Speaker 1: Hey, welcome to it could happen here podcasts, but things
Speaker 1: fallen apart and putting them back together. And this is
Speaker 1: another Andrew episode. So hello Ulu, yes, greetings, we have
Speaker 1: we have we have Chris, we have James, we have myself,
Speaker 1: and we have Andrew. Obviously who I'm going to hand
Speaker 1: the reins off too awesome. So hello again to another
Speaker 1: episode of me talking about different stuff. Um and quite fittingly,
Speaker 1: considering to these the d that Queenlizabeth has passed into
Speaker 1: the pits of hell Um, we are we are deeply
Speaker 1: as as a citizen under the Commonwealth, we are deeply
Speaker 1: saddened by the loss we do. Listen there reached out
Speaker 1: to me today and I am okay, guys. Today we
Speaker 1: will be discussing a current member of the Commonwealth UM,
Speaker 1: one of quite a few twin island nations in the Caribbean,
Speaker 1: that being Antigua and Barbuda, and more specifically Barbuda. Barbuda
Speaker 1: is an example of African resilience. It's an example of
Speaker 1: a society in touch with this environment. It's an example
Speaker 1: of the capability of the Commons as an institution, and
Speaker 1: it's an example of sticking it to the Crown. To
Speaker 1: be quite honest as you nice, I mean, I'm excited
Speaker 1: to learn more about that. How how yes, So I
Speaker 1: don't think many people know about bob Uda and its history.
Speaker 1: I doubt most people could place it on a map.
Speaker 1: But it's it. It represents quite the interesting story. So
Speaker 1: to begin, I should probably explain what what is a Barbuda.
Speaker 1: Bobbuda is an island located in the Eastern Caribbean, forming
Speaker 1: part of the sovereign state of Antigua and Barbuda. It's
Speaker 1: located north of the island of Antigua and it's part
Speaker 1: of the Leeward Islands for the West Indies. It comprises
Speaker 1: about sixty two square miles, so it is about sixty
Speaker 1: two square miles which is a hundred and sixty kilometers,
Speaker 1: and it's one of the flattest islands in the Caribbean.
Speaker 1: It's soils are very shallow and in foods. Island is
Speaker 1: a very arid island with very little rainfall and very
Speaker 1: frequent routs. It's scrub willderness is roamed by day and
Speaker 1: pigs and descendants of the animals early European traders and
Speaker 1: settlers would have imported. It also has a pre settlement,
Speaker 1: ever green woodland that consists of white cedar, turpentine and
Speaker 1: white wood, alongside columnar cactus and thorny shrubs and grassy
Speaker 1: glades and soils that have been another species that have
Speaker 1: grown up in soils that have been degraded by the
Speaker 1: clearance of charcoal burning and crazing and just general human activity.
Speaker 1: Most bob Udans, I would say, engage in shifting cultivation,
Speaker 1: but none of them are full time farmers. The countryside
Speaker 1: is mostly uninhabited because the law required that all bob
Speaker 1: Udans lived in or near the islands one village, which
Speaker 1: is Quadrington, and there, according to twenty eleven census, there
Speaker 1: were roughly one thirty four people on the island. Of course,
Speaker 1: that has changed in recent times, and we'll get into
Speaker 1: that shortly. Barbuda is yet another example of a distinctive
Speaker 1: community emerging out of the colonial era that swept through
Speaker 1: the Caribbean. I've mentioned the Maroons before, the different marine
Speaker 1: communities that have existed on the different Caribbean islands and
Speaker 1: in Guyana and Surnam, but I think bob Uda and
Speaker 1: their story represents really the diversity of how colonialism manifested
Speaker 1: um in the region. Barbula's people have a sense of
Speaker 1: identity and attachment to locality that is I think very
Speaker 1: distinctive and very unique among people of the Caribbean. Not
Speaker 1: to say that the rest of us don't have a
Speaker 1: sense of identity or an attachment locality, but their story
Speaker 1: and the tradition reaches back over two centuries of near
Speaker 1: independence and quite significant levels of autonomy, which was unheard
Speaker 1: of in most of the Caribbean due to the legacy
Speaker 1: of slavery. Representing a very close knit and traditional community.
