How Barbados Became a Caribbean Power

Sun soaked; rum soaked; fringed by palms and golden beaches. Barbados is a Caribbean island that stirs up all the stereotypes one associates with this region. You picture pirates, rum runners and European explorers travelling around the coast and as you walk through Bridgetown you can almost hear calypso music in the streets. This is a romanticised image of the Caribbean, but one that I myself had as I moved through the island. But this image is critical to Barbados because it forms the foundation of the island’s soft power; the concept of global influence that has made it a modern Caribbean power.

The Caribbean is not a region short of cultural icons. Cuba is imbued with nostalgia and travelers flock to the island to indulge in one of the world’s last communist states. Castro’s image looms large over the nation and images of Cuba become more photogenic at every corner. Alternatively there is Jamaica, an island whose global image will forever be entwined with reggae, Bob Marley and Rastafarian culture. Jamaica, because of Cuba’s political isolation, had fallen into the role of a regional leader. It was a nation whose culture and soft power were unrivaled in the world, but within the last few years Barbados has risen high in the global conscience and arguably has replaced Jamaica as a modern soft power.

Soft power has allowed Barbados to achieve a dominance that neither military might or political influence could ever achieve. But identifying what is the root of the island’s soft power is complex.

(Above: The harbour at Bridgetown, the economic and political heart of Barbados)

One of the biggest contributing factors is music. For many music may be considered a trivial thing, but in the modern world it is one of the few cultural traditions that can reach all parts of the world and it can symbolise a nation’s global influence. Music has played a core part of Britain’s rise to become the world’s leading soft power nation; Adele, One Direction, Mumford & Sons and numerous others have helped to define the modern British state and within the Caribbean Jamaica’s dominance was largely down to the global influence of reggae music.

As Bob Marley came to define Jamaica in the 20th century, so Bajan musical figures have helped define Barbados in the 21st century. Cover Drive, Shontelle and most famously Rihanna have been catalysts for Barbados’s new-found cultural dominance. These artists have put Barbados on the map, acting as cultural ambassadors for the island. With Rihanna as its poster girl, Barbados has taken on the cultural prominence that Jamaica has developed with Bob Marley and reggae music. Her international success cemented Bajan culture in the minds of the global population and subsequent success by her contemporaries has confirmed the island’s cultural strength and pushed Barbados further in the soft power rankings. This has also helped it to success against its regional rivals; whereas Jamaica has relied on a cultural image iconic to generations past, Barbados is represented by figures enjoying success today.

(Above: Throughout Barbados there are constant reminders of the island’s link to Britain. Towns are often named after places in the UK, such as Worthing, which is on the British south coast.)

This cultural soft power, however, has also been backed up by the economic development and safety and security that the island enjoys. Unlike Jamaica, Barbados does not have connotations of violence and crime, and this has brought the tourists back to Barbados again and again. Tourists come to the island not simply seeking the Bajan culture that has been portrayed so widely across the globe, but also the security that this island can offer over many other nations within the Caribbean. Most importantly, however, is the way Barbados has generated an image of being a slice of the Caribbean to suit everybody. Its colonial links to the UK make it feel like familiar to the British and Europeans alike, whilst its modern culture has adopted much from the United States. This has resulted in a Barbados that is accessible and one in which any visitor, from any nation, can indulge in a form of Caribbean cosmopolitanism.

(Above: Barbados not only offers culture, but also a slice of the Caribbean ideal that all tourists here seek)

Whereas Jamaica and Cuba have such unique identities Barbados has attempted to push a new concept of the Caribbean; one of the cosmopolitan Caribbean and yet it has sought to retain Bajan traditions at the heart of life. With this concept making waves across the world, all of Barbados is aware that eyes are focusing on this island. With Rihanna and her contemporaries continuing to push on strength by strength it looks like Barbados will continue to grow economically, politically and as a soft power state. With music, history and the Bajan lifestyle at its core Barbados has risen and will continue to rise to become a true Caribbean power.

By Peter Banham

Cuba: A Nation Still Living in the Cold War Era

The Cold War ended in 1991 with the disintegration of the USSR, an event that followed the collapse of communism in Eastern Europe with the fall of the Berlin Wall. However for Cuba the Cold War never truly ended and the legacy of the conflict between the democratic West and the communist East still remains strong in the country.The main reason is that Cuba remains a communist country and for global analysts this political position has meant that the attitudes of the Cold War continue.

These analysts argue that the Cold War only ended because the communist systems in the USSR and Europe collapsed, not because of a mutual agreement by the two sides to end the conflict and this has meant there has meant that there was no official end to the conflict. Whilst the ideology that sustained the Cold War persists the conflict between pro-American supporters and communists will also continue.

For Cuba the biggest impact of the continuation of the Cold War is the continuation of the US trade embargo that has hampered economic development in the country and cut the Cuban community in America, focused around Miami, off from Cuba itself. This embargo has been in place since 1962 and was codified in law in 1992 with the government arguing that the USA would maintain the embargo for two reasons:

1. Cuba has failed to move towards greater democratization and recognition of human rights.
2. The USA holds $6 billion worth of financial claims against the Cuba government and is waiting for these claims to be fulfilled.

The argument that the trade embargo will remain until Cuba has become a fully democratic country is an interesting concept in so far as it appears to be a policy of the US government that is applied arbitrarily across the world. Although other similar countries are also subject to a US embargo, such as North Korea, whose embargo has existed since 1950, many other regimes are also deemed undemocratic but have not seen the level of sanctions, or indeed sanctions at all.

Countries including China, Laos and Vietnam are all current communist states whilst other nations, such as Turkmenistan and Eritrea, are also one party states and yet none of these regimes currently have sanctions imposed on them by the USA. If the US embargo was truly motivated by a desire to make Cuba more democratic, then critics of US foreign policy argue that the same sanctions should apply to all single party states, where democracy is not an alternative.

Many critics also question whether the US’s economic reasons for the trade embargo are justified. Although clearly the financial claims, worth $6 billion, are a motivation for the US government’s continuing trade embargo many believe that it provides an easy explanation to provide the Cuban community in America, an important voting bloc, with.

For many the trade embargo is simply representative of America’s deep-set mistrust of Cuba and whilst US culture and foreign politics continue to see Cuba as one of the greatest and closest threats to US security, the communist state will continue to remain a victim of the trade embargo. The trade embargo is claimed to have cost the Cuban government close to $685 million annually (Dollars & Sense, March/April 2009) and has severely damaged Cuban economic development with many of America’s allies treating Cuba as a pariah state.

However despite the legal establishment of the trade embargo there are changes occurring to the relationship between the USA and Cuba. In 2009 President Obama relaxed the laws regarding Cuba which allowed Cuba-Americans to more easily visit and send money to relatives in Cuba itself. Even more recently ships carrying humanitarian supplies have been allowed to sail to Cuba with the first cargo ship from Miami reaching Havana on 13th July 2012.

But a widespread abandonment of the trade embargo seems unlikely with the US keen to retain its hold over the economic and the political development of the Caribbean region and Cuba still supporting its communist government, that so alienates the US government.This rigid adherence to their political stances and the maintenance of long held divisions means that Cuba may well continue to exist in the Cold War era.

By Peter Banham