“A culture based on joy is bound to be shallow. Sadly, to sell itself, the Caribbean encourages the delights of mindlessness, of brilliant vacuity, as a place to flee not only winter but that seriousness that comes only out of culture with four seasons.” Derek Walcott – Nobel Lecture 1992

Walcott’s fellow West Indian Nobel Winner V.S. Naipaul was even more dismissive of the Caribbean, deriding the region as “unfinished” and “incapable of producing anything important”. But even from the shallow perspective that judges all things by western literature both men have been proven wrong. Two Nobel Literature laureates in a decade is pretty strong proof that this tiny region can create something others regard as possessing depth. Though they have written extensively abroad, the voices that won both men acclaim are certainly uniquely West Indian.

How much more mistaken then must such views seem from any perspective extending beyond European books. For no human beings have ever had to forge a philosophy of life from such pitiless and unremitting suffering as the African slaves forcibly transported from their homelands in the harshest possible conditions and then worked to death on sugar plantations thousands of miles away. Is it not utterly ridiculous to accuse a people who literally had to create a purpose in life from blood, sweat, and tears of lacking in profundity?

To be sure those toiling under whips all day long in the burning sun had little opportunity or inclination to reflect on such matters as books and art. But even when their freed descendants later learned to read how could they possibly take seriously any talk of the ennobling or transcendent qualities of art and literature? Were those who transported and worked to death millions of fellow human beings not products of cultures that venerated Homer, Raphael and Mozart?

In a way there is no more serious culture on earth that found in the West Indies. For which people have ever had to confront life in such unsentimental reality or seen up close so conclusively the ultimate meaningless of life on earth? It must have been impossible for those torn from their language and culture and denied all familial ties to have any sense of earthly continuity. And without a complete and unquestioning conviction that there is life after death how could the West Indian race ever have found the will to survive? No wonder they are inclined to the view that the only book that really matters is the Bible. Was it not their only source of hope amidst their unimaginable suffering?

All this I think has given Jamaicans a fundamentally healthy sense of perspective about what is truly important and what is not. When I visit North America it never ceases to amaze me how anguished people in this immensely wealthy society become over matters that residents of this far poorer island accept as at worst a minor inconvenience amidst life’s natural perturbations. This ‘what don’t kill fatten’ attitude is in my opinion one of the reasons Jamaicans have such a high healthy life expectancy despite our comparatively low per capita income.

Our physical inconsequentiality has also rendered any pretension to historical importance ridiculous. Nothing is more pathetic than the attempts of our village celebrity politicians whose renown stops at the shores of this tiny island to try and persuade us of their importance. As a mere dot on the world stage we know it’s very unlikely that anything of lasting material importance will ever take place here. The western, Islamic, African and Asian worlds might peruse their histories and swell with anticipated hubris of possible new additions they might make. Our bitter experience and a relentlessly re-conquering nature has taught us our insignificance and ultimately that of all cultures. Even the thought of a Jamaican boasting as in Shelley’s poem Ozymandias “Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!” is ludicrous.

One inestimable benefit of our historical nonchalance is an almost complete absence of ingrained hatred. While far from perfect, Jamaica surely suffers from less racial animosity than virtually any other country on earth. We did have one or two rather bloodless race riots in the distant past, but even these were products of class resentments, not deeply embedded ethnic bitterness. The dominant feeling here has always been that since all men are one under God those who base their entire world outlook on tribal enmity are wasting their time. And the human genome project has proved us right.

One of the best summations of the Jamaican outlook I’ve ever seen came from an e-mail friend called Trevor.

“We are great believers in ourselves, wonderful social observers with an almost matchless sense of right and wrong. The thorny issue of race which separates some other peoples has not reared its head here in Jamaica because we literally call a spade a spade. We call you by your ethnic group name with not an ounce of malice or ill will maybe because we do not understand the evil of racism. "Blacka", "Chiney" or "Indian!!" is just the easiest way to recognize you and has not the least to do with race.

“The physically challenged in Jamaica (if I may so so) live more easily with their disabilities than elsewhere, as do the not so beautiful among us; you are "double ugly" if you are, "bruk up" if you are, "nook", "ace blank', "look a bush" and somehow life goes on and nobody gives a hoot. "Look a Bush" and " Bruk Up" are as much one of the boys as they want to be and if they choose not to, they will have another name. We should celebrate ourselves more, there is so very much more in us that will keep us together than will ever tear us apart. Which in itself is a blessing.”

We still have serious economic and sociological flaws, especially with regards to crime and violence. But on the whole the cheerfully frank open-mindedness of Jamaican and West Indian society is among the modern world’s most admirable accomplishments. Is it not incredible that a culture forged in the bitterest of circumstances should be unsurpassed for tolerance and joy? changkob@hotmail.com