw attention to our culture of individualism. Each person
for herself; ‘me’ at the expense of the ‘other’, breakdown of the
authority and stability of family, school, community; and scant regard
for the value of those relationships for creating and sustaining the
social order.
Culture of Civic Complacency
Third,
our culture of civic complacency is evident in so many ways, perhaps
because of our preoccupation with material progress, compounded by the
culture of individualism. We take laissez-faire into new realms. What
are the implications of this for our culture of democracy? I hasten to
put in the balance here that Caribbean societies seem to have the
ability to occasionally rise out of a complacent stupor and say ‘enough
is enough’. We are familiar with those historical moments: from slave
uprisings throughout the Caribbean to the revolution of the Black
Jacobins in Haiti, to the march of 1935 led by Uriah Butler on behalf of
downtrodden workers; to the assault on Chaguaramas in 1960 led by Eric
Williams to reclaim our patrimony; to the stirrings of 1970 in search of
equity and national identity; and to the march of last weekend to put
to death our culture of complacency. We do have that capacity to rise up
as a body politic and let
our
voice be heard, and to rescue ourselves from our 5-yearly caricature of
democracy, but we do not often bestir ourselves to do so. There are,
however, some blocks upon which to build a new culture of Caribbean
citizenship.
Culture of Violence
Fourth
is our culture of violence, which is emerging as a dominant
characteristic throughout the Caribbean. Violence has been a
longstanding aspect of political, family and gender relations in the
Caribbean; but it is now becoming the routine means for dealing with
even inconsequential conflicts; it is the tool of the culture of
materialism, and it is f uelling a culture of criminality.
Culture of Corruption
Fifth
is the culture of corruption. In Trinidad and Tobago we take pride in
finding loopholes or getting around regulations, or evading the law. The
longstanding perception of the “Trickidadian” by our Caribbean
compatriots is not without some basis. This facet of our culture reveals
itself in some national gems: “no damn dog bark”; “all ah we tief”;
“politics has its own morality”. These statements have become
emblematic. No doubt they have their equivalent in other Caribbean
countries.
Culture of Half-arsed-ness
And
then there is the Caribbean tendency to do only as little as would get
us by; to go for cosmetic rather than fundamental changes; and though we
make many claims, it is perhaps only in the Arts and Sports that we can
be said to have manifested a culture of excellence. As an example of
this I invite you to look at our attempt to make the city of Port of
Spain user- friendly to Spanish speaking visitors, as part of the
campaign to woo the Headquarters of the Free Trade Area of the Americas:
you will see that
some
street signs have been rendered in Spanish, but they are very few and
limited in range. I often wonder if this reveals an intention to confine
our Spanish-reading visitors to a few blocks in the city. No doubt we
have indulged in this tokenism because this is very easy to do; much
easier than transforming the dump that is Port of Spain, or relocating
the health and environmental nuisance that is the Beetham Landfill. I
had to coin a word to describe this tendency. It’s not in the
literature. I call it the culture of half - arsed-ness. I think we can
find examples of this throughout the Caribbean.
Culture of Nihilism
The
above facets all seem to accumulate towards an absence of feelings, of
value for non-material aspects of life and relationships; a disregard
for moral principles; and absence of soul. And I wonder if we are not
seeing the setting in of a culture of nihilism. Just when we need a
culture of caring, a culture of compassion; just when we need to regain
relationships of family and community as pathways to healing; just when
we need to reinstate a foundation of moral principles to guide personal,
public and political behaviour.
To the students: I am sure that you would not want to
be custodians of facets of our culture such as those that I have
suggested. But if you are also creators of our culture, what might be
the nature of your contribution to examination and displacement of these
facets, and to cultivation of different values and patterns in our
societies, that would at the same time help us overcome the disharmony,
disintegration, and dysfunction that we see around us?
You will have a big responsibility to decide which of
our cultural attributes are worthy of being sustained. This selection
process will have to be predicated on some framework of values, in
the larger context of the
character of Caribbean society that we
might work towards, as well as the character of the global civilization
to which we would want to contribute. Lloyd Best often says that our
elite groups have failed Caribbean societies, because they have not
taken the responsibility to catalyze the kind of processes that the
societies need. Providing leadership in initiating such processes of
reflection and self-examination, catalyzing public process, facilitating
analysis, and building consensus about the way forward: all this falls
to you now as one of those elite groups in the society. And perhaps as
graduates in Humanities and Education, you will see yourself as agents
of cultural change, including change in our self-view, for that
is basic to making any change at an individual, group, societal or
regional level. Our self-view is basic to the concept of culture that I
have advanced here. Moreover, in this interconnected and interdependent
world, it is useful to also cultivate a culture of universalism;
but the more globalised we become, the more we need to feel
secure in ourselves, in our group identity, if we as Caribbeans are
to engage with confidence in the complex, impersonal global village.
As University graduates, you will no doubt bring to
bear your trained analytical minds in examining these issues more
deeply. You will have the wherewithal to lead us in a process of
transformation, to transcend what is undesirable, to achieve a more
balanced way of organizing our social, economic, political, aesthetic
and moral affairs, and to enhance the character of our Caribbean.
I think the above seven facets I have suggested are
well summed up in a piece of writing of His Holiness the 14th Dalai
Lama, which I shall share with you. It is entitled ‘The Paradox of our
Age’. He writes:
We have bigger houses, but smaller
families; more conveniences, but less time. We have more degrees, but
less sense; more knowledge,
but
less judgement; more medicines but less healthiness. We’ve been all the
way to the moon and back, but we have trouble crossing the street to
meet the new neighbours. We have built more computers to hold more
information, to produce more copies than ever, but we have less
communication. We have become long on quantity, but short on quality.
These are the times of fast foods but slow digestion. Tall man but short
character; steep profits but shallow relationships. It is a time when
there is much in the window, but nothing in the room. (Resurgence,
March/April 2005, p.13)
We look to you, graduating students,
to occupy that space, to inhabit that empty room, to furnish and equip
it, and to invite us to reflect on our way of being. And this is
how the quotation of Margaret Mead becomes relevant to you:
“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful citizens can...”
To be sure this is a very difficult move to make. You may not succeed
in making the change during your tenure or even during your lifetime,
for it may now require a generation or two; but you might
begin to give substance to the hope within us that we may be able to
renovate our fractured but fertile place.
For, as Vaclav Havel has written:
“Either we have hope within us
or we do not. It is a dimension of the soul and is not necessarily
dependent on some particular observation of the world. Hope is an
orientation of the spirit, an orientation of the heart. It transcends
the world that is immediately experienced and is anchored somewhere
beyond its horizons. It is…an ability to work for something because it
is good, not just because it stands a chance of succeeding… [Hope] is
not the conviction that something will turn out well, but the certainty
that something makes sense regardless of how it turns out. It is Hope,
above all, which gives the strength to live and
continually
try new things.” (Web of Hope. Resurgence 219,
July/August 2003: quoting Havel in 1990 writing).
And so I leave you, students, with these points of view
for your own exploration. As you take your own personal and
professional direction, and begin to seek the pathways to it, you may
find useful what the Chinese philosopher Lu Hsun has written:
Hope cannot be said to exist, nor can it be said not
to exist. It is just like the roads across the earth. For actually
there were no roads to begin with, but when many people pass one way, a
road is made. (Lu Hsun, 1921 in Resurgence No. 219, July/August 2003).
I extend my best wishes for success in your undertakings. I thank you. And may you have Peace.
Angela Cropper
President
The Cropper Foundation
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