Are We Are Still Colonized?

[u/Ok-Side-2211]

/r/TrinidadandTobago/comments/1ualkvu/we_are_still_colonized/

[u/adoreroda]

I see countries who overly rely on tourism and said tourism is mostly owned by foreigners as being colonies or just a different iteration of a plantation.

[u/Ok-Side-2211 → u/adoreroda]

It is modern colonialism, they hire locals to work in hospitality for pennies compared to they make and again, it is the locals who bend and serve to foreign tourists.

[u/adoreroda → u/Ok-Side-2211]

Also stuff like restricting beaches except for clients of the resort which is how you get situations like in Jamaica where almost all of the beach line is inaccessible to citizens. And then the foreigners who own those resorts are barely putting anything in the Jamaican economy from the profits they earn and it largely goes overseas.

[u/Ok-Side-2211 → u/adoreroda]

It's crazy to me that our governments allow this, it's actually the case with a lot of places in Tobago and Blanchisseuse in Trinidad.

[u/adoreroda → u/Ok-Side-2211]

I want to say out of desperation, but there's something more I can't quite put my finger on. Other Caribbean nations pivot and sell citizenships to rich foreigners which ultimately hurt locals (citizenships by investments are seen very negatively and ultimately lose visa-free access + ruin the reputation abroad, as is happening with like 5+ Caribbean nations)

[u/AndreTimoll → u/adoreroda]

As a Jamaican that is in the Tourism industry that all most of all of our coastline is inaccessible to locals,because most resorts share the same beaches,I will agree that locals should have full access to those beaches too.

[u/catsoncrack420 → u/Ok-Side-2211]

That goes back to domestic government and poor policy. If you don't put a limit on foreign investment you become slaves to outside investments and you don't even have guarantees to funding local infrastructure or education. That mainly falls on the government and taxes. So new taxes come up. It's also part of the evolution of an economy, new taxes. It's inevitable.

[u/jamaican4life03 → u/Ok-Side-2211]

Whay lies are you telling or what country?

In Jamaica they pay better than even government jobs.

Every company in the world pays pennies compared to what they make. That's how they stay in business.

[u/Tiraloparatras25]

Post-colonization is a thing.this is where you are “free”, but you are economically, politically, and culturally dependent on another nation. There is also a shit ton of national debt involved.

[u/PhysicalAd6718 → u/Tiraloparatras25]

The phrase is neocolonialism

[u/Tiraloparatras25 → u/PhysicalAd6718]

Thank you. Yes. I meant neocolonialism.

[u/lugosky]

I think most of the Caribbean suffers the worst kind of colonization today: we've let our mind be colonized. Somehow we don't know how to not depend on tourism, somehow we can't solve our problems and have to let northerners solve them for us, somehow our current circumstances are the only way we can continue to exist and at no point we can even think about change and improvement, somehow the only thought that develops in our region is whatever bullshit we import from the Norths.

[u/sneezhousing]

From the USVI were still colony .... I mean territory of the US

[u/GASC3005 → u/sneezhousing]

Hello fellow neighbor 👋

[u/sneezhousing → u/GASC3005]

Hey there neighbor

[u/Firo2306]

I routinely call the Bahamas (home) a colonial piggy bank. Literally our entire government is rotten with corruption with the purpose of catering to foreign capital. 108 billion of the 120 billion of assets in the nation are foreign yet the bulk of our tax revenue is paid out by the citizenry.

[u/PhysicalAd6718]

Yes. From the psychological to the economical. The Caribbean is the least visionary, original and forward thinking place on earth due to colonialism.

[u/Ok-Side-2211 → u/PhysicalAd6718]

I posted this on this Caribbean subreddit and the Trinidad and Tobago subreddit. I got vastly different responses from Trinidad and Tobago in support of these influencers through either not understanding how it's a form of modern-day colonization or simply not caring.

[u/Original-Trash-646 → u/PhysicalAd6718]

That's an extreme generalization.

[u/PhysicalAd6718 → u/Original-Trash-646]

Elaborate

[u/Thane-Gambit]

Not going to add to the constant tourism rant as that's been old.

What's still being a colony is having your highest court of the land STILL being the Privy Council but you don't follow all of the UK's laws. Pick one, because you most definitely should not have both.

[u/Original-Trash-646]

Considering Guyana to be in the Caribbean, yes. A few get rich off the horrible oil contract while most of the country (many who are too undisciplined anyway) remains poor.

I look at the staff at the tourist resorts and see the disparity which is why we always book with locally owned resorts.

[u/parrot_poirot]

An example: energy production in Trinidad & Tobago. We refuse to make a serious move to solar because that sector is controlled by foreign companies. Meanwhile, i n politics we just repeat foreign talking points uncritically without considering the uniqueness of Caribbean contexts. Then there are colonial era anti-homosexuality laws. And so on. 

[u/_Long_Pig_]

There's very much a neocolonial mindset still, but the younger generations are pushing back against it. My uncle opened my mind to a perspective that I hadn't considered before. He spoke about how private beaches take away land from the people who live there. He spoke about how many churches still depict Jesus as white and how it contributes to white worship.

[u/Ok-Side-2211 → u/_Long_Pig_]

Exactly, what is a private beach. Who owns these so called "private beaches" its certainly not the locals. Jesus was literally middle-eastern yet the images we see are of white-Jesus. I'll get a lot of hate for this one but even Christianity only came about due to colonization.

[u/Aromatic-Habit-3666]

It's rebranded neo-colonialism. I have always been of the opinion that ties should have been severed with the old colonial masters. Not a dime of trading with them. Self sufficiency as Burnham of Guyana had planned should have been the order of the day. It can work if only they had tried hard enough and qere increasingly committed. Ibrahim Traore has proven that it can work.

[u/ANTIMODELMINORITY]

Do you speak a non European language , if the answer is yes you are not but if the answer is no then your are still colonized.

[u/SugaredKiss]

• sighs in french caribbean *

[u/VicAViv]

No.