T,
On reintroduction of your previous post,
In my humble opinion, by way of a mere introductory experience with the literary accumulation of works, may not be enough to support a leap forward towards achieving any educational revolution to qualify as a renaissance; the sort that is required for a transition towards another phase of our sociopolitical and cultural transformation .
I say so with the best intention of an optimist and as someone who would have loved to see recognition be given for the efforts of those who have tried. But in reality, the fact remains that as a micro country, still in its embryonic stages of learning and struggling to establish an identity away from the influences of "Mother", the task of accepting our own as a replacement of the established order remains a daunting one.
In my response to your initial post, I had made reference to the mind-set of our supposedly educated leaders who remain hell bent on maintaining the status quo, where the acceptance of "class" still dominates their thinking. Downstreet's food analogy through the experience of Anthony Boudine points to the very essence of the captured minds of our people. It is ingrained in our DNA to establish worth by paying others yo give us the very same things we already have.
Said Street in bringing home this salient point,
>>>>>>.....What he found was that all the top chefs had been trained in Europe, on their return, they struggled to offer local foods to their customers, and had to often disguise it as something European. That despite their deep desire to offer authentic home-made menus which originated from African Traditional cooking, no credit was ever given to those who were responsible for heavily influencing Brazilian cuisine,and that it was a struggle to get patrons to pay for food, that their grandmas will serve at home......<<<<<<<
And therein lies the dilama, they prefer to pay for a corrupted version of their traditional cooking, simply because they think it is better. The same could be applied to every aspect of our lives; foreign is better; the Whitier, the better and more trustworthy.
This is precisely why our esteem Honorable PM, an educated leader in all rights, had some years ago, placed the backings of our entire treasuary(the peoples' money) as collateral to support the business venture of an investor who presented him a photocopy of a Ruby as proof of his(the investor) legitimacy.
The rest was History.
"I can see Downstreet rushing to take ah shot of Rivers, straight up! upon reading this"....lol
But in keeping with the food theme as established; the mind set attributed to it and the desire to experience something different, I too had fallen prey to that state of mind, when some years ago, unbeknownst to me, I paid over $30 for dining on a plate of what we in the French Quarters colloquialy refer to as "Sea Koon-Koon".....pardoning my ignorance of the correct name for this Crustacean...Arthur already gave me permission to exercise my literary rights with caution on this, so an apology is not necessary here.
So why on earth did I ever think that this "grub" served over Linguini would satisfy my culinary experience, I had no idea but I was convinced that the ambiance of the evening had called for a an introduction of my pallet to something..... "more sophisticated", hence the Barnacle.
The late Maurice Bishop some years back, made another food reference to our mental malady in his Ovaltine analogy, albeit from an economic perspective.
Paraphrasing, said he,
" they took our cocoa to England, they grond it up (shell and all), put it in a tin, then sell it back to us as Ovaltine". The implication here is that we abandoned our good nurishing cocoa and paid dearly to drink a lesser inferior product with all its contaminants.
All these analogies have one commonality that goes back to our classification as subjects in need of assimilation, the crux of imperialist mentality. We are pre-conditioned at an early age that as a conquered people, we must "class up" while still accepting our second class designation with a culture and education as inferior to those of our subjugstors. Hence we develop a inferiority complex that transcends to our decision making process, regardless of our achievements. Therefore in order for us to proceed along that path of a renaissance, we must first rid ourselves of that malady of infetior thought processes and re-learn how to accept our own on even par as any other. Alternatively, we must be able to distinguish the difference between mediocrity and exceptional and accept that outcome for what it is. Until then, all efforts towards achieving that end should be regarded as a step forward in the right direction with our renaissance being the ultimate achievement.
VJL
Ahem, Vernon, you talk a book there my boy.We are the products of European brain-washing which would probably endure for another several generations.of course as the European influences fade, they are being quickly replaced by the American strain. This leads one to ponder whether we will ever be able to find ourselves.
A friend shared a story of his trip to West africa with a mixed group of Caribbean and Afro Americans. After arriving on the Continent, grumbling arose about the lack of creature comforts that the members were accustomed to back Stateside.
The African tour leader had to put and end to this by declaring," Welcome to Africa, You have travelled here to learn about your Motherland, if you were expecting America, you should have stayed there, and saved yourself, the time and the money."
A serious adjustment to our social and cultural compass would probably start with a visit to the Motherland for reorientation. In short we have to replace our foster "Mutha" with our biological Mother.
As for our passion for "Tings from Foreign" as I said before, in the Spice Island, "KFC talks" and Grenadian born and bred "yard fowl" walks,... unafraid of ending up in a pot.
And speaking about food, ah hear, because I do not go up dey, that two species known as Bowbowipus L'ansepus, and pussycatipus maximus, have been extinct from the North Side since Mama San set up her culinary establishment hard by Boykeville. Vern the proper name of the creature which you so happily placed into your mouth for $30. is probably the "limpet", after which "Limpet mines" circa World War ll, was named. Divers attached them to enemy ships below the water line and, Kaboom!
Whether you were driven by your warlike nature responding to that subliminal message or by your primal urges to ingest something that you fantasize as "Koon Koon of the Sea," i am sure you enjoyed it and considered it money well spent.
>>>>>>Whether you were driven by your warlike nature responding to that subliminal message or by your primal urges to ingest something that you fantasize as "Koon Koon of the Sea," i am sure you enjoyed it and considered it money well spent.<<<<<<
When Tony De heard dat, he said to me,
"boi! You have money to waste!?
Ah en spending ah black cent for it, ah does get it for free".
Some people lucky we?
>>>>>And speaking about food, ah hear, because I do not go up dey, that two species known as Bowbowipus L'ansepus, and pussycatipus maximus, have been extinct from the North Side since Mama San set up her culinary establishment hard by Boykeville<<<<<
You see you!?
You have cuss!
Ah have to watch me self wid you because
you is ah dangerous fella......lol