Lewd Logic

In the first instance, this publication is a response to concerns expressed by Barbadian church leaders and other thinking citizens about the current trend of lewd and excessive behavior during our national festivals and other occasions of merry-making. However, the following views are relevant to all Caribbean people because the "buttocks-centered" style of dance that Barbadians call "Wukking-up" and the clerical criticism it attracts are age-old, recurring features across the Caribbean region - and beyond.

I should also say that while this publication focuses mainly on the attitude of clerics and church-goers (pewpeople) to wukking-up, I am aware that there are persons who may not neccessarily be considered religious who have a similar distaste for or judgemental attitude toward the dance that is so dear to Caribbean people.

I hope that whatever the reader's preference for dancing is, this discussion will broaden your understanding of what constitutes or "goes into" wukking-up; and that you will have a better grounded and more rounded idea of the "issues". I hope that you will see more clearly, what the suggestive body language Barbadians call wukking-up and the extremes to which Caribbean people sometimes take it, can mean.

The reader is also asked to note that this publication is intended to be one of several measures which Intelek International is taking, in an attempt to promote sensible thinking on this subject. I focus on the clergy here, but I also intend to look at the role of formal educators, musicians, the media, business people, politicians and others who have a special stake in this aspect of Caribbean culture or somehow influence our ideas about it.

I have given religious leaders pride of place because of their well known prominence as critics of wukking-up and the significant role they play as guides, identifying what is good, noble and praiseworthy in society, and as guardians, preserving the same.

Finally, being ever mindful of the subjectivity of words and how they may be misunderstood, let me say that this discourse is intended to promote tolerance and goodwill. If the reader perceives my words in any other way, I beg your pardon. One, or both of us, has erred. Fortunately, we can both give the matter more thought.

Think

I believe the clerics and other thinking people of Barbados are correct in criticising the current tendecy toward excessive behavior in this society, and especially the excessive "wukking-up" that occurs during our national festivals.

However, I also believe that these moral-minded people are not helping the situation when the language and spirit of their criticisms are also excessive and betray an underlying intellectual shallowness and "slackness" which is akin to the very behavior they criticise.

Excessive, superficial, and reactionary criticism will only fan the flames of the wukking-up debate. This kind of criticism pours fuel on contentious issues and is accelerating the problem of moral confusion and the decline of values in Barbados. It is short-sighted, and solves little or nothing.

The insidious intellectual obsceneties that underlie such verbal excesses - especially the "hollow holier than thou" rhetoric - are even more menacing than excessive "wukking-up" because they are not easily recognized for what they are. What is needed is a more radical, simultaneously analytical and holistic investigation of the issues and a sensible, systematic and sustainable approach to dealing with them.

Unfortunately many of our religious leaders and pewpeople seem incapable of rising above "lewd logic". Some religious leaders demonstrate a fondness for "obscene orthodoxy" and "disgraceful dogmatism"; a fondness that seems just as passionate as the revulsion they express for the obscene acts of some revellers during Barbados' annual Conga Line and Crop Over festivals. (Note: Barbados' Conga Line festival was discontinued several years ago.)

Please be clear that I am not knocking all evangelical or missionary efforts. I have a number of very dear friends and loved ones among the evangelical community, and I am firmly persuaded that the vast majority of these people believe firmly in what they are doing, and mean well.

I simply have very little patience with that brand of evangelicalism which characteristically demonstrates scandalous superficiality and selectivity in its public expressions. Those who engineer the expression of such partiality and pettiness are just as thoughtless and irresponsible as some politicians and journalists who exploit popular sentiment.

Surely, some of our pastors, priests and pewpeople must be aware that there are deeper social "sins" underlying Barbadians' apparent acceptance of degrading behaviour. Surely, it must have occurred to some of them that obvious acts of lewdness are part of a continuum of excessive forms of expression, and that such excesses are related to the materialism, greed, selfishness, indiscipline, insensitivity and violence that is so deeply entrenched in the psyche of this former slave and colonial society; this society with its history and tradition of political, economic and religious exploitation, oppression and repression. Surely some of them must sense the spirit of protest and rebellion against established authority (including their own) that underlies much of the excessive behaviour being displayed at festive and other social activities.

