Stories about Caribbean from April, 2008
Jamaica: Calabash 2008
Geoffrey Philp blogs about the 2008 Calabash literary festival in Jamaica and says that “Nobel Prize winning poet Derek Walcott is delighted about his upcoming appearance.”
Bermuda: Freedom of the Press
As Bermuda's Premier responds to international concern over the country's press freedoms, Vexed Bermoothes thinks that his letter “oozes with false sincerity and contorted logic.”
Jamaica, Martinique, Trinidad & Tobago: Lighting the Way
Jamaican litblogger Geoffrey Philp is still processing the news of Aimé Césaire's death: “For if the goal of any life is freedom, then Aimé Césaire was a light”…while Caribbean Free Radio remembers a podcast she did with “Césaire intoning, in his impeccably enunciated French, against a musical background, the first...
Guyana: Walking Shoes
Guyana-Gyal goes for a walk.
Haiti, Congo, and the politics of hunger
Two francophone bloggers respond to the crisis over rising food prices, but rather than blame their proximate cause–subsidies for biofuels in rich countries–they criticize the politics and the politicians who left their countries this vulnerable to begin with. They write that the riots of these last few weeks and the riots to come, like the crisis itself, are symptomatic of deeper problems that cannot be solved by the simple magic of foreign aid.
Barbados: Rising Food Prices
Bajan Global Report takes a look at how rising food prices are affecting various Caribbean territories.
Jamaica, Martinique, Trinidad & Tobago: Césaire Passes On
Jamaican litblogger Geoffrey Philp acknowledges the passing of Aimé Césaire, calling him “a poet honored throughout the French-speaking world and a crusader for West Indian rights”, while Caribbean Beat Blog says: “It is with heavy heart we say goodbye to this son of West Indian soil and thank him for...
Guyana: Threats of Tourism
“Third World governments invariably justify the promotion of tourism as a driving force for economic development,” says Guyana Providence Stadium, but asks: “Is tourism really the holy cow to be protected and nurtured at all costs for Guyana's development?”
Remembering Aimé Césaire
Aimé Césaire - Martinican poet, politician and consummate West Indian - passed away today at the age of 94. It is not often that politics and poetry go together, but when they do, the West Indies is as fertile an environment as any for the two to coexist. Césaire seamlessly blended his love for language, ideas and writing into his political life, which spanned almost 60 years.
Bahamas: Code of Ethics
“It has long been a desire of mine to see Parliament pass legislation committing a Code of Ethics for Parliamentarians…”: Rick Lowe at WeblogBahamas.com explains.
Trinidad & Tobago, Venezuela: Archaeological Find
Caribbean Beat Blog reveals that on the island of Cubagua, situated between Venezuela's northeastern shoreline and the resort island of Margarita, “researchers reportedly have found archaelogical traces of three distinct periods of human history in the Americas.”
Bermuda: Restricting the Media?
Vexed Bermoothes reports that the government's decision to pull advertising from the Royal Gazette has prompted a letter of complaint from The Inter American Press Association: “It’s really quite an embarrassment for Bermuda to be singled out for this criticism … to be grouped in with countries that sponsor censorship,...
Guyana, Trinidad & Tobago: Debt of Gratitude
Signifyin’ Guyana profiles a Trinidad-born writer whose latest work book was a finalist for the 2008 National Book Critics Circle Award for biography: “I owe Arnold Rampersad a great big thank-you for making this West Indian woman feel a lot more comfortable about studying Literature in huge American undergraduate classrooms…”
Uruguay: 365 versions of La Cumparsita
Three hundred and sixty five versions of one of the most famous tangoes in the world, La Cumparsita, will be played in Independence Plaza in Montevideo, which is the site where it was played for the first time 91 years ago. Café Montevideo [es] has more details.
Jamaica, Guyana, U.S.A.: Virginia Tech Remembered
Jamaican Geoffrey Philp links to Guyanese poet Fred D’Aguiar's poem for Virginia Tech on the one-year anniversary of the shootings.
Trinidad & Tobago, USA, Africa, Italy: Religion & Politics
Notes from Port of Spain weighs in on everything from the Pope's visit to the US: “It's not enough for the Pope to be ‘ashamed’ of his American paedophile priests…he also has to do something about them” to international politics: “It's a lesson to every crook in office or aspiring...
Haiti: Reasons for Riots
The Haitian Blogger says that “amid food riots in Haiti, US claims of ‘success’ in Haiti sound hollow.”
Trinidad & Tobago: Listen to the Music
Trinidadian blogger Now is Wow draws a musical sketch.
Bermuda: Road Deaths
Vexed Bermoothes is “appalled by the multiple deaths on Bermuda’s roads” and says that “police enforcement will improve driving behaviour.”
Bermuda: Holiday Spirits?
Both A Radical In Bermuda and Politics.bm blog about the “outrage” surrounding the government's decision to “axe the Queen's Birthday as a June holiday”.
Guyana: Demerara Bridge is Falling Down?
Living Guyana issues a national warning about the Demerara Harbour Bridge, calling it “a floating disaster waiting to happen.”
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