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Welcome

 

You are in the write place!
Thanks for coming to BigDrumNation, the Grenadian Journal of Arts and Culture
.

Flag of Grenada

 

SALUTING LABOUR HEROES

Caldwell Taylor

Dedicated to the memory of a great friend and brother, Godwin "Joe Cocker" Horsford, 1953-2008.
 

REMEMBERING AIME CESAIRE, 1913-2008

Caldwell Taylor

"My turn to state an equation: colonization = thingification"
-Aime Cesaire ,1913-2008

Aime Cesaire, poet, playwright, politician, and Martinique's favorite son for more than six decades, died at the Fort de France Hospital on April 17; he was 94.


Congratulations Grenada on your 34th
Anniversary of Independence

 

Independence Day 

Independence day
Some of us celebrate our freedom
As a people and a nation
With political speeches
Military parade                        

FAIR ISLE 

     Fair Isle upon the Carib Sea
     This song I give to thee
     And every morning as I wake
     This pledge anew I make    
                                              

MAY-POLE Dance in Grenada
Editor's note:

The following is the text of Caldwell Taylor's introduction to a May-pole dance, which was performed at the Grenada Association's (Toronto) Independence Dinner of February 9. The dancers were led by Jenny Burke and Renwick Herry, leading exponents of Grenadian culture in Canada.

Caldwell Taylor

THE BOMBER: TRIBUTE TO A GRENADIAN-BORN HERO 
 (Part 3)


The Bomber Turns 80 Today - AH WANNA FALL!
 

THE BOMBER: TRIBUTE TO A GRENADIAN-BORN HERO 
 (Part 2)

Bomber will be 80 years old on January
30th
 

THE BOMBER: TRIBUTE TO A GRENADIAN-BORN HERO 
 (Part 1)

Caldwell Taylor


Abolition, Indentureship and Creoleness: Reflections on the Indo-Grenadian predicament
by Raymond D. Viechweg

A Meeting of cultures

The abolition of the British slave trade in 1807 signaled the end of the trade in African slaves and the beginning of the trade in Indian indentures.

As such, it meant the continuous intermixing, or creolizing, of cultures that would eventually place the Grenadian Indian in a position of cultural vulnerability. When Indians arrived in Grenada in 1857, they found themselves in a position subordinate to a dominant Anglo-African creolization. The occasion of the abolition of the slave trade should be commemorated neither as spectacle, nor as a mere dramatization, but as a marker which from year to year will chart the progress made towards mitigating the hegemonistic tendencies within Grenadian creolization.

Hegemony is the tendency of one group to exercise dominance over other groups, even without the threat of force.

In hegemonies, the espoused beliefs, values and philosophies of the dominant group are empowered, almost to the exclusion of others. In Grenada, Indians have functioned within and alongside the dominant Afro-Grenadian cultural formation for 150 years now. So, as we commemorate the abolition of the slave trade, we must simultaneously commemorate the addition to Grenadian culture of an indispensable East Indian component.

Today, as we remember the perils of the slave trade, so should we also remember the perils of the journey from India. As we remember the end of the slave trade, so should we also remember the beginning of indentured labour.

Today, unfortunately, we must lament the absence of any monuments to Indian contributions to Grenadian nationhood and culture. Hopefully, through the lamentation, a solution may appear.                                                       

                                                                                                                                                       read more >>


          

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