Have any of our clerics seriously considered the possibility that their own shortcomings - their own oppressive, repressive and or exploitative behavior and practices - may have somehow prompted or reinforced the prevailing tide of protest and rebellion? Are any of them taking practical steps to make up for their shortcomings?

Do our clerics imagine that they are immune to, above, and/or untouched by the shortcomings of Barbados' socio-historical evolution? Could they really believe it is possible to treat the problem of vulgarity during our national festivals and other social excesses effectively, without looking at the deeper and wider historical and social issues that are influencing the evolution of Barbadians' values? Are they not aware of the lack of value concensus that has been fermenting in this country for decades?

The lack of value concensus in Barbados is largely - some analysts may say principally - contributed to, exacerbated by and exemplified in our clerics inability, to agree or reach some form of compromise, mutual accomodation or toleration on what they consider the fundamentals of wholesome spirituality! Their disharmony is evident both within their respective denominations and across seperate denominations.

It is significant that some Barbadian and other Caribbean religious leaders within the same denominational group cannot produce some form of harmony in their teaching on something as basic and essential as the importance of transparent financial administrative policy and procedure but like a simplistic soca song they synchronize sweetly in their denouncement of public obsceneties during our festivities.

It is significant that Jehovah's Witnesses, Pentecostals, Mormons, Anglicans, Roman Catholics, Baptists, Wesleyans, the aggressively evangelical International Churches of Christ (Bridgetown Church of Christ, Port of Spain Church of Christ, Kingston Church Christ e.t.c.) achieve such an admirable level of concensus and agreement on superficial issues such as the festival-time excesses which are obvious to "sinner" and "saint" alike, but they do not approach anything near such concensus on issues that they claim are more fundamental to the faith of Christians - e.g. the deity of Christ, the reality (or not) of hell and heaven, e.t.c..

Why is this? Could it be that enough attention is not being given to deeper issues?

"Fete is woman, woman is fete
any fete without a woman ain' ready yet!"

So goes a song by Barbadian Calypsonian Ras Iley. The rationale of the song is clear. You don't have a party without a woman. Women make it happen.

In an interview conducted for the purpose of this book, Rastafarian Iley explained it this way,

De women is who really does control de fete...men always tend to be a lil', ya know, off de pace; back against de wall...de women always, ready to come up front and start de action then, and then men does more or less trail.

Women are commonly seen as initiators of "wukking up" and other forms of dancing. Iley's song is salutory of women in this regard, but many other persons (principally clerics and religious persons) see women's responsiveness to music as a weakness and a cause of shame.

This is particularly true in the case of "wukking up" and other sexually suggestive dance styles. Such dancing tends to be associated with questionable morality - the "loose woman" image.

More often than not, this negative view of suggestive dancing is related to negative views about the sex act.

To put it differently, the "dirty" thoughts and taboos associated with sex are transferred to that which suggests sex - the dancing.

This kind of "stiff-hipped" thinking has serious consequences for a society's women, in the first instance, but also for the society as a whole.

The importance of a society's views on sex arises from the centrality of sex to human existence and relationships. Just as the family is the principal building block of society, so also sex is the principal building block of the family.

When I say "sex" here I am particularly referring to the sex act but I am mindful of the entire continuum of sex as an identity marker (what is commonly meant by the term gender) and sex as a communication or interaction medium - as alluded to by the term "intercourse".

As an identity marker sex is a key factor operating in the area of self-knowledge and or self-talk; one's sexuality radically affects how one sees, relates to and understands oneself.

As a communication medium sex operates in the realm of how one sees, relates to and understands others - other-knowledge or other-talk.

Following this approach, one may say that it is in the sex act that internal (self) and external (other) communication reaches its "climax" or is epitomized.

Children are physically brought into being, through the sex act, but not every sex act involves productive communication (conception) in that sense, and not every productive sex act brings about or adds to the communicative reality we call "family".

