Aided and abetted by a constant, unrelenting flow of US television commercials, advertising of clothes, foods, underwear, shoes and other consumer products Caribbean nationals have now developed a morbid fixation with things American in the minds of people living in the Caribbean. Things manufactured and made in the region are seen as inferior and at any rate are more expensive than those allegedly “made in America” although most of these foods were manufactured in China, Singapore and Taiwan.
So from food to clothes to the latest movies and digital gadgetry Caribbean people, especially the youths, hunger for American consumer products. These find their way in barrels and on on-line shopping websites. Nowadays, the apparel wear of people in the Caribbean is no different to that of East New York or Harlem. As a matter of fact the youths in the Caribbean now identify more readily with hip-hop and gangsta rap than with indigenous reggae or calypso – so invasive is cultural imperialism.
Because of a pervasive troubling unemployment situation many of the people are turning to different forms of escapism – a byproduct of cultural imperialism. The term escapism is defined as activities that are designed to remove people from the unhappiness – conscious or unconscious – of daily life to the point where they are trying to escape from life itself. Traditionally thought of as extreme escapism is now a fact of everyday life in places where indigenous culture is under attack from outside forces.
In many parts of the Caribbean today households watch an average of 7 hours of television a day that helps to inculcate in their minds a warped view of what life is in the context of their individual circumstances and how much better it is in England or America. Still, anything from sports to fashion to recreational sex can be the tools of escapism. Some, like chronic consumerism, are socially acceptable, while others like drug use and abuse are not. And in the Caribbean region, especially among unemployed and confused young people drug use is now the main vehicle used to escape from reality.
Modern technology has penetrated even to the very backward areas of Caribbean society because of the rapid growth of digital culture in the form of television, films, the Internet and computer games that provide additional conduits for many people – young and old – to escape. Indeed, the hold of escapism over modern day Caribbean society is predicated on the issues of material deprivation, unfulfilled cultural growth and development, and a weak and failed domestic governance in areas of cultural preservation, development and instilling a sense of national pride in things Caribbean.
So that while youths, for example, come together in a concert to listen to some reggae or rock band performing, this collective is not united or all-embracing. Within the gathering are gangs, groups of small loosely defined “friends” – brought together by a common appreciation of the music and/or drugs – and others who simply had nothing better to do. The domestic sex worker phenomenon is now on the rise both because of a social need (unemployment, care of offspring(s)) and rabid consumerism. On the other extreme side of the coin, some youths and adults turn to religion as they seek “salvation from this evil world” preferring to escape to the heavenly bliss that is promised in some holy book or the other.
Ultimately, the means of escapism is not too important. It is the root causes, and an understanding of them, that makes sense in helping to combat escapism. Suffice to know that escapism is normally associated with feelings of powerlessness in a socio-economic context where selfishness rules supreme and national motivation by the bodies politic is based on fear, not togetherness.
The coming together of all these elements of cultural imperialism, including an injection of alien eating and food consumption habits has only helped to deepen the level of dependency within the Caribbean and its relations to large, powerful and rich nations. As was said before cultural imperialism is not new for the Third World and the Caribbean but what is new is its unbridled aggression and the pace of its onslaught that is wiping away everything cultural in the region in its path.
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