Writing and Art as Revolution

The New Bahamian Literature: Writing and Art as Revolution
(Paper given at the Bahamas Association For Cultural Studies Conference on Bahamian art, culture and identity, June 4, 1998.)

Lynn Sweeting

Art, and Writing especially, is revolutionary by nature. You cannot get around it. Unless of course, you only write what an advertiser, promoter, editor or client wants you to write, and never what needs to be said.

The Writing and Art that is most powerful, and most historic, and most vital to our every day lives, is always revolutionary. It is the story that has never been told before. It is the voice that has never spoken before. It is the vision that has never been seen before, changing the vision that we have today, breaking it down in a crescendo of destruction sometimes, and sometimes changing traditions and ideologies very quietly and subversively, from deep within.

I believe with all my bones that at the very core of all inspired thought, and all critically important artistic expression, there is great Change occurring, always. Change, or Growth, is the active motion of healthy culture. Great art does not only remember the roots, it tends to the branch too, and the leaf, and the leaf-bud. Important literature always reveals to us something about ourselves, or our society, or the creative process itself, that we hadn't clearly seen before. Great art and literature teaches us something new, it causes us to actively question, and it causes us to change our very shape, or it does nothing at all.

Not everyone in my homeland will agree. The general attitude in my country is that, great Art is marketable, important Art sells, and that is all. According to the unspoken rule, worthwhile Art is a thing appropriately created, coloured and presented in accordance with the image created especially for Bahamian people by the Ministry of Tourism and some New York advertising agencies.

In this place, worthwhile literature is a totally foreign concept. We know we must hang a painting on the wall. We know we must prostitute the image of the junkanoo in those paintings, and the poor poinciana tree, and the poor polluted harbour, in our desperate quest to become the biggest tourist trap on the planet, and the most smug, most fat and most content people in the Caribbean.

But what are we to do with essays, novels, poetry, and plays? What are we to do with books, and words, inspired expression, and critical discussion? What are we to do with the scholars and the speakers who are talking about revolution? What are we to do with the writings that contradict the cardboard-cut-out image of the Bahamian who lives for nothing more than to keep the wheels greased on Paradise Island by day, and to watch American Cable TV by night? Who will like books and arts that reveal and uncover the wild, the amazing, the horrifying, the puzzling, the newly emerging and the ancient, forgotten images?

As writers, and artists, are we really uncovering the real lives that we live? And are we really trying to express a knowing that might enrich, heal, free, or celebrate a real life? Are we really conscious of the power of a literature in a culture? Are we really trying to understand that power? Do we understand what it takes to create and sustain a tradition of powerful literature in a culture? Do we yet understand that some kind of transformation has to be taking place, in our Art, and in our consciousness, or our poems and stories are half-baked, and unsatisfying? And our society remains locked into the same limiting definitions of self?

In recent years, I've had the joy of working with a small but powerful group of women writers, compiling and publishing WomanSpeak, a journal of literature and art by Bahamian and Caribbean women.

And if you believe the words of these women writers, there is a need for revolution in all corners of our society.

In her poem, "House #17", Cecilee Jayne Hilton dares to speak of violence against children and women in the home. The first step in the revolution, is to expose the abuse. And although this poem uncovers the terrible feelings of hopelessness that follow violence in the home, the fact that the poem is spoken, and the silence is broken, is sure evidence that at least the writer is beginning to understand how to resist, and how to heal In the soon-to-be released issue of WomanSpeak [Vol 4] Marion Bethel's story "Prayer For The Dilly," uncovers many secrets of a woman's life. But for me, it is the story of a woman's loss of control over her own body, and her inability to decide how many pregnancies she will endure. This story reveals the violence in a belief system that says a good, godly woman must bear and bear children, even if it kills her. This is the story of rituals and prayers and goddesses that rise up out of a woman's life when the gods of patriarchy just don't have the right stuff for the situation. But mostly, this is the story of the writer Marion Bethel, coming into a place in her Art where her authentic voice gathers strength, and she becomes even more conscious of her own transformative powers as a writer and visionary. This is the revolution in a writer's own deep life. WomanSpeak has uncovered stories that call for revolution in the Spirit, and in the Church. Writer Helen Klonaris brazenly takes the Biblical story of Cain and Abel, and turns it inside out in her myth, "I Am Not My Sister's Keeper, But I Will Keep The Sacred Fires Lit." In Klonaris's story, one sister does not kill the other. There is no manipulative, elitist deity delivering judgement and punishment. Instead, the two sisters make a relationship with one another. They celebrate the differences between one another, they listen to each other's strange words, and freaky, foreign ideas, and they are not jealous, or afraid of one another. They make love with each other. Then they leave each other in peace and love, each one giving a special gift to the other, each one blessed by having known the other. Wow. Can you imagine the kinds of wondrous, burgeoning cultures we'd grow if all the Old Testament could be re-written in this way.

It can be re-written. As writers, we have the power. Realizing this, and using the power, obviously, is an act of revolution.

