Some Cultural Observations

As promised, here are some observations about Barbadian culture that I've made so far:

1) People here are exceptionally polite.  When students arrive to class in the morning they say "Good morning" as they walk in and everyone else responds in kind.  The first time this happened I lifted my head from the book I was reading because I thought the teacher had walked in and was going to start class.  Nope, just a fellow student wishing me a good morning.  How nice!

2) Barbadians are very very reserved people.  There is none of the gregarious, spicy, jubliantness that most people associate with Caribbean people.  That is not to say Barbadians are boring or bitter people.  In fact they are quite interesting to talk to and seem to be generally upbeat (although there is the typical Caribbean pessimism about the state of public affairs).  But there is none of the cultural craziness that one would find in Jamaica or Trinidad.  There are many hypotheses for the unique Barbadian culture, but most scholars attribute it in some way to the 300 years of uninterrupted British rule over the island.  For this reason, Barbados is known as "the most British" of all the former UK colonies in the West Indies.

3) Barbados is a very religious society.  Most people go to church on Sunday, which makes doing anything else on a Sunday nearly impossible.  I had heard that Barbadians were religious, but it didn't hit me as to just how integral a part of the society it was until earlier this week in my Globalization & Global Governance class.  A student started out making a point about one thing or another, which spawned a group discussion.  When the discussion-originating student wanted to follow up on his comment no one was listening to him so he let fly a local saying "Don't worry, I am the least of the Apostles." I inquired as to what exactly he meant by that and he said it was a local way of saying he's clearly not worth listening to. 

4) Violence in Barbados is a big deal.  I do not mean to say that violence is a problem in Barbados.  What I mean by that statement is that violence is looked down upon and rare, so that when a violent act does occur it is the talk of the country and disgust is rampant.  Now most people in the world consider violence a bad thing.  But in many countries it is part of the culture (beating of wives, honor killings, etc) or becomes just an accepted part of society (see the U.S. and its thousands of murders every year).  In Barbados, violence runs contrary to every aspect of the restrained culture.  So, when eight days ago six people were killed in an attempted robbery, it was the talk of the country.  The front page of every paper ran the story in big print - in the way a terrorist attack in the U.S. would get covered by American newspapers.  And the shock did not disappear after a few days.  Yesterday, at noon, there was a nation-wide moment of silence in honor of the victims. 

5) My last observation, so far, is the tight-knit sense of community here in Barbados.  There is a real sense of common struggle due to the small population, geography, and lack of natural resources.  And, because there are so few people, there is a great expectation placed upon every young person to succeed not just for themselves, but for the country.  People here are immensely proud of the relative prosperity they have built for themselves, but they realize that it could disappear within a generation if there isn't a constant struggle to get their domestic institutions right and promote Barbados in the global economy.  They know that there would be no gentle landing into a comfortable lifestyle if they became complacent with, generally speaking, how things are.

Those are the main observations I have made so far.  I am sure there will be more in the future and I am sure that the above five will undergo varying modifications as my knowledge of, and experience with, Barbadian society increases.