COMMENTARY Goin’ Back ta Da Islan’: Migration, Memory and the Marketplace in Bahamian Art

Ian Gregory Strachan The College of The Bahamas1 ABSTRACT Wake up early one mornin’ Kiss my Mamma goodbye Goin’ back ta di Islan’ I say, don’ worry Mamma, don’ cry Ronnie and the Ramblers, “Crown calypso” (1969, track 8) We are who we are Children of the hot lands We build fires every Christmas And pray in earnest for cold weather Jerome Cartwright, “Cold snap” (1993) I told of never coming Winter; The boats dancing gaily in a blue bay; Then I sang of flowers blooming, the wild ocean booming, Thunder walking the streets of the islands in May Robert Elliot Johnson, “The wanderer” (1972)

INTRODUCTION addresses our sense of alienation from our These three extracts provide an introduction island landscape as a result of the North to our subject: the factors affecting the Atlantic’s cultural colonialism. And the last representation of the Bahamian landscape in poem, by Robert Elliot Johnson, demonstrates art. Together they seem to triangulate the the extent to which Bahamians speak in the subject. The lyrics from a song performed by language of the tourist brochure when one of our most celebrated calypsonians, describing their country to outsiders. Ronnie Butler, explore the irrepressible Migration, memory and the marketplace do nostalgia for a simpler rural past that not exhaust the list of factors shaping our art, permeates much of Bahamian secular music but they are principal players in its produced after Independence in 1973. The production. second, a poem by Jerome Cartwright, We shall see that there are important

1 Ian Gregory Strachan, Vice President, Office of Communications, The College of The Bahamas, P.O. Box N-4912, Nassau, Bahamas e-mail: [email protected] Acknowledgements: A version of this paper was published in Yinna, vol. 2 (2007), pp. 29-46. APA reference: Strachan, I. G. (2014). Goin’ back ta da islan’: Migration, memory and the marketplace in Bahamian art. International Journal of Bahamian Studies, 20(1), 52-62. Retrieved from http://journals.sfu.ca/cob/index.php/files/article/view/213/267

 I.G. Strachan, 2014. Journal compilation The International Journal of Bahamian Studies, 2014 I. G. Strachan. Goin’ Back to de Islan’. 53 connections between the Bahamian nostalgia still alive to many that The Bahamas is less for the rural Family Island past and touristic “real” as a nation, when compared to our idealizations of Caribbean island life. neighbor, the United States. This inferiority Whereas Africa often becomes the subject of complex is not unique to Bahamians; many longing and idealization in Jamaican reggae English-speaking Caribbean societies suffer music, in Bahamian music Da Islan’ is a more from it (Cliff, 1995; Naipaul, 1969b). What compelling object of idealization, nostalgia, happened to Bahamians during British romanticism and yearning. The three forms of colonial rule was a kind of alienation from the artistic expression we will examine are poetry, very land on which they lived. Bahamians music and painting. dreamed of one world and lived in another, The romanticization of the pastoral place is meaner, cruder one. The same can be said of not new in human history. It goes hand in many of today’s American cable, satellite, hand with the nostalgia for childhood, for a Netflix and DirectTV watchers. Since time of greater innocence. Since the literature Independence, Bahamians have come more of antiquity, City people have pined for the and more under the influence of the United Country, where it was believed people knew States, as had the entire world since the end of each other and knew how to get along, where World War II. For instance, the majority of one was safer, where it has always been tourists who come to The Bahamas are of imagined that life was easier, there was less United States provenance. suffering, less violence, less greed and evil The Bahamian problem of place is further (Williams, 1973, p. 17). We must remember complicated by the fact that Afro-Bahamians that many people often think that the present descend from slaves who never wished to day is worse than the Good Ole Days and that come to this country, who had a home that things will get worse before they get better. was elsewhere, in Africa. The loss of Africa, So what are the factors affecting notions of some have argued, has contributed to a sense home and homeland in The Bahamas? First, of restlessness and a lack of connection with we acknowledge that those two terms do not the land among Caribbean people. We are a necessarily mean the same thing, particularly people, in other words, who mourn the loss of in an archipelago where all of the citizens of that which we never knew; in this century we the country do not live on the same land mass perhaps have no archaeological link to the (Bethel, 2000). We must remember that, like land. There are no ruins to look upon. We many Caribbean nations in which internal cannot trace our ancestry in these islands back migration moves from the rural to the urban into the mists of antiquity. Our African past, locales, The Bahamas has undergone a even our past in these islands rests on what, in dramatic population shift which has left the the American context, Michael Dyson refers Family Islands under-populated since the to as the “ash heap of dismemory” (1993, p. 1960s and 1970s, motivated by the search for 32). educational and employment opportunities in We must also bear in mind that despite the capital. But notions of home are universal suffrage and independence, the complicated by other factors. In the era of formerly enslaved and colonized people still colonialism under Britain, it was the Mother do not feel that they are in full possession and Country and its landscape (like its history, its control of the institutions that employ them, songs and traditions), which were idealized, or of the economy that feeds them. The State the subject of fantasy, of reverence. In the is not the same as the Community in the eyes post-Independence Bahamas, the notion is of the people. Rather, it is often viewed as an