Nonetheless it is apparent that the way a society views and values sex is fundamentally related to the way it views and values the family.

People, the constituents of the communicative "family" reality are generally prioritised or marginalised, according to a society's understanding of "sex".

Women, the locus of family life - the life or people bearers - are particularly and profoundly affected by the way a society views and values "sex".

In this very profound sense, then, women are truly the life of the "party"! We may say that it is in childbearing (and rearing), that woman's initiating role in the "dance of life" is epitomized.

In this regard, it is probably significant that the very first religious representations of the creator - initiator - known to mankind were probably female (my conclusion; see The Mother-goddess, page 25, The World's Religions, Lion Publishing plc, 1991).

Religions that have difficulty coming to terms with life and people - religions that have difficulty coming to terms with history, or better, ourstory - have difficulty coming to terms with human sexuality on the whole, and women's sexuality in particular.

Audrey Chapman Smock writing on religion as a shaper of women's roles and status in the book "Women: roles and status in eight countries" (subsequently WRSEC) observes that:

In religious systems with a tradition of world denial and a pre-occupation with salvation, such as the pre-Islamic Bhuddism and Hinduism of Bangladesh, the Bhuddism of Japan, and the Medieval Christianity of Poland and France, the spiritual worth of women has depended on their faculty for achieving personal redemption or transcendence.

The same can be said for the sexually repressive fundamentalist Christianity of the twentieth century - particularly the fundamentalist Christianity of North America and the Caribbean.

Fundamentalists tend to put exaggerated and impractical stress on the restriction or suppression of natural desires, especially the sexual desires of women, who are treated as the "weaker" sex.

While not as rigid, Christian fundamentalist teachings are akin to those of Islam which impose radical censures on women's conduct and appearance.

Smock observes that the Muslim image of women as subject to uncontrollable physical drives has led Islamic societies to fashion one of the most thorough systems of male supervision and control anywhere. They confine women to domestic roles that can be performed in the home under the watchful eye of male members of the kinship group, and otherwise closely regulate feminine behavior.

Such religious systems are contrasted with others like the pre-colonial, traditional Ghanaian religions, the religions of prehistoric Japan and of pharaonic Egypt which, according to existing evidence, were "life affirming rather than world denying" (note that to be life and world affirming is also to be ourstory and people affirming).

These religious systems accepted the importance of sexual relations, and were egalitarian, that is, they emphasized the spiritual equality of men and women, and did not distinguish between their spiritual worth.

Smock sees a positive link between this embracing of the earthliness that women represent and the access of women to a variety of economic, social and political roles. She asserts that of all the societies considered in her eight country study,

"...women ascended to the most significant leadership roles and political offices in prehistoric Japan, pharaonic Egypt, and among the Akan and Ga in Ghana."

Smock is particularly complimentary of the Ghanaian, and most Sub-Saharan African peoples' pre-colonial religious systems because of their recognition that the sexual dimension is but one component among many in women's nature, and their accptance of women's sexual needs as natural and legitimate. She notes that this situation contrasts with the double-standard that obtains in most other countries where male sexuality is privileged.

Smock also notes that apart from the benefits accruing to women, the Ghanaian norm also had positive implications for their entire societies, especially the children.

She observes that Ghanaians' matter-of-fact acceptance of women's sexual desires, a casual approach to the issue of virginity before marriage and toleration of infidelity for both sexes led to special provisions for off-spring of "illegitimate" unions in the precontraceptive age. The pragmatic Ghanaian response to the implications of women's search for sexual fulfillment was the incorporation of a child conceived out of wedlock into the lineage of the mother, the father, or the mother's legal husband without any hint of "bastardization".

This Ghanaian extended family model may be particularly appealing for Afro-Caribbean people, holding out possible solutions to our well known problem of adjusting to the "strictures" of ecclesiastically imposed monogamous marriages; the excessively restrictive, religious "ringing up" of Western marital tradition.

I certainly think the matter merits further discussion.

