What does it mean to be Caribbean?

libya is burning..dictotor gaddafi tries to overcome this blasting situation with weapon power.he is not willing to hear world"s opinions.he tries to make world underestimation..twise he ordered cease fire..within minutes he brofe cease ..now the whole world understood his lies and cunning slogens..he has to go out from libyan power..libyans want it..un can push him that way..i feel victory of democracy within few days

I am an American ex-pat living in Antigua and I would first off, like to express my regret at the end of the BBC World Broadcast in the Caribbean today. With regard to the idea of a Caribbean identity, I think it is a very tricky question. Though the islands do share histories of slavery and colonialism, each of these features played out very differently in each island, even within the British Caribbean. I think a West Indian identity is best defined in opposition to the first world and the global North, though I have found people take extreme pride in their individual island nation identities.

I'm a little disconcerted that the Caribbean discussion has opened with gross stereotypes of Caribbean identity including rum, beaches, and cricket. Isn't there so much more to Caribbean identity than what the tourists want?!?!?!?!?

Listening to the program, the reasons for Caribbean identity sounds like the same things we tell the tourists to get them to come. We do have similarities; food, history and music, but I always tell foreigners that one of the best things about our islands is just how different each island is. In the same way you cannot visit France and say to have seen Europe, you cannot visit any single Caribbean island and have seen the Caribbean.

We get lots of American news , nothing about Africa, nothing about Libyan people , only scripts from the pentagon , thanks and with the new world government coming into place , they simply have to shut up 1 of the last sources of truth -

I will miss BBC Caribbean as a source of international information.

I think many of us also celebrate the successes from each other's islands - in Barbados we all feel a sense of pride about the achievements of Bob Marley, Usian Bolt, Brian Lara or Deryck Walcott. After our nationality, I think most of us see ourselves as West Indian. I hope the future brings greater cooperation between our nations but going on the evidence of failed efforts at establishing an effective Caribbean Court of Justice and the CSME, I am pessimistic. We could achieve so much more by working together...

What does it mean to be Caribbean?

I jokingly tell my friends from the Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico that they are not really Caribbean. Most of us from the former British West Indies rarely see those outside that grouping as Caribbean. We more see Guyana as Caribbean, although the Caribbean Sea doesn't wash it's shores, than Belize.

I am also an American ex-pat living in the Yucatan peninsula (at the very edge of the Caribbean) and I sorry to hear that the end of the MW BBC World Broadcast in the Caribbean is today. As young lad during my summer vacations here I would crank up the short wave at night and wonder at the far off voices from the Beep, Radio Netherlands and others. Even though I understand how budgets can affect day to day reality, and how streaming on the net makes the SW a bit redundant, what about during emergencies such as hurricanes here in the Caribbean and other natural catastrophes elsewhere? My hurricane emergency kit includes a SW radio which now I wonder if it is superfluous kit.

Hi everyone on the live from the WHYS show.

Maybe your presenter there can ask one of the Bahamians if they know who the "Eluetheran Adventurers" were. For those who don't know, they were a group of 17th century English religious dissidents, Puritans basically, who whilst living on Bermuda in the 1630s, were forced to leave the island because they sided with the Puritan leader Oliver Cromwell during the English Civil War. In 1648 70 settlers, men, women, children and, sadly, their slaves, sailed from Bermuda with Captain John Sayles on board The William to the uninhabited island chain know as Bajamere by the Spanish and Citagoo by local ex natives who by then were decimated by the Spanish. They settled on Eluethera island (the Greek name for Freedom) and set up a colony to be known as The Bahamas with New Providence as its capital and became a Crown Colony in 1718 after the Pirates of the Caribbean were driven out. Their ancestors are still there today and live mainly on the out islands of Spanish Wells and Eluethera and are self employed as fisherman, as my grandfather in Florida was. One is in the present National Assembly.

Oh and I am descended from the Eleutheran Adventurers through my mother whose father was born in Nassau but grew up on Long Island and immigrated to the US (Florida) in 1911, and whose ancestors were on board The William in 1648. Several place names in the Bahamas are named after my mother's family name.

Any others from the Bahamas reading this feel free to reply. Nice day now. I be goin'.

Rob

I lived in Jamaica from 1992-2006 in a little cabin in Negril. I had my Sangean and a long wire antenna. I thought the BBC's Caribbean Service was a daily blessing. Thank you... all of you who made it possible.

I am so sad that today is the last day of BBC Caribbean. BBC World Service brings us the best news available in Jamaica. It sets a standard of how broadcasting should be.

No one is quite clear here, are we losing just the specifically Caribbean service, or will we no longer be able to hear BBCWorld Service from tomorrow? If the latter I shallbe immeasurably sad.

The only practical way to define Caribbean identity is to look at things by linguistic bloc in my opinion, not that it really makes it easy but hey.

I am from Tobago (Trinidad and Tobago) and have had the pleasure of going to the UWI- St Augustine Campus and lived on Milner Hall with students from across the region. There are a few things that bind us together and made integration and mixing relatively easy. Music- Steel pan calypso soce reggae dancehall and Sport, more specifically cricket and football are, just like David Rudder asserted, a significant part of the Caribbean Identity. It binds us because the music has been traded back and forth. It forms part of the many Caribbean Islands' environments. I grew up hearing Bob Marley Lord Kitchener Machel Montano etc and pan as did many others. We al shared in the journey of the "Windies". But those commonalities sometimes take back seats to the individual islands' cultures. I can say that no two islands/ people are the same. You can even see it between Trinidad and Tobago. In T&T, there are distinct differences in accents temperament and even histories. I think the most contrasting difference I have come across is with Jamaica. Jamaica's culture people and even language are vastly different from the rest of the Caribbean.
Another point in defining what it means to be Caribbean, is defining "What is the Caribbean" I think there is a great divide among the Lesser and greater Antilles, the Spanish speaking French speaking Dutch and English speaking Caribbean nations. What about Central America are they considered the Caribbean? Is the Caribbean defined as Caricom or the Caribbean sea? I'd love to hear other views

I am Caribbean and know that there is much more to a common Caribbean Identity than simply geography, music and sports. Please check out my post for more: http://wp.me/p1j5g1-4B

@JohanMarcus - I was born in Chicago, but my whole family was born in Barranquilla, Colombia. I know that it is not typically thought of as Carribean, but the rest of Colombia see the people from the Carribean coast has having more in common with the Carribean than the rest of Colombia. Unfortunately, the stereotypes exist there too, where people from the interior see the coastal people as laid-back, fun-loving, partying, heavy drinking people. Oh well, I guess there are worse things to be.