Recognising the universal significance of Emancipation
Arts On Sunday
By Al Creighton
Stabroek News
August 1, 2004
Augus mornin come again
This is the time of jubilee
Jubilee jubilee
Queen Victoria set we free
Augus mornin jubilee
(traditional)
Oh! Ye first of August freed men
who now liberty enjoy;
Salute the day and shout
hurrah to Queen Victoria;
On this glad day the galling
chains of Slavery were broke
From off the neck of Africa's sons
who bled beneath its yolk.
(Simon Christian Oliver)
Today is Emancipation day across the Caribbean. There have been a few minor differences about exactly when it is to be celebrated. The event itself took place on Monday August 1, 1838 and thereafter it has been commemorated either on the first Monday in August or on the first of August each year, whatever day it might be. In an effort to standardize the anniversary, Caricom has been asked, through a resolution at one of its Council for Human and Social Development (COHSOD) meetings at the Secretariat in 2004, to adopt the first of August as the day to be observed by all in the region.
The occasion is being widely celebrated with a variety of performance, ritual and symbolic events including traditional acts historically associated with Emancipation and big national festivals that have grown around it such as Barbados' Crop-Over and Kadooment Day and the Jamaica Festival. But there is a more important problem regarding the way Emancipation Day is treated in Guyana.
There is a tendency to limit it to the 'African Community'. No doubt, even now, there are tributes and advertisements extending greetings for "a happy Emancipation anniversary to our African brothers and sisters". Such a misguided greeting is a misunderstanding of the significance of the event and limits its impact and importance. It sends the wrong message that this anniversary is the exclusive affair of the 'Africans' and does not concern any other ethnic group. It is the same attitude to other events that has evoked the ridiculous call in Guyana for a national holiday for each racial group.
Surely, Guyana has a number of ethnic festivals whose roots and cultural traditions arose out of one particular group, but some of them are of great national importance. Emancipation is one of those. It is looked upon as African with good reason because it does have its particular ethnic roots and traditional practices which have a distinct African flavour. That is not surprising since it was Black people of African descent whose long period of enslavement came to an end on that day and naturally, they were the first and most eager to celebrate it. However, it is a celebratory festival with many public manifestations which attract the entire regional community.
But even more important than those performance aspects are its meaning and significance which are national, regional, international and even universal. Its context involves most of the world. The date, August 1, may be restricted to the Anglophone Caribbean because slavery ended at different dates in different parts of the world, but the fall of that infamous institution is of interest to the whole international community. That this liberation took place in the nineteenth century grows in relevance with the horrifying reminder that slavery has still not ended in some parts of Europe and Africa.
The commemoration of Emancipation is also significant because of the impact that the era that it brought to an end in the Caribbean has had not only on the social history, the arts, religion and demography of this region, but also on most of the rest of the world. This includes many countries in Africa and Europe, India, South America, North America and Britain. This impact has been economic, as both Walter Rodney (How Europe Underdeveloped Africa and The History of the Upper Guinea Coast) and Eric Williams (Capitalism and Slavery) emphasized, and political.
While African countries and the Caribbean were underdeveloped, the likes of Britain, USA, France, Spain, Holland and Portugal grew wealthy, became First World nations and world powers either in previous centuries or today. Slavery and its historical ripples had a major influence on British politics, what with the rising power of the planter class, the middle class as a whole and the transformation of the British Parliament. The Abolition movement did not only succeed in achieving Abolition, it made a lasting dent in the armour of Westminster. Politics in the USA was similarly shaped by such related events as the Civil War, the American South, which is still not free of the scars of segregation and the Civil Rights Movement.
All these factors are to be found in the aftermath of Emancipation, its roots, causes and effects. The spin-offs are resounding loudly in current issues in world trade. The war that intensified between the USA and the European Union had a devastating effect on West Indian banana exports a few short years ago, and now it is attacking sugar. Sugar was the central pillar of Caribbean slavery, and while it assisted the colonial powers economically and politically, it encouraged monoculture and dependency in the colonies. These repercussions of the history of slavery are emphasizing the real limits of Emancipation in 1838.
Emancipation is regionally important as well, because of the way it transfigured the demography of the Caribbean with all its implications. There was first, forced migration, followed by the settlement of all the different groups that arrived under Indentureship to construct the character of the regional population. The East Indians, Chinese, Portuguese, Madeirans and Syrians cannot ignore their link to Emancipation, the event that caused their arrival in the region, with all its own accompanying horrors. Neither will the Amerindians forget that West Indian slavery began with them, causing genocide, the uprooting and the decline of their populations, while Bartholomew de Las Casas will continue to regret the suggestion he made in an effort to save the Amerindians.
In conjunction with that, is the way Emancipation was responsible for shaping the Caribbean culturally. It created strong cultural forces including the post-Emancipation Carnival in Trinidad and the Eastern Caribbean, as well as Carnival in Rio. The several acts performed to celebrate Emancipation created further traditions that have contributed to the cultural enrichment of the region, even enlarging tourism. It created the powerful hybrid religions such as Voodoo, Santeria, Shango and Kumina. It left its mark in the evolution and survival of traditions in the visual arts of Haiti, Suriname, Brazil and the intuitive styles used by many.
Emancipation was responsible for the vibrant colour of the Caribbean's many dance traditions and music, including calypso, soca, chutney and the multi-million dollar reggae industry. Caribbean literature is now a power across the globe, excitingly shaped by its evolution out of post-Emancipation developments, the many cultural and linguistic forces and the oral traditions. While the Black community has every right to claim ownership of so much that is vital in the Emancipation celebrations, it is impossible to relegate the festival to classification as a narrow event restricted to 'Africans'. Not after the manner in which it created multi-ethnic societies, religion, art, literature, theatre, social development and profound national identities.