Speaker 1: Probably Runs approach to using and student the resources reflects
Speaker 1: that long legacy of isolation, of ecological constraint being on
Speaker 1: such a small island, of familial closeness having such a
Speaker 1: small population, and of social interdependence. Considering the series of
Speaker 1: administrators that they had dealt with and how each of
Speaker 1: those administrators neglected or ignored them. Bobby Runs, both whom
Speaker 1: and abroad, are still very much attached to their island
Speaker 1: because they have long held in common. So we'll be
Speaker 1: diving into a brief history of exactly how they reached
Speaker 1: this point, what institutions they've developed for common ownership and
Speaker 1: communal land use, and how emigration has played a role
Speaker 1: in that, and unfortunately, how the combination of Hurricane Irma
Speaker 1: and the doctrine and the shock doctrine have contributed to
Speaker 1: their current situation. So for more than two hundred years,
Speaker 1: from the late seventeenth century, Barbuda was leased by the
Speaker 1: crown to one family, the Cardringtons, hence the name of
Speaker 1: the village being Cardrington. The originally c was a guy
Speaker 1: named Christopher Cardrington. He was the governor of the Lead
Speaker 1: World Islands and his ears lived in England, so they
Speaker 1: pretty much neglected it after year died. Barbuda would have
Speaker 1: supplemented the lucrative sugar states that Cardrickton had an antigua
Speaker 1: with timber and ground provisions and fish and livestock and
Speaker 1: draft animals. Barbuda, being surrounded by coral reefs, often had
Speaker 1: ships wrecked near the island, and so they also salvage
Speaker 1: resources from lead ships and so as late as in
Speaker 1: the eighteen fifties, the Cardrington's were getting four thousand pounds
Speaker 1: a year from Barbuda and stock, and three hundred pounds
Speaker 1: a year from salvage in operations on the island. That's
Speaker 1: just over sixty three thousand pounds today per year, and
Speaker 1: it just demonstrates, of course, and even though they were
Speaker 1: more independent than bost other enslaved people US, the island
Speaker 1: wasn't as profitable. They were still being exploited. Initially the
Speaker 1: island was only worked by a few indentured whites, but
Speaker 1: then when enslaved people were brought in from Africa, the
Speaker 1: enslaved population began to rise, and they began to establish
Speaker 1: that sort of culture and community that we see to
Speaker 1: this day. Because they were neglected because the island was
Speaker 1: very little inhabited. They housed and they fed themselves through
Speaker 1: their own efforts and well basically spared of the rigors
Speaker 1: of the plantation regiment because of how unprofitable the island
Speaker 1: was because it's soils were so sandy and arid and unfertile.
Speaker 1: So between eighteen hundred and eighteen thirty two, being free
Speaker 1: in many respects, probably this population was able to rise
Speaker 1: from three hundred to five hundred and able to a
Speaker 1: cohesive creole community whose solidarity was able to thwart the
Speaker 1: efforts of local overseers and absentee proprietors to try to
Speaker 1: get them to labor on anti United States or to
Speaker 1: get them to be more quote and quote productive um
Speaker 1: for their overseers because they had such a several hundred
Speaker 1: strong community on that island that had established itself for generations.
Speaker 1: No overseer, no manager, could just pull up in there
Speaker 1: and just say try and cooce them into doing what
Speaker 1: he wanted them to do. This is installed contrast to
Speaker 1: a lot of the other Criban islands, where managers and
Speaker 1: overseers had a lot more presence and a lot more
Speaker 1: power to destroy families, to split up communities, to ferment divisions.