In chapter 3 I congratulated Pastor Lucille Baird for the logical, systematic approach she has taken in addressing her concerns about declining standards of behavior during Barbadians' public festivities. While not entirely in agreement with the sentiments reportedly expressed by Reverend Baird, I truly applaud her demonstration of womanly initiative.

I believe the important issue of family arrangement should also be treated in this systematic way, and I am taking this opportunity to invite Reverend Baird to pursue the matter. I believe that as a woman - a life/people bearer, in both the physical and spiritual (intercessory) sense, Reverend Baird will appreciate the importance, complexity and sensitivity of "family" issues.

I understand that Caribbean church authorities such as the Caribbean Conference of Churches, have been discussing recognition of common-law marriage for some time. I suggest that the issue of polygamy (more than one wife), and even polyandry (more than one husband) be added to the discussion, if it has not been added already.

There may not be many opportunities for polyandry in the Caribbean (or anywhere else perhaps) where women are believed to outnumber men by about 4 to 1, but this option would have to receive some attention if the integrity of the discussion is to be maintained.

African culture offers support for both types of marital arrangement, but especially polygamy.

The Bible itself, written mainly from a patriarchal perspective, offers literal and historical support for the former arrangement, at least. Biblical support for polyandry is not explicit though and depends on the depth of the interpreter's commitment to the equality of the sexes.

In both cases, consideration would have to be given to the proportion of females to males (and vice versa) in the societies concerned; employment opportunities for both sexes and child-care systems are other socially significant variables.

At any rate, I think multi-partner social arrangements are better alternatives than the stigmatized, legalized prostitution idea which has been advanced by some Barbadians.

Also to be considered when looking at marital or partnership arrangements is the issue of openness of communication, that is, honesty and frankness. This was one of several important points raised during an evening of dialogue on "Women of Africa and the Diaspora" sponsored by the Centre for Gender Studies of the University of the West Indies on March 7th 1998, to commemorate International Woman's Day. It was noted that the monogamous status quo is not taken seriously by many Caribbeans and leads to dishonesty among couples.

One contributor, an African woman now resident in Barbados with her Barbadian husband also spoke of how she resented the idea of polygamy as a child but later came to see that resentment as being rooted in selfishness.

This brings us back to the issue of what sex, and by extension, (and with qualification) wukking up, is all about: it is a communicative expression of caring and sharing. It is about openness and vulnerability in our relationships.

This is what "family" is all about - prioritising people, not prioritizing hollow historical ideology or shallow traditional practices.

I believe that all ideologies and traditions (cultural, religious, political, social, economic e.t.c.) should be subject to anthropocentric (humanity-centred), utilitarian considerations. They should serve people, not the other way around.

I also believe that the surest test of an ideology's humanity is the way it comes to terms with the "weaknesses or vulnerabilities" of humanity that are epitomized by "woman".

Note the paradox here. The reality of "woman", and in particular "woman's sexuality", symbolises both the strength and/or sustainability and vulnerability, weakness and frailty of humanity.

I believe male self-understanding is diminished if this paradoxical truth is not recognized, acknowledged and accepted. The "Weakness fa sweetness" of woman (Barbadian singer Natahlee [Natalie Burke] celebrates it in a song by that name) is also the "weakness fa sweetness" of man.

Human sexuality is the democratizer par excellence. Remember, the two become one flesh in their union and off-spring. The off-spring, in a very real sense, demonstrate the continuum of gender identity - one, made of two.

There is a saying in church circles that the ground is level at the foot of the cross. I believe the greatest leveller is the "hip of history" - the life cycle mystery.

Actually, this is no "mystery". It is perhaps the most commonplace, obvious human phenomenon and is probably only a secret to those who repress and are estranged from their sexuality; those estranged from themselves (Ephesians 5:32; the observations of John Selby Spong, Bishop of Newark about the sexuality [possible homosexuality] of the Apostle Paul are also worth considering; see Rescuing the Bible from Fundamentalism, HarperCollins, 1992; please note that I have some concerns about the "spirit" of that publication).

