Page 165 - Aesthetic Formations Media, religion, and the Sense

150 Francio Guadeloupe

The Tower of Babel as a Metaphor
of Multiple Identities

The politics of belonging of DJ Fernando Clarke and DJ Shadow is about
promoting a positive recognition of Babelesque SXM, and the multiplici-
ties of selves SXMers entertain each other too. Herein contradiction is the
name of the game. As Caribbean pop stars, usually saints and sinners at
one and the same time, Clarke and the Shadow specialize in being many
things to many different people. In this they actually mirror the way
Caribbean people engage each other on a daily basis, and therefore are a
mirror for all Caribbean people to see themselves and the Babelesque soci-
eties they are constantly building.
SXM is an extreme form of this Caribbean trait of taking on and put-
ting on identities. The 80 nationalities officially registered in the census
offices on both sides of the island were an inaccurate indication of the
many national identities SXMers performed in their daily interactions.
The fact that SXMers hail from the four corners of the globe, and their
livelihood depended exclusively on tourism, created a social environment
in which all the inhabitants of the island had to continuously perform a
series of national and transnational identities to create common worlds.
These performances depended on their routes—the places they had lived—
the socially ascribed roots of their ancestors, and the passports they
wielded.
For the islanders this was a normal state of affairs. When I asked Miss
Maria, an ex-school teacher in her late sixties to whom I had gotten close
on the island, which of her national identities she considered to be closest
to her, she replied in her usual temperamental style, “all of them are impor-
tant to me; they have a reason. Now stop minding my business.” I had
questioned her on the fact that while she considered herself a local, she also
displayed national allegiance to Anguilla and Curaçao. There was no con-
tradiction according to her, since she was born in Anguilla and had lived
practically all her life in Curaçao. Furthermore as a local she claimed both
Saint Martin and Sint Maarten (SXM) as her own, the national boundary
notwithstanding. Besides her Anguillan, Curaçaoan, and SXM sense of
national belonging, Miss Maria had several other national and transna-
tional allegiances. As an Anguillan, part of the British Overseas Territories
(BOTs), she identified with the United Kingdom (see Clegg 2006 on the
political constitution of the BOTs). Since she also carried a Dutch passport
she likewise identified herself as being a member of the Dutch nation.
Finally, Miss Maria also identified with the West Indies and the Black
Diaspora in “the West.”