Speaker 1: Because the island just they basically neglected it, and in
Speaker 1: that neglect, they took advantage of that nicol of the
Speaker 1: material conditions that created that neglect to strengthen their community
Speaker 1: bonds and to strengthen their autonomy. As emancipation came around,
Speaker 1: car Drinton himself even was like, wow, good for them
Speaker 1: pretty much because almost all of them, who were, like
Speaker 1: to quote him directly, one united family so attached to
Speaker 1: bob Udell that force alone or extreme drought can alone
Speaker 1: take them from that island. In other words, as an exploit.
Speaker 1: As a displaced indigenous African people, they reforged the connection
Speaker 1: to the new land. They inhabited and rooted themselves in
Speaker 1: that land. The one, one particular tradition they have is
Speaker 1: the burial of ones in Biblical Code on the island itself,
Speaker 1: and so that has been going on for generations with
Speaker 1: a new child is born and the Embiblical code is
Speaker 1: buried on the island. And so even Mobudens move abroad,
Speaker 1: they still have that strong tie to the island itself.
Speaker 1: So after emancipation ruled around in eighteen thirty four, Bobby,
Speaker 1: their life didn't change that much. That the transition from
Speaker 1: slavery to being free was not as abrupt or as
Speaker 1: consequential as it was in other parts of the Cariban.
Speaker 1: They didn't become landowners, they didn't necessarily get any political
Speaker 1: power automatically because probably there was still being assigned to
Speaker 1: crown leases which had certain um agreements and contracts in
Speaker 1: place with the crown, that kind of thing. But they
Speaker 1: were I mean, they were still being exploited, but things
Speaker 1: were a bit easier for them to transition compared to
Speaker 1: other places. In eighteen thirty five, agreements had secured Bobby
Speaker 1: the unemployment on contracturn Empress enterprises at specific rates of pay,
Speaker 1: but after the contract had lapsed, it really really voted
Speaker 1: to a sort of relationship of coersion. They wouldn't pay um,
Speaker 1: they wouldn't pay them their wages. They would take quote
Speaker 1: and quote ricalcu and prob Udans and transport them to
Speaker 1: antigue and jails or plantations, and they would continue to
Speaker 1: just siphon off of the island. One of the only
Speaker 1: exports really on the island at the time was cattle,
Speaker 1: mostly for Cardrington's estates and Antigua cattle, sheep and firewood.
Speaker 1: And the people themselves were engaged in cultivating provisions yams, potatoes,
Speaker 1: corn and supplying their own farming history. They were including
Speaker 1: the necessities. So Abudans would continue with their different occupations,
Speaker 1: their hunting and they're fishing, their provision intending their cutting
Speaker 1: wood and put in charcoal and salvage and wrecks. Sometimes
Speaker 1: the would they would be employed by proprietors with governments,
Speaker 1: but most times they either disregarded these authorities or acted
Speaker 1: and opened the siance and so each ones the state
Speaker 1: would often complain about prob Uduans and their disregard for
Speaker 1: the crowns property and the estates property. They would often
Speaker 1: be accused of coaching Cortinon's cattle, and so they will.
Speaker 1: There was one attempt in particular to seize all their
Speaker 1: guns and send them off of the island. And so
Speaker 1: when the government did step in and condemned Bobby Duns
Speaker 1: for you know, taking cattle when they wanted to take cattle,
Speaker 1: Bobby Duns basically pull a reverse card and demanded redress
Speaker 1: against interference with their livelihoods. They basically were like, I'll
Speaker 1: quote one petition that was written by Bobby Duns in
Speaker 1: eighteen We are deprived of the use of our firearms,
Speaker 1: where by most of us live in shooting any large fish,
Speaker 1: tootle or wild birds. We are told to take out licenses.