It is cliched and largely Americanised now, but I have to say it; men need to get in touch with their feminine side. You need to get in touch with your mothers legacy in you, guys.

This should not be too difficult for Caribbean males, the majority of whom have been raised in female-headed homes, and who on Kadooment Day, Carnival Day, Vincie Mass Day, on Caribbean streets and highways, wuk up, down, round and round, ding-o-lay, ramajay and generally "do dixie".

We tend to take this phenomenon for granted, but Caribbean males take to dancing like fish to water. The significance of this was brought home to me forcefully while at a popular Barbadian night club. I was dancing with a lady of European descent and she said she could not get over how free and open Caribbean males are about dancing. She said that in her country (the name of which slips me) men are far more reserved.

My heart goes out to those men, and to those societies. I suspect that this kind of emotional repression is linked to violent communication acts - speech acts and physical acts of aggression which undermine those societies from within and which also cause them to undermine other societies with which they interact.

Consider the violence that plagues European football, the prevalence of pornography, including child pornography, serial sex offences, the pattern of serial killers, teen shootings in the USA and the prevalence of other sadomasochistic forms of "communicative" behavior in societies that encourage repression of the emotions in general and repression of the feminine copular principle in particular.

Caribbean people need to be mindful of the historical, religious, social, economic and psychological origins and dimensions of such communication problems.

I have a special concern for the volatile Rastafarian movement which is growing in popularity and social standing within this region and beyond.

As an Afro-Caribbean, I identify profoundly with this movement and applaud the advances it has made beyond the racial bitterness of its advent in the 1930s.

However, I have also been obliged to express concern over fundamentalist, literalistic elements in many Rastafarians' approach to the Bible.

Rastafarian fundamentalism is much like that of hollow historical, bacchanal-bible-interpretation centred Christianity. It is not surprising therefore that fundamentalist Rastafarians (not all Rastafarians) are notoriously homophobic, and promote the subordination of women, especially in the context of religious expression.

Jamaican singing sensation Buju Banton (Mark Myrie), now a devout Rastafarian has even denounced Carnival and Calypso music publicly, citing the association of these phenomena with Roman Catholicism (I explore this association in the latter part of the next chapter).

Like shallow historical fundamentalist Christians many Rastafarians are either ignorant of, or indifferent to traditional Rastafarianism's dependence on or derivation from Roman Catholic biblical traditions - the four gospels Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, primarily and also the book of Revelation. These are essentially written records of oral traditions (see TBBTR).

I never cease to be amazed at how fundamentalist Christians and Rastafari alike profess their unswerving faith in and commitment to the Bible and in the same breath denounce the Roman Catholic church, which, in a very real sense is the institution that "created" the canon we call the Bible (especially the so-called "New Testament"; see TBBTR) and gave it to the world!

The acquisition of such views - which many people refer to as "faith" - requires a level of ignorance of church history and a degree of insensitivity toward history generally, that is truly bewildering!

Fundamentalist Rastafarians would do well to note similarities between their own male-centred cosmology and the male-centred focus of the Roman Catholic priesthood.

I am firmly of the view that men who repress the female principle - lets call it the "party principle" here - in man are in more danger of turning to homosexual activity and other excessive and/or obscure forms of sexual expression, than men who come to terms with and learn to manage their mothers' heritage in them.

I will leave my comments on the Rastafarian gender issue at that. I will also recommend that my Rasta bretheren consider other viewpoints on gender issues among Rastas, such as those by Maureen Rowe and Imani M. Tafari-Ama, contained in the book Chanting Down Babylon (Ian Randle Publishers, 1998).

The prioritization of womens' issues in this publication and in other fora (for example at the 1998 International Rastafari Conference Trade Fair & Cultural Expo held in Barbados) suggest to me that Rastas are themselves recognizing the importance of these issues and are actively addressing them.

Women clearly make-up the larger percentage of church populations. However, women's contributions to church life often go without recognition, financial or otherwise (I applaud current efforts by some denominational groups, including the Anglican church, and the notoriously fundamentalist Pentecostal Assemblies of the West Indies, to change that).

