Colonial vs African division

by TREVOR R. SHEPHERD RECENT ARTICLES by Lowdown Hoad, Roshana Trim, David Comissiong and Adrian Green have reignited the identity battle that some Bajans continue to fight. On one side are the colonials waving the Union Jack; on the other side are the Africans, waving a Zulu spear.

The unspoken context is that colonials think anything African is bad, while the Africans consider anything colonial as obscene and all things African holy. Neither side is able to see a middle ground.

In 1975, along with many medical colleagues, I travelled to Africa to work. We lived variously in Zambia and Kenya for just over a year. At other times, I also lived and studied in the United Kingdom. While I am not by any means an expert, I’ve experienced both environments firsthand and have come away with a very strong personal view, which I now share, in the full knowledge that it will in no way end the battle of the colonials versus the Africans.

But I hope it can at least show that, between the two warring factions, there is a very safe and calm middle ground.

1975: Africa

The immigration stamp in our passports said “Alien”, but we were delighted to be in the Motherland.

Walking the streets of Lusaka, I was instantly at home. The average Zambian looked like the average Bajan. I soon learned the local language, Nyanja, and was able to communicate with people around me.

I was impressed by the communal sense of civility and respect that was part of the culture.

Though I never truly mastered the language, I soon realised that the “colonial” and slightly disparaging moniker of “dialect”, was quite unfair, in that it ignored very complex nuances that, compared with English, were quite impressive.

It wasn’t too long though, before the trouble started. We were West Indians. Yes, we were in the Motherland, but we had been separated way too long. Our cultures were too different. We talked too much. We thought we could say anything we liked, just like at home. One day a Zambian doctor whispered to me, “Do you know that the government has a dossier on you people? Why don’t you shut up?” That was the first shock.

The second shock was seeing tribalism in real time. Now, here at home, we have jokes about conniving Trinidadians – Tricky-dadians, we call them. And we may occasionally make a disparaging comment about “Vincies”, or poke fun at Jamaicans and how they drop their “hayches”.

None of this prepares you for the depth of tribalism you find in several African countries. It is only when you begin to wrap your head around this, that the Hutu-Tutsi conflict makes sense. Even today, it is partly triablism that fuels the fighting in the Congo with the M23. It soon hits you in the gut like a hammer blow, when you understand that there are black Africans that will kill their black brothers like they were mere cockroaches.

1980, England

The other Motherland, and studying at the Royal College of Surgeons. I was immediately awed by the sense of history and the breadth of culture – Shakespeare, Henry V111, Handel’s music, Piccadilly. Rule Brittania is all around. At nearly every street intersection is a warrior mounted on a horse who fought and died somewhere in the world, creating the massive British Empire.

But soon the trouble starts.

Needing a place to stay, I call a number in the classified ads. My name is Shepherd, and my English is impeccable, so “yes, sir, we do have a vacant apartment”. In five minutes I’m at the address, only to hear, incredibly “very sorry, sir, the apartment is already taken”. Or standing at a bus stop, I barely dodge a ball of spit from somebody in the bus as it moves off. And soon, I know all too well that when I sit at a table in a restaurant, no one else will share my table. That’s just the tip of the racial iceberg.

Then I come back home. Memories of Africa, memories of England. Some very good. Some very bad. There is one thing that both these motherlands have taught me – I am West Indian.

Not African. Not English. I’m a new kind of tree, grafted from both, with genes from both. I have the strength and earthiness of the African – strength that can survive the Middle Passage. I also have the educational, literary and business capabilities inherited from England.

Both Motherlands have bequeathed unalterable qualities that make me a proud, intelligent and accomplished West Indian. Say what you like – there is not a single African country I would rather live in than Barbados.

Nor would I choose to live in the United Kingdom. Here, in Barbados, I am at home. Y’all can fight all you want. Here, I am at peace.

This article was submitted as a Letter to the Editor.