Equaliberty in the Dutch Caribbean: Ways of Being Non/Sovereign (Critical Caribbean Studies)

It is our postcolonial questions and not our answers that demand our critical attention. -David Scott, 2002 "Ooh no . . . crapaud smoke yuh pipe," as they say in the Ca rib bean. Vladimir Lucien has just gotten himself into trou ble-and that on the very last day of the festival. Things were going so well for him during the St. Martin Book Fair, a literary fête that takes place annually on the binational island of Sint Maarten & Saint Martin. Vladimir, the up-and-coming author and critic from St. Lucia, who has been hailed throughout the festival for his ingenuity in combining academic postcolonial theorizing with his spoken word per for mances, has dared to question the striving for po liti cal sovereignty. His critique of the current and past po liti cal leaders on his native island is welcomed. He informs the audience, made up of other invited artists from the region and a small pocket of consumers of lit er a ture, that the politicians on St. Lucia are examples of that social formation that the Martinican scholar-activist Frantz Fanon ([1961] 2004) termed a "comprador bourgeoisie. " The twist, Vladimir continues, is that this bourgeoisie has read Fanon and other decolonial and postcolonial authors at the University of the West Indies and the London School of Economics. As a result, they have a great ability to orate that jargon in contorted forms in public gatherings and can thus take the venom out of the critique of organic intellectuals. People in the crowd murmur approvingly that the same is the case on Sint Maarten & Saint Martin. Vladimir's last move-attempting to speak critically about Sint Maartenhowever, turns out to be suicidal. He states that, to his knowledge, the Dutch side of the island has a good deal of autonomy within a transatlantic federation that needs some tinkering. The fact that he mouths the term "Dutch side" already raises disapproving looks among the in de pen dence fighters who have or ga nized the event. When he goes on to say that, to his mind, seeking in de pen dence is still too complicit with a colonial mindset of in de pen dent countries that are "sovereign" yet under the power of the United States and Eu rope, and that the ## Fr ancio Guadeloupe and Y von van der Pi jl Ca rib bean should think through alternatives to this "past" po liti cal proj ect, he is interrupted. Rhoda Arrindell, a well-known freedom fighter on the island, who has been cordial with him up until now, shouts, "You just stop right there. " She lets him know that she does not appreciate him speaking about what St. Martiners should do. That is unacceptable. It is up to the people to decide, informed of course by their educated and dedicated daughters and sons of the soil, who are aware of the evil trickery of colonial powers like the Netherlands and France. She continues to pontificate that while St. Lucia strug gles eco nom ically and still has to deal with the enslaving nations of the past, by which she means the North Atlantic countries, it is nevertheless a sovereign country and as such can take its place in the United Nations meetings in New York. St. Martin (not Sint Maarten & Saint Martin, as that is a colonial division), her island, in contrast, is still a colony. Her message is clear: there are still colonies in the world and still colonial masters who claim to represent colonized Ca rib bean peoples, like those of St. Martin, internationally. She ends by averring that, just like the former British colonies, St. Martin too has to become a sovereign nation. The force of her intervention leads to a deafening silence. The moderator seeks to ease the tension by raising a new topic far more related to Ca rib bean aesthetics, but this effort is destined to fail: the proverbial cat is out of the bag. If the St. Martin Book Fair was meant to celebrate Ca rib bean unity and a coming together of authors pushing for po liti cal in de pen dence from former colonial masters, Vladimir Lucien's interference and Rhoda Arrindell's response reveal that this is (only) a unity based on the sovereign nation-state model, whereby every country has its people and its intellectuals who alone can speak for them. Still, it is telling that no other Sint Maarteners in the audience followed Arrindell. Perhaps this is because most Sint Maarteners continue to wish to remain connected to the (Eu ro pean) Netherlands and the other Dutch Ca rib bean islands, which is a public secret. Although Ca rib bean freedom strug gles contributed to the formation of the sovereign nation-state model, this model was perfected by the United States and Western Eu rope, which to this day still wield disproportionate global power. The influential Ca rib bean theorists and revolutionaries Frantz Fanon and C. L. R. James never bought into this model. They stood more for federations of excolonial countries, where the nation-state model was but a step and a tool in a move toward the full de mo li tion of the Western hegemony that lived on in the Bretton Woods Agreement. The dreams of Fanon and James, however, did not materialize. Full sovereignty in the Ca rib bean today, as it was at the time when many islands did gain po liti cal autonomy, is a fata morgana. On that final day of the St. Martin Book Fair, the Ca rib be an's postcolonial predicament was revealed. David Scott's (2004, 3) prescient insight that "it is our postcolonial questions and not our answers that demand our critical attention" rang true-and deserved, prob ably more than ever, to be followed and elaborated. Fr ancio Guadeloupe and Y von van der Pi jl this introduction began. Aspirations for self-determination resurface from time to time, and as is the case on other Ca rib bean islands, vari ous po liti cal actors or social movements still support po liti cal in de pen dence and national sovereignty (cf. "Equaliberty in the Dutch Caribbean is a collection of essays that explores fundamental questions of equality and freedom on the non-sovereign islands of the Dutch Caribbean. Drawing on in-depth ethnographic research, historical and media analysis, the study of popular culture, and autoethnographic accounts, the various contributions challenge conventional assumptions about political non/sovereignty. While the book recognizes the existence of nationalist independence movements, it opens a critical space to look at other forms of political articulation, autonomy, liberty, and a good life. Focusing on all six different islands and through a multitude of voices and stories, the volume engages with the everyday projects, ordinary imaginaries, and dreams of equaliberty alongside the work of independistas and traditional social movements aiming for more or full self-determination. As such, it offers a rich and powerful telling of the various ways of being in and belonging to our contemporary postcolonial world"-- Provided by publisher. Equaliberty in the Dutch Caribbean explores fundamental questions of equality and freedom on the various non-sovereign islands of the Dutch Caribbean. While this collection of essays recognizes the existence of nationalist independence movements, it challenges conventional assumptions about political non/sovereignty, opening a critical space to look at other forms of political articulation, autonomy, liberty, and a good life.