Furthermore, as noted above, the Church has been one of the most powerful institutions contributing to the subordination of women. Actually, there is broad agreement among feminists that religious forms in general have largely served to initiate, establish and or perpetuate the subordination of women to men.

This veiw is held even where the indivdual and social legitimacy and utility of religious views and practices are acknowledged.

Hence, the article "Women and Religion", in the book Women's Realities, Women's Choices, subsequently WRWC, (a Hunter College, Women's Studies Collective, published by Oxford University Press in 1983) begins with the following observation:

Such is the ambivalent character of the relationship between women and religion. This ambivalence reflects the historical common sense understanding by most women (and men), that religion is a double-edged sword; that is, that its effects may be both positive and negative.

I now invite her to take a second look at the "Wukking up" issue. What is the "witness" of wukkin up? What does this often tantalizing, titillating exhibitionism "testify" to?

The renowned Christian "thinker" C.S. Lewis shares some interesting thoughts on human sexuality and what our attitude toward it should be in his book "The Four Loves". Note that Lewis uses the term "Venus" for sexual desire:

I invite Reverend Baird, Caribbean clerics in general, and also my fundamentalist Rastafari bretheren to "play mass". Get "naked" - by this I mean transparent (the message of the song "Take Your Clothes Off" by Barbadian band Spice can be taken too far).

This is precisely what I did when I was emerging from my disillusionment with fundamentalist Christianity (late 1980s). Actually, I found I could not help myself. I was not even sure why I was laughing half of the time. I just knew that I felt really relieved; as though a burden had been lifted from my shoulders.

I remember a similar feeling of relief when I first got converted in 1982, but then I was crying. There were partly tears of joy, but I was also feeling shame and remorse for my fallibility; my "sinfulness".

I do not regret my fundamentalist conversion experience entirely. I regret that what started out with relief was transformed through my ignorance and naivete and others ignorance, naivete, avarice, manipulativeness, power-hungriness and or incompetence into an emotionally draining, intelligence, objectivity and creativity suppressing form of psychological bondage.

I was robbed of my capacity to be jovial: my capacity to see the lighter side of humanity's short-comings; my capacity to accept my own short comings. My capacity to "play".

It is no accident that the first publication of my emergence from fundamentalism was a comic book (Coco-nuts: humour in the islands, Junior Campbell, 1990).

Caribbean clerics need to "come out and play a little". Most Caribbeans know you are playing anyway. Come play with the rest of us. Level with us; lets get friendly.

Henceforth I call you not servants; for the servant knoweth not what his lord doeth; but I have called you friends; for all things that I have heard of my Father I have made known unto you.

If you can't be common, if you can't become one with the rest of humanity only for one day, what right - logical, ethical or otherwise do you have to be making the demands you do of people?

How well do you know "Jesus"? How well do you know the Bible? Chances are, if you are "in someone's face, in 'Jesus' name" you probably do not know as much about him or the Bible as you think!

I suggest that you familiarise yourself more thoroughly with ourstory - the whole story of humanity - before you go sharing yours.

Chances are you will see that we all "play" at sometime. All of us are sometimes excessive souls who "go all the way".

We cannot entirely avoid risks. I could say I tend to risk relatively little myself. But then I think I am an uncommon mix of liberalism and conservatism.

I would be the first to say that there is danger and vulnerability in the "relaxing" that wukking-up involves (consider Trinidad's post Carnival baby boom, and what some are calling Carnival Aids in that country).

However, I also believe that there is far less danger in concessions and confessions of human frailty, folly, and vanity than there is in bible-centred brittleness, idealism, arrogance, intransience, inflexibility, pride and self-delusion.

Let's assume we accept the fallibility of humanity - the fact that no human is perfect, that we all err or "sin" (a much abused word; see chapter....) as a given. The Christian who acknowledges his fallibility or "sinfulness" is right or righteous; he or she is at that moment, a "sharp" knife. In that state of self-awareness, Christians are keen, "sharp".