The International Journal of Bahamian Studies Vol. 20, No. 1 (2014) I. G. Strachan. Goin’ Back to de Islan’. 54 adversary—something to use whenever Walcott could recollect in a recent essay that possible, but more importantly, something there was something terrifying and exciting around which to maneuver for one’s about writing the word “breadfruit” on a piece individual best interest. There is little thought of paper in 1945 (1996, p. 26). One was of hurting the nation with one’s illegalities, elevating in art that which was too mean, too one’s mediocrity, indiscipline or low mundane, too native to be celebrated in verse. productivity, only of helping oneself and Of course, the Bahamian artist’s one’s family, and avoiding the law.2 representations of home are informed by yet These circumstances contribute to a disregard another colonizing force, that of tourism and for the landscape among many, a lack of its highly marketable conception of the reverence for the place on which they walk. Bahama Islands as places not only of natural This is characteristic of a people who still feel beauty but also of bliss, innocence, no stake in the place in which they find forgetfulness, and tranquility. themselves, no need to ensure its preservation There are a number of ways in which the fact for future generations. The rampant pollution of migration becomes manifest in Bahamian and widespread disregard for historic art. The forced migration of blacks from buildings and land formations attest to this. (I Africa becomes the subject of consideration say this being fully aware of the phenomenon for a number of Bahamian artists, particularly of Family Island generation land, which poets and musicians, but some visual artists as ensures that all black Bahamians can comfort well. Second, migration becomes a subject of themselves with the thought of imaginary Bahamian art through calls for tourists to wealth and acreage beyond the limits of come and taste the sweet island life. This is desire, but which actually remains a key to the most overt in our music. And third, the disinheritance of the masses, as the heirs to disenchantment with the urban experience of these hundreds of acres remain in debt and New Providence and the nostalgia for what is crammed into Nassau duplexes and perceived as the more peaceful and Government low-cost subdivisions.) community-oriented experience of the Family It is against the backdrop of this tradition of Islands become another subject of the art, colonial and neocolonial negation of their particularly popular songs. own landscape’s right to exist as a real place, It should be noted that Africa has not been against this tradition of disinheritance, and ignored in post-Independence Bahamian art. this sense of exile while at home, that A number of artists have drawn attention to Bahamian artists engage in the necessarily our history of forced migration through political act of representing and celebrating slavery. Poems such as Robert Elliott Home and Homeland as they wish to define Johnson’s “East Street,” and “Sailing West” them, rather than remaining the coerced (1972), Livingston Malcolm’s “In the witnesses of someone else’s celebrations of Distance of My Mind” (1979) and Christian place, of culture, the involuntary witnesses of Campbell’s ironically titled poem “Paradise” the developed world’s preoccupation with its (1999), display a consciousness of the loss of own triumphant march toward the Western Africa and the legacy of slavery. These horizon. This is why Nobel Laureate Derek writers view Africa as the unacknowledged yet fundamental force of Bahamian culture. 2 Chinua Achebe makes similar observations in The They seek to raise the consciousness of their Trouble with Nigeria. One might also note Naipaul’s readers to the fact that even as they are description of Trinidad as a “picaroon society” in The Middle Passage (London: Penguin, 1969), pp. 78-79. Bahamians they are Africans.

