Diaspora voices are the key to understanding the collective African voice. Without discussion amongst Africans abroad and African diasporans, the continent is most certainly doomed and thus our roots will be dug up.
Why all the interest in the African diaspora? I have believed as sentimental as it may sounds, I see Afro-Caribbeans, Afro-Americans, Afro-Brazilians et al as sisters and brothers. Bygbaby had an excellent post about Negritude. This philosophy argued that French West Indians essentially had their roots in Africa and that their cultural links could be found there. However, a different school of thought (creolite) entered Martinican academia and it claimed that French West Indians shouldn’t look necessarily Africa and that their cultural heritage lies in the mixed identity of the racial makeup that comprises of East Indians and Chinese ethnic minorities. While I do not disagree that the West Indies is a place where racial mixing has been happening for centuries, I think the adherents to creolite and antillanite are missing the point that Negritude was meant as almost a banner for Black French West Indians who wanted to assert their identity as people of African descent. I do not think that Aime Cesaire tried to force it on all other Martinicans of different origins.
My opinion on creolite and antillanite (the latter of which also stresses that French West Indian identity is neither French, African or Chinese but a fusion of all of them into a real West Indian identity) is that they are interesting philosophical movements but ones that are ultimately disappointing in that they forget to stress that the root of their existence is from Africa.
When I spent time in Martinique last year, I truly saw two types of Martinicans: the ones who believed in their ‘creole’ identity and the ones who saw Africa as the soil from which they came from. I find it so refreshing and invigorating that we all think differently and I do not want to come across like I am condemning them for believing in creolite. What I am saying is those 2 ideals seem to be rejecting Africa as as with antillanite, according to wikipedia: Thus, it could be said that while Négritude looked inwards, to African heritage, for its models and values Antillanité looked both inwards, and outwards, towards the Caribbean and Meso-America as a whole, in its quest for self-invention from which proponents conceived identity as an archipelago of signifiers, none of which enjoys primacy over the others and whose unity lies not in the fact of possessing a single source but, rather, in the complex amalgamation of these myriad forces which hold themselves in relation to each other. . Thus by doing so, can you truly be part of the “black diaspora” or the “african diaspora” if you do not look towards africa?
I think they evoke a separatist philosophy from the traditional African diaspora because from what I have read, there seems to be no philosophical link with Africa — only that she played a part in forging the identity as opposed to being a focal point of identity.
Martinique in general is a different kettle of fish compared to other Caribbean islands I visited (St.Lucia & Barbados) because it still belongs to France so perhaps creolite is a uniform for those Martinicans who do not want to be swallowed hole by French mouths. Yet by espousing this seemingly multi-cultural belief, can they be part of the African diaspora if they are not willing to connect to it?
While I respect why it has come to pass due to the fact that identity is a powerful catalyst for change and the exchange of ideas, I believe you cannot understand your present until you recognise your past. The enslavement of African people is the most significant point in human history in my opinion because it systematically tried to destroy a people’s common history: their African heritage. Despite this, its’ effects have meant that the void between Black Africans and Black West Indians has become larger than we could ever imagine.
We live in our respective countries and we must try and improve life for our fellow citizens. However, we need to stick together to help each other too because racism does not see nationalities and passports, it only sees colour. I have learned a great deal reading posts from the diasporic voices on my blog roll and I thank for educating me about what it is like being a person of African descent in the diaspora. Nothing is more important to me in a educational sense than learning about how different black people live but can I truly call a black person a member of the “African diaspora” if they do not want to?
Because creolite and antillanite are not afro-centric philosophies, I do not think they evoke membership as part of the diaspora but they are endeavours of black people so in that respect, they deserve to be discussed.
5 Comments
04/06/2007 at 23:38
Thanks for the shout out! I am a proud member of the Diaspora & love it when I can come together with others to discuss global conditions that affect us across the globe.