The use of righteousness or "sharpness" over time makes it "dull". It needs to be resharpened, that is, revitalized by reflection on our fallibility: we have to review how time has affected righteousness or its use; we need to review ourstory.

There is glory in human existence too, but it is transient; this is why it has to be renewed. To be infallible, it must be renewed again, and again and again... It is a cycle. It is wukking up. It is life.

Kali sysmbolises the womb, but is connected with death, rebirth and consequent illusion and entanglement in the world, through reincarnation.

According to Hindu tradition, Kali brings death and destruction on the world through her orgiastic dancing, but when she submits to her husband, the God Shiva, she becomes beneficent - her energy is then deemed to have been harnessed for good by "the rational principle of maleness."

This is what has occured in sexist segments of Hindu culture. WRWC, cited earlier in this chapter, suggests that Kali was not always viewed so negatively among Hindus and that as the change in perception occured the lot of women in Hindu cultures changed for the worse.

I invite Caribbean thinkers to give the wukking up matter some more thought. My youthful contemporaries say, "Wheel". I will say rotate ya waistline and feel, with the rest of humanity; feel and come again!

This discourse has only scratched the surface of the rich, fertile symbolism of wukking-up.

Later the same year, while I was doing research on women's health care issues, I came across information on the first draft (1993) of a Caribbean Charter for Health Promotion, written under the aegis of the 1986 Caribbean Co-operation in Health (CCH) Initiative (CARICOM/PAHO, 1986).

This and similar recommendations of "home-grown" solutions to health and other problems facing the Caribbean stem from a growing recognition among Caribbean people of the limitations of "Western" sciences, models and "ways of knowing" and a corresponding openness to African, Asian and other approaches, theories and methodologies. These "alternative" types of knowledge were "slandered" and suppressed as part of the Western imperialist agenda of slavery and colonialism in this region.

Clearly, while Afro-centricity is not a new phenomenon (surely not to Caribbeans), the current momentum of the movement has been greatly facilitated by the advancements in technology and communications which have ushered in the current era of global thinking.

Strains of Afro-centricity are evident in the feminist movement - and I am not just speaking of Black Feminism. Feminism, in spite of its volatility and elements of fragmentation, is essentially a prioritization of the feminine as "foundational", that is, fundamental, in the truest sense of the word. Feminism prioritises woman as the "Fountain" (Leviticus 20:18) of all life - in essence, "Mother Earth".

I know that fundamentalist Christians are watching Afro-centric developments with suspicion. Campaigns of "fear mongering", prejudice propagating and imperialist inoculation, which are characteristic of divisive fundamentalist faith systems (see TBBTR pg 8; also THC pg 649 for a comment on the divisive character of Pentecostal fundamentalism in particular) continue in meeting halls, churches, seminaries tabernacles and house meetings across this region.

Afro-centricity is just another casualty or target of fundamentalist "one-sided-wuk-up" analysis. One of the workshops at the 1998 Billy Graham seminar on evangelism in the Caribbean mentioned earlier, was devoted to countering Afro-centric opposition to fundamentalist Christianity in this part of the world.

Some of the fundamentalist Christians' concerns about the current Afro-centric wave are perhaps legitimate. There are aspects of a "return to nature" that are questionable - I am particularly thinking about some elements of witchcraft (Wicca), and other forms of mysticism, and Nazi style, reverse-racist, African superiority sentiment - that require careful scrutinization.

The ahistorical, origin-ignoring idealism of fundamentalists prevents them from seeing how or where their own beliefs and practices and those of the persons that they criticise and condemn are inter-related and overlap.

What about fundamantalist Christians such as Jamaican Baptist Reverend Clinton Chisholm who try to convert Rastafarians to Christianity by highlighting supposed short-comings of the name-based element of their interpretation of Haile Selassie's "Messiahship"?

This issue is at least as serious as the Rastafarian name issue - if not more so, because of the fact that Rastafarianism has grown out of Christianity. Many of Rastafarianism's errors - and its literalistic approach to Bible interpretation in particular - are rooted in and derive from the faulty, literalistic foundations and legacies of Christianity.

