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The Sonic Architects of a New Babel 145

of capital. Its national identities usually whither when seduced by the
dance of capital. And the dance of capital is mild in the nonindependent
Caribbean (Guadeloupe 2006b; Oostindie 2006).
One could go further and suggest that especially in the Caribbean
microstates where the governing apparatus could not tame the movement
of capital, poorer West Indians constructed a highly creolized public
Christianity outside the strictures of the Africanized and Europeanized
churches. They discerned that the success of Christ’s radical gospel was
based upon being able to move around and spread the message of our com-
mon Adamic and Edenesque roots. In Christ all the hierarchies based on
color and status ought to be demolished. Whether Christian or not, one
can posit that West Indians embrace and balance Christ and capital’s logic
of movement.
They employ the creolized universality of public Christianity to coun-
ter the partial universality of the latter. This is their most effective way of
staying alive; a way of moving and benefiting; a way of imagining commu-
nity that remains open to the outside world.
The balancing of capital and Christ is what I am experiencing. The
tourists, the money people, as the islanders call them, those who still have
the financial and technological power though the notion of their cultural
superiority has diminished considerably, are being encouraged to partici-
pate in building this new Tower of Babel and engage with one of its main
sonic architects, DJ Shadow. They have heard about him from the hotel
personnel, they had heard him through the airwaves, now they can put a
voice to a face. They love him.

Figure 6.1 Capital and Christ under the same roof: SXM’s famous Bethel Shop
where church is held on Sundays and rum is served from Monday to Saturday.
Photo by Pedro de Weever.