Speaker 1: Yet if we have seen with a gun, not even shooting,
Speaker 1: we're taken before the Mages Street of Antigua and severely
Speaker 1: punished punished for it. Our little gardens are gone to waste,
Speaker 1: and if such as are still in a little cultivation,
Speaker 1: was to be injured by weather, and we, by sickness,
Speaker 1: are not able to have the fences repaired directly. It
Speaker 1: has taken and Brune say nour intention is willing to
Speaker 1: catch the wild beast sub Mr Cardington's. Eventually, I guess
Speaker 1: the Cardington's got tired of having to not profit as
Speaker 1: well as they could have, of having to deal with
Speaker 1: these independent people. Their relinquished on their least. In eighteen
Speaker 1: seventy they took all their horses and cattle off the island,
Speaker 1: leaving only the day and sheep because he currently round
Speaker 1: up day and sheep as effectively at that point, and
Speaker 1: they basically they left um. And I was find it
Speaker 1: interested when Europeans bring like a bunch of European animals
Speaker 1: wherever they go. It's like, let me just go and
Speaker 1: set up in a state here in a middle of
Speaker 1: no way and introduce a bunch of deer and sheep
Speaker 1: and rabbits and stuff. I mean, I think it happened
Speaker 1: in Australia as well. They just let a bunch of
Speaker 1: rabbitshes school loose just for hunting. It's like, oh, let
Speaker 1: me like get a hobby that's not shooting animals. But anyway,
Speaker 1: so because Bobby, they was seen as unprofitable. Each lea
Speaker 1: see that you know, got their least from the crown,
Speaker 1: got it its resources as much as they could and
Speaker 1: neglected its inhabitants. William and Robert Dougal of William and
Speaker 1: Robert Dougal's probably with the island company never invested the
Speaker 1: annual one point five or one hundred pounds required by
Speaker 1: their least only seven hundred pounds rather than they promised.
Speaker 1: Six thousand worth of stock were introduced with Bailey with
Speaker 1: barely a score. Pubulans employed as crazy as and even
Speaker 1: though they allegedly attempted to plant certain coffee cooler, cuckoo
Speaker 1: another fruits, they neglected that too, and eventually a derelict
Speaker 1: Bobido was forfeited to the crown for a non payment
Speaker 1: of friend. When a government official visited the island, we
Speaker 1: found the day were almost exterminated. The satin wooden log
Speaker 1: would be depleted, the cattle were famished, the fences would disrepair.
Speaker 1: They had four mens around up about horses, ate, a
Speaker 1: cattle and a bunch of cows, and the two products
Speaker 1: that existed on the island had long since become filthy
Speaker 1: and faiously overgrown not only with bush but dense tickets.
Speaker 1: Dr Dougal's gunners also apparently had a really bad sense
Speaker 1: of aim, because a lot of defences were just riddled
Speaker 1: with bullets, and so because the island and the people
Speaker 1: were starved and degraded by the dow calls UM, the
Speaker 1: Colonial Office had you know, revoked their lease and basically
Speaker 1: excused the few villages were taken some of the cattle
Speaker 1: for themselves. Babbulans had also protested the fact that whenever
Speaker 1: these leases would put up on their island, they would
Speaker 1: always be taking their stock, closing their provision grounds, trying
Speaker 1: to evict them basically doing everything they could be hostile
Speaker 1: towards people on the island, and so only their own
Speaker 1: traditional hunting and farming and and stuff enabled Baby Lands
Speaker 1: to survive. Of course, government being the government didn't really
Speaker 1: care about the people that much, so even though the
Speaker 1: lease holders were gone, didn't really get much out of
Speaker 1: it the people that is. So after determination lease, the
Speaker 1: Cluonial Government, the Leeward Islands Cluonial Government and Antigua basically
Speaker 1: took over the island and they established the government stock
Speaker 1: farm on some cotton plots in nineteen three UM. They
Speaker 1: gave some grants to pay for fencing and cutting wood
Speaker 1: and cotton experiments and cattle purchases and mule breeding, and
Speaker 1: the Bobby runs took the government gres and lands for
Speaker 1: their own purposes and basically enclosed a portion of that
Speaker 1: land and left it for the government stock and left
Speaker 1: the rest of the pasture, the richest parts of the
Speaker 1: pasture for their own horses and cattle and donkeys. So
Speaker 1: while the government had to deal with like this small
Speaker 1: portion of land with like some very weak, insufficient meadow,
Speaker 1: the rest of the community was able to flourish with
Speaker 1: a nice, rich pasture for their cattle. And still despite that,
Speaker 1: the stock farm, the government stock farm, still flourished with
Speaker 1: a hundred and sixty one horses, a hundred to eat cattle,
Speaker 1: and five mules. And then the cotton surprisingly also became
Speaker 1: profitable on the island um I called a crop that
Speaker 1: really didn't flourish. They are told during slavery, was now
Speaker 1: trying to pick up. In the beginning of the early century.