Women writers are also talking about revolution in the body. It is practically insurrection for a woman to truly love and celebrate and elevate and honour her body, in a culture like ours where like the land and the sea, women's bodies are either under attack, or held up as the metaphor for all that is evil, or weak, or pathetic. Poet Asha Rahming resists every negative image of womanhood in her poem, Curry Flavour. It is a breathless, orgasmic poem about the fragrance, and deliciousness of her own body, and how she can use it to bring a man to his knees. It is revolutionary for a woman to take pleasure in her own body, when patriarchy trains us to offer our bodies up to men and their God in grateful shame.

The very existence of WomanSpeak is an act of insurrection, because the editors made it clear from the outset that we were looking for the writers who recognized patriarchy, and all the oppressions that it breeds. We very unapologetically, and sometimes fearfully, called for the stories, poetry and testimonials that shatter the stereotypical image of the dim-witted, smiling, maid/wife/waitress/secretary/nursemaid, a Bahamian woman who works like a bitch dog for men and God, happy to suffer through life, in the hope for forgiveness and divine acceptance at death, if she is lucky.

A crucial lesson I've learned in compiling this Journal, and reading the work of our most important women of literature, is that this is not how politically conscious and empowered women of the islands see themselves, or their function in society.

I have been a professional writer for eighteen years, and have published many stories about Bahamian Art, and Culture. But as I write this paper tonight I realize that only a handful of people have heard my real voice. I'm not so used to the sound of it myself. As I speak to you, I am afraid, because I struggleto say what it is I most desperately need to say about Bahamian Art, Culture and Identity, and I struggle to speak from my own truth, and my own experience. I am afraid because I have been well trained by the tourism industry, and by the history books, and by the church, to doubt the value of my words. I have been well trained to believe that as a writer in this land I am to stories that only praise, laud and exaggerate those same false images I've already mentioned.

And I am not the only one. But there is great change afoot. The very fact that we are here today, talking about art, culture and identity, is evidence of this change. I hope that we will all take advantage of the forum, and of the chance to think critically, and to speak truthfully, about the serious issues that face us in the cultural community, as we struggle to make our contributions to consciousness, to healing, and to re-birth.

It is revolutionary to believe, as children of imperialism, colonialism, slavery, racism, sexism, elitism, fundamentalist religion, and now tourism, as well as being children of too much wealth, and too much poverty, that we have something important to say. It is revolutionary to believe in our own transformative, creative powers, in a culture that belittles, degrades, violates or marginalizes more people than we care to admit.

It is revolutionary to remember what those powers are for, and how to use them. It is revolutionary to take another look at history, and another look, and still another, and to recognize what is missing from the stories, and to understand why those stories are missing. It is revolutionary to begin to re-member those stories. Not just to pay homage to the past, but to heal from the past, and to use our collective and individual histories and herstories to make our brand new, totally original, totally revolutionary contributions to those traditions, because a tradition is not a tradition, unless it is evolving, unless it is changing, unless it is being turned inside out, or even pummelled into another shape.

It is revolutionary to do this, and then to give the new thing we create to our children, not for them to enshrine or cast in stone, but for them to take hold of, and carry on changing its shape, its colour, and its function. Because we have been bred to only give lip service to a very weird, inanimate, one-dimensional, pre-destined profile of the appropriate Bahamian. And I believe that all of us, no matter who we are, hide a secret, painful place inside, where we live in fear that at any moment, our masques will slip, and we will be revealed as unacceptable, or undeserving of real consideration in the big scheme of things.

It is revolutionary to begin to recognize that change, revolution, is the sacred nature of the work of the Poet, the Storyteller, the Playwright, the Essayist, the Teacher, the Philosopher, and even the Painter, the Dancer, and the Music Maker. Creating more places for ourselves, where this magical, creative alchemy can take place, is our duty as an evolving culture. Becoming a hungrier, more curious, more critical, more inclusive, more appreciative, more interactive audience for each other's intellectual and artistic gifts, should be our joyful struggle.

It is revolutionary to use Writing and Art to make real community, or real culture, if you like, where isolation, ignorance and fear are the norms, and where identity usually depends on how many hotel rooms are full, how many toys you have, and how many people you are in charge of.

It is revolutionary to create literature, art, and all creative expressions of consciousness, bearing witness to each other's work first. I happen to believe that the tourists will keep coming, if we create with a deeper purpose than simply to entertain them. I happen to think we could inject some integrity into this gargantuan business of tourism, if as writers and artists, we stopped gyrating and gesticulating for tourists, and turned instead to each other, and began speaking about our experiences as island people, together with, and for the sake of, each other.

When we bring our intellectual and creative gifts to town centre, let it be for the sake of each other. Not for the appeasement of our misinformed idea of the money-spending tourist. As writers and artists, as the core members of the intellectual and cultural community of The Bahamas, we must begin to take our gifts more seriously. We must begin to recognize and claim the wider, deeper responsibilities we have in the country, and in the world. Then, our poetry, and our stories, and all expressions of our identity, take on critical, historic, and transformative meaning; because then, our literature and art begins to have world-wide political and cultural significance, and the deeper, more complex meaning of our existence is further uncovered for our own enrichment's sake. I happen to believe that the tourists will embrace our artistic expressions even more, if we bring it from a more authentic place. But I also believe that we cannot judge the value of any art by the income it generates. I believe you judge it by the impact it has upon our collective and individual consciousness.