BP5- Introduction

Freedom! Think of it as a sixteen-year old who finally gets to have the freedom of driving. Driving down the road on their own, having the time of their lives feeling totally free, only to have to go back home to their parent’s house. At their parent’s house they are still just completely dependent teenagers, with the privilege of driving.  This mid-level independence is essentially the same scenario that the islands of Aruba, Bonaire, and Curacao have been in for decades politically. They want independence, the parent country of The Netherlands wants the islands to be able to succeed on their own, exactly like the sixteen-year old with a driver’s license. Aruba and Curacao have their own local governments, so they are the siblings that have cars. Bonaire is still a direct municipality of The Netherlands, which makes them the little sibling that is stuck at home waiting to be driven to where they need to go. Over the last few decades, complete independence from their parent country has proved very difficult because their local economic stability is tied into The Kingdom of The Netherlands. Past attempts have caused social unrest between the limited local governments and the residents. Also, the small island governments are financially dependent on the large government of The Kingdom of The Netherlands.

BP4- What I Have Learned

Researching for my paper thus far has been an interesting learning experience, not only because I didn’t know anything about my islands but also because I had never really used scholarly articles or databases for research before. It has had its challenges but also its interesting points as well. Getting used to the databases was a bit difficult, and I learned that I had to get really specific in my advanced searches. Once I got a little better at searching for sources, I began to find some very interesting information. Learning about the interesting political relationship between The Netherlands and The ABC Islands has been enlightening, I previously had no clue that the relationship is so dependent upon one another or that the islands economies and financial stability is critically dependent upon the parent nation of the Netherlands. I have learned that despite growing economies due to tourism, the governments of Aruba and Curacao are still governing their own islands while still receiving enormous financial aid from The Netherlands government. Bonaire is still a direct municipality of The Netherlands so they do not have their own independent government whatsoever.

 

Going forward, I plan on taking my research deeper into the aspects of the co-dependent nature of the reliance of the small island governments on the parent government of The Netherlands(Political rally in Aruba pictured right). I have also come to learn that in the past decade, rather than the islands being the ones pushing for independence like it was in the past, it is actually The Netherlands government that has been the one wishing for the independence for the islands. I find it fascinating that throughout political movements and elections, politicians will echo the call for independence, but when they are elected for it, they continue on the same path as before with little to no indication of ever changing their dependent habits. The also rely on The Netherlands for military protection and disaster relief, on top of financial stability dependence. The movement for independence in the ABC islands is truly more difficult than I had imagined and I am excited to learn more.

BP3- Comparison & Contrast

“Little Cogburt” & “Cotton Candy”

When reading these two stories it is easy to see why they are considered classics from the Caribbean. Both authors use incredible ways to keep the audience’s attention and create a very realistic and relatable set of characters. Every human being can relate to the sense of longing that one has when daydreaming about things that you desperately want or miss. That is a very common theme with these two stories. In “Little Cogburt”, there is the longing of a mother for her children that are thousands of miles away and in “Cotton Candy”, there is the longing of a relationship-less woman that is longing for the romance of having a partner.

The story “Little Cogburt” is written by Phyllis Shand Allfrey, and is set in Dominica. The author focuses heavily on the working class and the exploitation of laborers. This stance of the author is very clear in this story because it is told from the perspective of the plantation owners which allows us to see how the owner’s wife really feels about all of the workers and their children. You can see this with the way that she describes the children as “the little dark children” and especially the derogatory language she uses to describe little Cogburt himself. The story takes place at Christmas where she spends her time comparing the worker’s children to her own that are back at home. She tells the story about the tradition of making dolls with her own hair, then the children would each get one of the Christmas angels. She states her belief that she would rather burn the hair or flush it down the toilet rather than let one of “the dark children” have it. When she thinks about throwing the workers and their children she imagines her little daughters being upset with her asking her, Mother! Don’t forget us suffering at boarding school. Don’t throw a party for those dark children!”. However, after some thought and talking with her husband, she decides to throw the party for the kids and their parents. Throughout the party you can see that her views of these children are changing, she starts to realize as they are opening presents that they are just like her own children, even though they look different. When little Cogburt was crying because he didn’t want the ball due to his handicapped hands, he cried and begged for the angel that the wife had made. That is when she realized that this “gross, unpleasant little boy” was the only one that cared about the homemade angel that she had held so dear, and when she realized that he was handicapped, she was completely in awe. This story shows that just because someone looks different than us, that doesn’t mean that we don’t have a lot in common, never judge a book by its cover.

The story of “Cotton Candy” is quite similar in the way that the author writes about the forgotten minorities of a workforce and focuses on the “misfits of society”. The author uses very figurative language and uses a fairly common theme of the Caribbean which is “magical realism”. You see this through the different symbols that appear throughout the story, we have the butterfly that appears and represent her womanly desire for a man, then later in the story when she is much older, the animals in the zoo represent her own sexuality and she becomes in sync with the animals. These animals awoke something that she hadn’t felt since she was a young girl, she felt love and romance from watching the animals mating. She saw what she had never allowed herself to have, she had repressed her desires for so long that it had driven her partly insane over the years. However, with these animals she was able to come into herself again, she started to feel young because of these feelings that she had never experienced. In the end, she buys a mirror, when she looks into it she sees herself as a young woman again in her hometown. This is a story of rediscovering and finding love for herself, she accepted that she was an old virgin and finally got in touch with her true self from so many years prior.

Both stories share the common themes of how society views its peasantry, one from the perspective of a plantation owner and the other from the first-hand account of a woman who is a “misfit of society” living in isolation and how both battle their longings for things that they do not have. The plantation owner longs for her own children and overcoming her negative views of the “dark children” and coming to the realization that they are not any different from her own children. The second story has an old woman overcoming her desperation of wanting a romantic relationship with a man and coming to the point of loving herself again after years of misery and desperately longing for something she would never have.