Speaker 1: We began shipping cotton note and employing a bunch of
Speaker 1: Bobby Dan's, and now Bobby there was being scheme is
Speaker 1: a super profitable place. However, because of that cotton boom,
Speaker 1: Bobby Dan's were able to buy passage overseas, they were
Speaker 1: able to raise the standard of living, and it ended
Speaker 1: up causing a labor shortage that led to conflict. After
Speaker 1: a shipwreck off the island. The island manager went to
Speaker 1: check out what was going on with the salvage, and
Speaker 1: and he caught a bunch of Bubu Dan's salvage in
Speaker 1: but salvage and for their own profits instead of his profits.
Speaker 1: And so, in retaliation, in retaliation for him trying to
Speaker 1: stop them from salvage and for themselves, the Bobby Duns
Speaker 1: burnt his boat and his wagon, and so in retaliation
Speaker 1: for that, the governor of Antigo started to impose these
Speaker 1: previously uninforced rents and cultivated plots, so like he wanted
Speaker 1: to charge like five shillings per equal per year, and
Speaker 1: he also doubled animal head taxes. And so by introducing
Speaker 1: these taxes, introducing these rents, the government's basically trying to
Speaker 1: get not just to punish the people for you know,
Speaker 1: daring to be free, but also trying to force them
Speaker 1: to work on their cotton plantation. Of course, Bob you don's,
Speaker 1: having lived so freely for so long, the want to
Speaker 1: work on these cotton plantations, especially not after slavery um.
Speaker 1: And so the people petitioned the crown against this kind
Speaker 1: of semi intentioned suitude that the governor was trying to introduce,
Speaker 1: and it seems that Mother Nature was on their side
Speaker 1: because they want their case. Due to drought, all the
Speaker 1: crops were basically ruined by drought, cutting on cotton profits,
Speaker 1: um cutting on cattle profits, cuttling on crops on corn profits.
Speaker 1: And all this happened in nineteen six and then in
Speaker 1: Barbado was hit by a hurricane more severe than they've
Speaker 1: ever seen before. And so that brief period where Barbarido
Speaker 1: was seen as striking google for the government came to
Speaker 1: an end, and Bob Dan's continued to cling on to
Speaker 1: their customary modes subsistence, of self reliance, of survival of
Speaker 1: their plots and their livestock and their fishing grounds, of
Speaker 1: continuing to be their own masters, because two d and
Speaker 1: fifty years of experience had taught them how unreliable and
Speaker 1: exploitative all these other alternatives that bosses non natives that
Speaker 1: the government was trying to introduce woo to them, and
Speaker 1: they learned that only ownership in common would guarantee their
Speaker 1: access and guarantee the protection of their island from environmental exploitation.
Speaker 1: As as we get to the interesting part, because they
Speaker 1: had already long thought to themselves as owners of the
Speaker 1: island as possessing the island for themselves, even though on
Speaker 1: people it wasn't the key, even though on people they
Speaker 1: were being handled between the Crown and the different lease holders,
Speaker 1: that the Crown would introduce Barbuda to Barbuda's being so small,
Speaker 1: being so homogeneous, having such meager soils, having such strong
Speaker 1: and type connections and bonds, they saw it as all
Speaker 1: of theirs collectively. It wasn't like and when I say
Speaker 1: strong connections, family bonds, I don't mean it in the
Speaker 1: sense that some of the other in lands in the Caribbean.
