Caribbean Civilization?

• Author: Dr. Kirk Meighoo
• Pages: 1-7

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Caribbean Civilization?

It is currently becoming fashionable it seems, to speak of Caribbean

Civilization. Fashionable, I say, because I don’t think many have really

thought through the matter, or at least it does not seem so from the context in

which they utter the phrase.

To my knowledge, the first time the idea was publicly stated was by

Barbadian Prime Minister Errol Barrow in a speech at the Miami Conference

on the Caribbean in November 1986, titled, ‘Our Caribbean Civilisation’.

This is fitting, because in the English-speaking Caribbean, Barbados — with

the oldest continuous elected Assembly of legislators in the Western Hemisphere

(365 years old this year) and commendable achievement in building a secure,

prosperous, confident, and well-ordered society — perhaps has the greatest

justification in making the argument.

More recently, Prime Minister of St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Ralph

Gonsalves, has forwarded the idea at the Inaugural Lecture in the Distinguished

Lecture Series sponsored by CARICOM on February 12, 2003. He had spoken

on the topic before, and I have read the late Tim Hector make reference in

March 2001, to a book of collected speeches by Gonsalves titled, The Politics

of Our Caribbean Civilisation.

In addition, O. Nigel Bolland, Professor of Sociology at Colgate

University, New York, has recently edited and compiled a collection of

readings titled, The Birth of Caribbean Civilisation: A Century of Ideas

about Culture and Identity, Nation and Society, soon to be published by Ian

Randle Publishers.

The University of the West Indies for a few years now has been offering

an introductory course for all undergraduates — in every faculty including

CARIBBEAN CIVILIZATION?

Dr. Kirk Meighoo

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