Bygbaby
04/06/2007 at 17:03
Most of the indians were exterminated early in the game by the colonial period . The Indians were not as strong as the africans .
Basically a great number of blacks of the diaspora want to be anything but part african .Yes this is a blanket statement , but I feel it is true. Have u ever noticed if you ask a black person , that maybe has fine hair or aqualine features , about his history , they don’t want to be just african american they have to be 100 million other nationalites , with a little black … remember Mariah Carey , she was white and her father was a black venezuelan . He couldn’t just be a black man he had to be a “venezulean “. Does she know the venezulean culture , did she speak the language? Why do we feel the need to validate ourselves with other races , it like african is not good enough ….
I wouldn’t put to much stake in what columbus said , he’s a liar and he was not the first one to come to the americas.
Africa ,it has been noted previouosly is the origin of all people // cradle of civilization . History has been rewritten to favor the whites, i really would like to know the reason , so many books have been burned , and the ones that weren’t are probably under lock and key with museums and the catholic church ..
creolite and antillanite are interesting theories , especially coming from the martinicians. Have u ever been to Haiti , ?? It is a interesting place to see the races within one race at work .
04/06/2007 at 13:57
LOL…I don’t disagree with the fact that Human kind began in Africa, it is the fact that ALL human beings come from Africa proved by mitochondrial DNA, yet there is no place on the face of the Earth that was not populated by what we would call Black people today. There are several works, that can aide in overstanding about Black peoples of the Western Hemishpere before a so called white person ever emerged on earth. All I am saying is we were here in the Americas long before a slave trade, we were in Europe long before the movement of the Moors in 710 CE. There have been much research done on Africans coming to the Americas as early as the 1200 BC. And yet the people the Africans saw when the reached the Western Hemisphere were people that looked like them. This is all I am saying, not to disagree that a slave trade did not exist, but that the amount of Africans moved during such trade has been ballooned, over estimated. No disagreement, just a relook at what is logical and what makes sense when we look at the slave trade stories…
02/06/2007 at 17:27
Ensayn — Thanks for taking the time to comment. You have raised some interesting and polemic points.
Perhaps in that context CColumbus was referring to the geographic region of the Caribbean being known as the Indies. It is such an interesting theory but one that I ultimately have to disagree with. The reason for this is all these coded words such as négritude, créole etc help to create an identity. In a world where identity is as priceless as liquid gold. Despite the fact that I think créolité is non-afrocentric, it is an endeavour of black people so I still respect that.
I don’t think that we have been conditioned to think that black people in the diaspora are descendants because most black people despite being mixed to a certain extent have their roots from Africa since that is the continent of the origin of “black” people (don’t even get me started on Tanzania and the human remains found there lol).
Your ideas are challenging — thank you.
02/06/2007 at 17:12
Hey Aulelia, Interesting topic. Now is the time we must get an overstanding of who we are in the diaspora. I think that we, the melanin people in the West really have to come to terms with the fact that the Americas are OUR original lands. In that we are not Creoles nor recently dislocated peoples from Africa. Recently meaning we did not come to the West in chains as enslaved Africans during the 1500s. This is difficult to swallow for many in the West as we have been taught all our lives that we are the sons and daughters of African slaves. There were some that did arrive that way but the vast majority of people that were enslaved were the natives of the Americas. This teaching of us being brought from Africa as slaves since the 1500s is designed to leave us in a state of “homeless” mental flux. We really need to overstand that the whole planet was populated by peoples of “olive” skin tone. Now, we know there are only two type olives the green and the black, and obviously there are no green people. Christopher “Combus us” Columbus noted in his captains log that “the people of the Indies look like the people of the Canary Islands”, right off the coast of Africa. The word Indi has nothing to do with light or almost white looking people, as the prifix Indi indicates the color Indigo…a very dark blue almost black color…Unfortunately many in the Americas do not understand the language they use on a daily basis, this is why we get lost in a maze of Creole, Negritude, Afro this and that….Any how I love this topic