Speaker 1: And was sort of puzzled out because in the Caribbean
Speaker 1: there are lands that are held by certain families and
Speaker 1: it passes down the family and going on for generations.
Speaker 1: But it wasn't this idea that all these particular families
Speaker 1: owned the land. It was that all of them together
Speaker 1: wound the land serious real communal landownership. They'd use the
Speaker 1: land for generations, to raise ground provisions, to hunt there
Speaker 1: and wild pigs, to keep goats and sheep, to keep cattle,
Speaker 1: to cut firewood, to fish and so on. They had
Speaker 1: no documents and said that they had these collective rights
Speaker 1: in the island, and yet they all insisted with one voice,
Speaker 1: the Barbuda was theirs salon. No outsiders could tell them otherwise.
Speaker 1: And furthermore, they had proven again and again and again
Speaker 1: that outside proprietors were powerless in the face of their
Speaker 1: attempts to run the island for themselves, because they would
Speaker 1: continue to graze their cattle wherever they wanted to is
Speaker 1: the cattle. They'll continued to fish wherever they wanted to fish,
Speaker 1: salvage whatever they wanted to salvage, cultivate wherever they wanted
Speaker 1: to cultivate. Who's gonna stop them, You know, clearly nobody.
Speaker 1: They couldn't even get outside, It couldn't even get like
Speaker 1: a rent out of prob you done so. In nineteen twenty,
Speaker 1: Barbudans had gotten legal entitlement roughly half of the island,
Speaker 1: and by three they controlled futually all of its resources,
Speaker 1: basically the facto. Unfortunately, against their will. Honestly, Antigua and
Speaker 1: Barbuda were joined together by putting administrators, and so Antigua
Speaker 1: and Barbuda is the country that exist city. But one
Speaker 1: of the primary concerns of Brobudans were that they were able,
Speaker 1: were that they be able to maintain soul ownership, soul control,
Speaker 1: soul compunal control over the lands of Barbuda. Land ownership
Speaker 1: has been an issue that bobby udn't have had with
Speaker 1: Antigua for a very very long time now, for decades now,
Speaker 1: and really all bob Udan's want is to maintain their
Speaker 1: common ownership for themselves alone, and so they have maintained
Speaker 1: that through the Barbudaan Council defending the land and declaring
Speaker 1: that no land in Barbuda can be sold or developed
Speaker 1: without the permission of the Bubbudan Council, and so down.
Speaker 1: To explain basically how common land use boots in Barbuda,
Speaker 1: there are two distinctive and useful move of land use
Speaker 1: shifting cultivation for provision grounds and open range pastured for livestock.
Speaker 1: Because the soil is so weak, shifting cultivation is a necessity,
Speaker 1: and so after one or two years of planting exhausted soil,
Speaker 1: they move their fencing, they move their grounds of between
Speaker 1: half an acre to two or three acres, and plants
Speaker 1: they are sweet potatoes, yarms, me is beans, pigeon ps, squash, peanuts, etcetera. Elsewhere,
Speaker 1: So the old land could you know, regenerate, but this
Speaker 1: constant cultivation is something that occurs. The grants really no
Speaker 1: permanent rights any one individual. You do have use rights,
Speaker 1: it's the principle of use of fruct over the areare cultivating,
Speaker 1: but you don't have permanent ownership over that piece of
Speaker 1: land that you're cultivating. And they have that system in
Speaker 1: place because they recognize living on the island for the
Speaker 1: generations that bob ut As ecology is extremely fragile, extremely
Speaker 1: limited UM. Its resources are limited, and so they have
Speaker 1: to safeguard there um their sustenance for generations to come. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's fascinating, Actually it's really I didn't know anything about that. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: it really is. Similarly with them with the slash and
Speaker 1: boom cultivation, they also had the management of open range
Speaker 1: livestock being very much unrestricted. UM. They're actually feral cattle