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Patrick Rahming’s poem “Slave Name” longing for Home. In 1783, after the (1993) describes the process under which American War of Independence, Loyalists colonial education deepened the severance came to The Bahamas with their slaves from Africa that bondage and transplantation (Albury, 1988, p. 108). One can reasonably had inflicted upon Bahamians. The persona imagine that for the Bahamian slave of this poem was taught that English history transplanted from Georgia who sang of was the only real history. He was denied crossing Jordan and seeing that beautiful knowledge of his ancestors in The Bahamas shore, this imagined destination could have who were slaves, and he was denied been any of three places. Obviously, it would knowledge of African ways of life that pre- mean heaven and the hereafter. Second, it dated colonialism. Rahming was also could be the longed-for Georgia and Carolina responsible for recording the song, “Mwale” coasts. But also the longing to see the shore (1996, track 9), a ballad that charts the capture on the other side could very well be the of an African, his experience of the Middle manifestation of the belief that in death the Passage, his subjugation in The Bahamas and souls of slaves returned to Africa. So today, the achievement of a new personhood by his when our elders sing that they are “going ancestors. Exuma the Obeah Man (Tony home on the morning train,” we must truly McKay) not only called for justice and wonder which home was originally intended. compensation for years of black servitude in The lyrics below were recorded by Peter his song “Pay Me What You Owe Me” (1972, Siegel and Jody Stecher and first released in track 6) but he also makes very explicit 1978. Sung by the Pinder family, these lyrics reference in his song, “Walking Home” typify the potential multivalence of Bahamian (1972, track 8) to the folk belief that blacks spirituals. could fly back to Africa. All these artists are Oh Lord, I want you take me over the tide a part of an intellectual community in The I cry to the Lord, Jesus, Bahamas that is not so much calling for Take me over the tide repatriation to Africa as for a more acute When my work on earth is ended historical consciousness among Bahamians. And I cannot work no longer The focus on Africa in the poetry and music O Lord, Jesus, take me over the tide. has its corollary in the artwork of visual artists (Siegel & Stecher, 1988) such as Stan Burnside and John Beadle, where African mask motifs meet Junkanoo colour to The migration of tourists has been a subject of form a compelling black Bahamian spiritual Bahamian musical expression since the 1940s, and cultural response to colonialism, past and probably earlier. George Symonette’s song present. The moving renditions of black “Little Nassau” (1955, track 1) celebrated the Bahamians Max Taylor, Erica James and tourist experience and invited the white Lillian Blades are also useful examples. foreigner to come to the Bahamas and live the life of a big shot while on vacation. In the We should note, though, that the modern post-Independence period, songs have offered works of Rahming or Exuma are probably not the natural beauty of the nation, the food, the the first time Africa has been the subject of culture and the friendliness of the people to song in The Bahamas. The anthems and the dollar-spending outsider for his/her spirituals sung by Bahamian slaves and still enjoyment and consumption. Marvin sung by their descendants to this very day, Henfield’s “Come Down, It’s Better in the many of which can be traced to the plantations Bahamas”, Frank Penn and The Esquires’ of Georgia and the Carolinas, are songs of “Bahamas” (1973, track B2), Raphael