Better grounded, more objectively and thoroughly informed Christians would recognize that through its deification of not only Black humanity, but all humanity, Rastafarianism achieves the very democratization of religion that the King James translators either deliberately sought to prevent or inadvertently prevented by changing Joshua's name to "Jesus".

I believe it was a ploy by the British imperialist state-church power structure to keep the British masses from realizing how much they had in common with their "God and saviour": a ploy to keep them from realizing that he was truly one of them; that he was "family". (Have you ever heard the song "Shame and Scandal in the family"? This is the same kind of thing but on a much larger and graver scale!)

However, while this ethnic-religious dimension complicates the matter somewhat, it does not detract from the anti-democratic, anti-humanity, anti-nature quality of the Joshua/Jesus name change. It simply adds an element of ethnic specificity to it.

True Afro-centricity must mean non-discriminatory anthropocentricity: it must mean prioritising all human beings; prioritising all "wuk-uppers", regardless of their differences. It must recognize the relatedness of all members of the human family.

Note that of the many Hebrew words translated "man" in the Old Testament, one of the most frequently used is the word "is" , also spelt "iysh" and pronounced "eesh" (see MAN in Strongs's Exhaustive Concordance and ANTHROPOLOGY in ISBE). Is signifies that which is extant or survives. The Old Testament uses this term, to distinguish man from woman (issa or issha) in the characteristic sexually discriminatory manner of traditional conservative Patriarchal Judaism, but a more egalitarian understanding of the term is possible once the socio-historical context of the misogynistic Judaism of the Bible era is borne in mind and compensated for.

Black people, are paradigms of "sustainable development" because as the firstlings of humanity, we are the longest standing people; we are paradigms of perpetual procreation: perpetual "wukking-up".

Personally, I believe the infertility problem is psychosomatic - like sex. I believe sex is fundamentally cerebral. Indeed, I have proven this in my own sexperience, details of which will not be taken up here, much as I am tempted.

Face the fact of the Bible's fallibility; face the facts of human history. Perfection visits with humanity perennially (in cycles); it is not perpetually with any of us.

To fundamentalist church-leaders in particular I say "come down when I call ya", from your hollow historical highhorse. Respect other people's right to their own opinions, although you disagree with them.

Try dialoguing with the rest of humanity. Stop dictatorially talking down to us. Treat people with dignity, whatever their station in life. We are all a combination of strengths and weaknesses; of good and evil. Purpose to see the good in people and to expect good of them.

Wherever possible, give people the benefit of the doubt. This is not easy. It may mean disappointment. It can mean being taken advantage of. Again, some amount of risk is inevitable in life because of the fallibility of all creation. The most we can do is to be as informed as possible about the risks involved, employ precautionary measures and try to control the extent of our risks.

Finally. All indications suggest that the twenty-first century is going to usher in some of the greatest intellectual challenges Caribbean people have ever faced. Our success or failure in coping with these challenges will largely be determined by our ability to reconcile faith with reason: to balance optimism with pragmatism and temper conservatism with courage and creativity (note the recently announced move by the Government of Singapore to devote 30% of that country's schools curricula to creative endeavour).

Are we open to learning? Are we open to innovation? Are we prepared to challenge all theses (or as 1John 4:1 puts it "try the spirits") in the pursuit of the highest good?

The Caribbean is often cited as a paradigm of racial unity - notwithstanding the recurrence of crises such as that currently facing the African and East Indian peoples of Guyana. Caribbean social commentators, including Trinidadian calypsonian Chalkdust (Hollis Liverpool) have noted the importance of Carnival, Crop-Over and other regional festivals in bringing together people of all races, creeds, and classes. There is method in this madness; pragmatism, in this play. We all need a time of gladness; a time to put aside differences, come together, and "break away".

Secondly, a little dictum of my own. You may call it a Caribbean restatement of the Cartesian statement of being: I think, therefore I jam.