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Munnings’ “Bahamas Experience” (1986, side “Cariconch Quincentennial” (1993) and A), Nita’s “Good Lord” (1998, track 8, Obediah Michael Smith’s “Wax Paper written by Norris Carroll), and King Eric and People” (2003) are examples of poems that His Knights’ “Once is Not Enuff” (1970s, have delivered powerful critiques of the track 1, written by Eric Minns) are all fine tourist economy and its effects on Bahamians examples of this trend: socially, culturally and morally. As early as Once is not enough 1971, two years before Bahamian Even twice, you don’t see all a we stuff independence, Timothy McCartney expressed Come back for some conch grave concerns in his work Neuroses in the Peas and rice and guava duff Sun about the ethos tourism would engender Cause when you visit the Bahamas in the Bahamas. Paintings like “Excerpts Once is not enough. from the American Dream” by David Smith are among the few to overtly attack the Considering that most Bahamian musicians brochuristic representations of the Bahamian have only been able to earn a living by landscape by juxtaposing touristic images performing for tourists over the past 30 years, with less glamorous vignettes of Bahamian and that tourism is not only our principal life. Limerick, who likens the exploitation of employer but is also heavily promoted by Bahamians to the use and abuse of the now what Althusser (1984) calls “state ideological endangered conch, asks: apparatuses,” like the media and the schools, it is no wonder that some songwriters have Still ravaged by the florid foins either taken the initiative or been asked to of effluent America compose tourist songs. That these songs have will we find jaded dignity had tremendous popularity among Bahamians when custom seeks more virgin soil speaks to the extent to which Bahamians take as pleasure’s surfeit pales? pride in a tourist vision of The Bahamas as a or are we doomed by torture to Paradise. This rhetoric has been met with a a lifetime on our back? (1993, p. 87) degree of approval even if people really know Among the most popular subjects of better. Such songs have fed Bahamian Bahamian secular recorded music (along with national pride and are probably not seen as simple, celebratory dance tunes) is the radical being any different from other songs transformation of Bahamian ways of life since expressing pride in the place of our birth, like majority rule and Independence; more Smokey 007 and The Surgeons’ “Bahamas specifically, the transformation in the material You Born There” (1980s, track 1A). Few conditions of black Bahamians and the ways musical artists have taken tourism to task and in which our culture has been adapted to suit addressed some of its negative social effects. that transformation. These songs mourn the Pat Rahming’s song “Package Deal” (1996, loss of Island Life, they reminisce about the track 1) stands as a significant exception with Good Old Days in The Bahamas, before its critique of male prostitution in the tourist modernization and urbanization, they offer a arena. kind of cultural nationalism rooted in the rural As far as critiquing tourism is concerned, Bahamian past, rooted in practices, foodways, Bahamian writers have taken the lead. rituals that preceded the transformation of Marion Bethel’s “On a Coral Cay” (2008), family structures, the collapse of Family Patricia Glinton-Meicholas’ “No Vacancy in Island settlements, the overpopulation of Paradise” (2001), Carlson Limerick’s Nassau, the onslaught of American commercialism. These songs also celebrate

The International Journal of Bahamian Studies Vol. 20, No. 1 (2014) I. G. Strachan. Goin’ Back to de Islan’. 57 seasonal returns to the Family Islands for landscapes, visits to outlying New Providence regatta or other trips. The songwriters express settlements like Adelaide and Gambier elicit pride in the beauty of their respective places remarks like “It jus’ like Da Islan’ out there.” of birth, all in contradistinction to Nassau and Clearly then, Da Islan’ is a kind of spatial and New Providence. Butler’s “Crown Calypso” temporal metaphor: it signifies a particular (1969, track 8), Exuma’s “Cat Island Rake Bahamian space other than Nassau but one to and Scrape Band” (1982, track 5), Phil which Nassauvians can claim familiarity and Stubbs’ “Beautiful Cat Island” (1995?, track affinity. It also represents a moment, a time, B1), “Down Home” and “Persevere” (1995, in two senses: to go to Da Islan’ is to go to tracks 4 and 2), The Magnetics’ “Andros another time, and talk of Da Islan’ is talk of Island” (Hit songs from the Bahamas, 1997, the past of most Bahamians, a past which is track 9) and Geno D’s “Inagua” (1996, track lost to them. To talk of the past when there 4) are examples. was no crime and men were good, children In these songs, as in the general public spoke only when spoken to and learned the discourse about life on Da Islan’, certain Golden Rule, is to inhabit the space of Da notions appear consistently. The expression Islan’. Intrinsic in the concept of Islan’ life, “Da Islan’” becomes a metaphor for a then, is a conservatism masked by nostalgia. particular style of life, one which is to be Even when Nassauvians say they can opposed diametrically to life on New remember when in Nassau people had respect Providence, or in the city of Nassau, as it is for their elders and children were safe walking broadly conceived. New Providence no home from school, they are saying Nassau longer exists as an island in the popular was like Da Islan’ in this way. So a song like imagination. It is imagined as having all the Sweet Emily’s “Bring Back the Good Ole amenities and comforts, trappings and Days” (1998, track 7) inhabits the same problems of the metropolitan city. nostalgic space as a song like “Down Home” by Phil Stubbs (1995, track 4). Da Islan’ is a place where there is no electricity, or running water, where there is no Winston Saunders’ series of plays The crime, where everyone knows his neighbor, Nehemiah Chronicles (1996) also addresses where anyone can scold your children if they the dramatic transformation in Bahamian are rude, where children are never impolite, lifestyles since majority rule ushered in rapid where people work together as a community, development. And though these plays do not where doors are never locked, there is no fail to highlight the inequities that existed in noise or garbage, where there are no burglar The Bahamas along colour lines, they also fall bars, people are Christians, men are faithful to into nostalgia for a time when, to put it their spouses, etc. Eddie Minnis’ song simply, Bahamians were more civil to each “Nassau People” (1979, track 3) is a comic other. treatment of this notion. Many Bahamians A number of books have been published since over the age 40 who talk of the Family Islands black majority rule in 1967, documenting will also use the expression “home” to Bahamian lifeways prior to the social and describe the island of their birth and first economic transformations that modernized the years, even though they have not lived there country. The most famous and successful of for 30 years or more, and seldom, if ever, these is probably Bain Town by Cleveland return. Eneas (1976). Visual artists have plugged We should also note that, because of their into the romanticisation of life in the Family Islands, and, being cognizant of the appeal of

The International Journal of Bahamian Studies Vol. 20, No. 1 (2014) I. G. Strachan. Goin’ Back to de Islan’. 58 the quaint among people of the more for the authentic object of the past. The latest developed world who are searching for relics monstrosity built by an Andros drug dealer or of the pre-industrial world, they have crafted his lawyer is never represented in the work of images which simultaneously appeal to the these artists. The Poinciana tree is a favourite Bahamian longing for a return home and to subject of Bahamian pastoral art and the tourist wish for an Eden. Their portrayals variations on this theme can be found in are of perpetual sunshine, hibiscus and banks, hotels, law firms, doctors’ offices and coconut trees, flamingoes and egrets, lovely restaurants throughout the nation. This wooden colonial homes bordered by indicates the success of this kind of art not bougainvillea, Poinciana trees in bloom, only with tourists but also with affluent quaint little harbours where the water is never Bahamians who frequent art shows in the rough and the sky never grey, picturesque capital. regatta sloops with poised black male sailors, and noble old folk standing outside their limestone or clapboard houses. These paintings could easily be mistaken for tourist postcards. And when artists with this tendency depict Nassauvians, they again choose to represent them inhabiting that metaphorical Islan’ space. They may portray clapboards and poor children but they are colourful and picturesque; they are one with the palm trees and flowers, a part of the local colour. The black Bahamian fisherman in Figure 1: Winslow Homer, A Wall, Nassau. 1898. Nassau Harbour is part of this also; he is a Retrieved from http://www.wikiart.org/en/winslow- living tourist landmark, a representation of homer/a-wall-nassau who is as close to nature as people in the The painting “Regatta Fever” by Dorman islands are. In this way, a number of post- Stubbs offers us the typical treatment of Independence artists are no different in their regatta that so many photographers and portrayals of black Bahamians than Winslow painters have composed in the last thirty Homer more than 100 years ago depicting years. Drunken men and women in “poom what he considered to be primitive native poom” shorts, another, perhaps more black fishermen in pieces like “The Turtle profound part of the regatta experience, are Pond.” never seen. This image is chosen as an Dorman Stubbs, Eddie Minnis and his emblem of Bahamian-ness, of our past living daughters Nicole and Roshanne, Alton Lowe in the present. and Ricardo Knowles typify this style. Theirs The Family Island then, comes to represent is a mode of representation that is often archaism. It must always conform to this reminiscent of 19th century illustrations that sense of being an elsewhere time. Images that can be found in American and British travel suggest modernity in the Family Islands, that books and magazines. There is a fetishisation suggest that these islands exist in the same of objects that come to symbolize the past, world and time as the capital Nassau, with the particularly colonial homes or old clapboard same resources as Nassau, are usually houses. This is, of course, a feature of excluded. These islands are to remain modern tourism the world over—the search

The International Journal of Bahamian Studies Vol. 20, No. 1 (2014) I. G. Strachan. Goin’ Back to de Islan’. 59 repositories of our cultural past in the present; circumstances. we need them to be so. Interestingly, some For instance, 15 or 16 was not an abnormal recent songs have achieved the twin appeal age to get married 50 or more years ago. With we have been discussing with respect to increased opportunities for women today, paintings. They tap into the modern, urban opportunities they were denied for far too longing for what is imagined as a less vexing long, it is now quite rare to see 15-year old time and they appeal to the romance with The Bahamians marry. But teenagers have not Islands with which the North Atlantic is ceased sexual activity. I realize that this is not afflicted. Bahamen’s re-make of Ronnie the only explanation for teenage pregnancy, Butler’s “Crown Calypso” (“Back to the but changes such as these are misinterpreted Island”, 1992, track 1) sung in what the by the advocates of a return to the “good ole performers must have felt assured was the days,” as signs that we have suddenly lost our kind of Caribbean accent American listeners morality. would be familiar/comfortable with or expecting, talks of going back to Da Islan’s Similarly, communities relied more on and lists those islands, telling the visitor to go cooperation and the sharing of resources in there. Certainly Bahamians don’t need to be the Family Islands in order to survive prior to told which islands they can go to in their own Majority Rule and the great population shift. country. But with increased economic growth and social change there has been an increase in In a different kind of twist, Geno D’s individualism. People are more and more “Inagua” (1996, track 4) seems to actually be becoming competitors in the game of encouraging Bahamians to become tourists acquisition than partners in survival. In New and visit the country’s best kept secret. It Providence one does not necessarily know asks, “Where you gonna go nex’ year/What one’s neighbours and they are less likely one’s you gonna do?” And instead of saying come relatives than in the Family Islands. to The Bahamas, it says come to Inagua. The song, “Harbour Island” by the Brilanders Certainly, the central authority and organizing (Keep the Vide Alive, 2002, track 1), also power of the Church seems to have sounds like an advertisement for local diminished since Independence, despite the tourism. proliferation of sacred edifices. But although the Church might enforce a degree of What are we to make of this practice of discipline we find comforting considering the idealizing the Family Islands? As I have social tensions and violence The Bahamas has stated earlier, the tendency to present the past experienced since the late 1980s, the Church as a Golden Age is common to many cultures also can oppress. We inhabit a much larger in recorded history. It is a fact that there was community today than our parents and less crime in the common sense of it, that grandparents did and this means that communities were more cohesive and that consensus and consent are harder to obtain codes of behavior were more strictly enforced. and maintain. But is this all bad? It is also true that there was less divorce, less illegitimate teenage pregnancy and fewer Artistic portrayals of the present-day Family reasons for people to lock their doors. Many Islands choose to ignore that many of these Family Island settlements still have a low places are poor and abandoned, that occurrence of crime. But these phenomena opportunities are very limited and they are, in were all products of particular historical, a sense, the third world of The Bahamas. A social, demographic and economic great many Nassauvians talk about Da Islan’

The International Journal of Bahamian Studies Vol. 20, No. 1 (2014) I. G. Strachan. Goin’ Back to de Islan’. 60 but they could not bear returning to it Of course, not all artists have fallen into tomorrow to live. Similarly, there is nostalgia mystifying the Family Islands and the past. for the positive things about the past of the There is a striking difference between Family Islands but no one wishes to turn back Antonius Roberts’ portraits of the elderly the clock and return to depending on the (repositories of our past) and the kind of mailboat for survival, fighting mosquitoes and “nativization” we see from Alton Lowe. As abandoning the comforts of modern life. mentioned earlier, the work of David Smith is Certainly Bahamians are not to be criticized notable because he subverts the touristic too harshly for missing aspects of their recent image with representations of a Bahamian- past. Upon leapfrogging into the modern, ness that is anything but picturesque. urban, capitalist, democratic world, a good And to be fair to our songwriters, they have deal of trouble has come into Bahamian not entirely glossed over the unpleasantness of homes. With increased consumerism, drug the past in their lyrics. Ronnie Butler’s trafficking, exposure to the violence and culturally nationalistic song “Burma Road” commodity worship of the American media, (1969, track 1) calls for a return to “the bush” overpopulation, male dysfunction, the but not without a bittersweet sense of humour, proliferation of violent crime, and the decline as he reminds his listeners that poor black in a number of pre-independence customs, Bahamians once wore flour sacks for clothing. Bahamians who can remember when red meat In Phil Stubbs’s “Down Home” (1995, track was an event, shoes a privilege and a toilet a 4) we find much nostalgia, but among his luxury, are feeling dizzy. memories of childhood in Cat Island are cold Naturally then, we seem to wish we could nights sleeping in crocus (burlap) sack slow it all down. We wonder if we are not blankets. “We didn’t have much/Ah, but we throwing the baby out with the bath water. had so much love,” he tells us. Geno D’s And our art, particularly our songs, express equally nostalgic calypso/rap song, “Ya this. Few really wish to return to a time when Remember When” (1996, track 1) is another women could not vote, when black people case in point. Although it asks us if we were politically and economically “Remember the old days/Them good old disenfranchised, when the Family Islands happy days,” it also reminds us that the past were the margins of a marginal colony. This was a time of racial discrimination that blacks nostalgia shows a society struggling to gets its had to fight to eradicate. bearings, a society that has been reeling due to In conclusion, the passage that interests the pace of its own metamorphoses. It would Bahamians most is not the passage that not wish to jettison the economic and political brought about the loss of Africa but the gains of the last 40 years, but it mourns the passage that brought us from the Family cultural and social cost of such gains. We Islands to Nassau. I say this despite the particularly mourn the rise in violence and popularity of Jamaican reggae music, which this makes us look fondly to the past. We so often uses Africa as a rallying symbol, and should remember, however, that there are despite the popularity of Rastafarianism various kinds of violence, and holding a among young Bahamian males. (I say this people politically, spiritually, economically, bearing in mind that Africa is remembered culturally and socially hostage from 1838 (the every day under the surface of things in so end of slavery) to 1967 (Majority Rule) is not much of what we do). exactly an era when lions and lambs played Perhaps the fact that The Bahamas is an together in flowering fields.

The International Journal of Bahamian Studies Vol. 20, No. 1 (2014) I. G. Strachan. Goin’ Back to de Islan’. 61 archipelago, and coming to New Providence can afford to lose what we seem intent on required that our parents and grandparents jettisoning, our artists and our scholars must crossed over water, has given “down home” lead the way in a more critical consideration greater symbolic appeal than Africa. Our of our past, in looking at the past as honestly artists—particularly our musicians—are and as objectively as possible. A keener raising, in a sense, the fundamental questions historical consciousness is needed, and the facing our nation: What type of a people are kind of social critique that does not rely on the we to be; how are we to proceed as a nation; impossible wish to return to the way it was— what is community? The backward glance at since it never was what we claim it was—but life on Da Islan’ and Over da Hill in the good on honest, hard analysis and a vision of the ole days, is also a form of resistance; future. All cultures change, and what gets resistance to what is perceived as the too- called national identity is often determined by rapid Americanization and globalization of the agenda of the people with the power to our way of life. It is an assertion of our name such things and coordinate consent. I difference in the face of globalization’s am not arguing that there are not waning homogenizing power. It is an assertion of our aspects of our ways of life worth retaining, difference in the face of a brand of American but such aspects must be proven viable and colonialism that makes every street a series of relevant to the people if they are to survive; McDonald's restaurants, Texaco gas stations, otherwise they will fade away. Otherwise and Walmarts. they are just tools for the posturing of poets, But as we begin to assess the value of what preachers and politicians who merely wish to we have gained and to consider whether we manipulate discontent.

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