Speaker 1: that exists on the island in addition to the more
Speaker 1: teamed and pen animals UM. And so how they basically
Speaker 1: they allow all the animals, you know, mixed and mingo
Speaker 1: of different families of different individuals would have their specific
Speaker 1: cattle or horses or sheep or whatever a marked or
Speaker 1: branded but for the most part they they've maintained this
Speaker 1: sort of open range husbandry because it helps to sustain
Speaker 1: their unity. It helps to maintain their strengthen their social
Speaker 1: bonds and their community solidarity, to basically ensure that everyone
Speaker 1: has taken care of in a place that is so
Speaker 1: scant resources. Lastly, through one of the ways that they
Speaker 1: maintain in the balance of the island is through it's
Speaker 1: through emigration. The population has basically stayed at that level
Speaker 1: because they've stayed within the limits of the resources they
Speaker 1: have on the island, and so young Baby don't have
Speaker 1: had to leave um the island um while still maintaining
Speaker 1: their communal use rights to the land. And then eventually
Speaker 1: they would make remittances of money or resources and periodic
Speaker 1: returns that would help to introduce you know, healthcare resources
Speaker 1: and housing resources and education resources to the island. Just
Speaker 1: another day, like completely isolated from the outside world, living
Speaker 1: in this sort of bubble. They do still have that
Speaker 1: exchange going on. Most of the immigrants live in three
Speaker 1: primary communities seeing John's Antigua of course, seeing as it's
Speaker 1: the neighbor um. A lot of them are in New
Speaker 1: York City. I mean a lot of Korean people in
Speaker 1: general in New York City, but Bob Dun's are in
Speaker 1: New York City, and all of them also live in
Speaker 1: Britain in Leicester as part of the West Indian exodus
Speaker 1: that took place all the way back in the late
Speaker 1: nineteen fifties. Yeah, so sort of wrap things up here. Um.
Speaker 1: Their communities and their solidarity have allowed them to cope
Speaker 1: with a harsh environment and to successfully navigate a succession
Speaker 1: of misinformed aloof sometimes actually hostile and mostly incompetent proprietors,
Speaker 1: managers and administrators. Being so unified and holding themselves in solidarity,
Speaker 1: they have managed to maintain their traditional resource ownership, their
Speaker 1: communal land tenure, and their fragile ecology completely and totally,
Speaker 1: um rejecting the assocutions that the economist carried hard and
Speaker 1: made about the tragedy of the commons, it has not
Speaker 1: been a tragedy for what you've done. It has been
Speaker 1: a triumph until recently. Unfortunately, in September seventeen, Hurricane Irma
Speaker 1: damaged and destroyed of the island's buildings and infrastructure, and
Speaker 1: as a result, all of the island's inhabitants had to
Speaker 1: evacuate Antigo, leaving Barbuda empty for the first time in
Speaker 1: hundreds of years. Wow, I mean two years later. By February,
Speaker 1: most of the residents have returned to the island. However,
Speaker 1: the Prime Minister of Antigo, Gaston Alfonso Brown, he's been
Speaker 1: leading since UM, has been making moves essentially to privatize Barbuda.
Speaker 1: His background before entering politics was being a banker and
Speaker 1: a businessman, and he seems to be employing the shock
Speaker 1: doctor and tactic of using environmental catastrophe and social displacement
Speaker 1: two accelerate capitalism. Essentially, after you know, hurricaneum I swept
Speaker 1: through Um and posted residents became homeless, communication systems came
Speaker 1: went went down Um and taking Bobula God relief pounds
Speaker 1: of relief for Barbuda. Um. That's not very much, not
Speaker 1: very much at all, Um, but it would take over
Speaker 1: a hundred million dollars to rebuild the homes. In the
Speaker 1: infrastructure in barbdell Um, the old critical infrastructure that existed,
Speaker 1: the food supply, the medicine, the shelter, electricity, water communications,
Speaker 1: waste management and as one person said, UM did are
Speaker 1: active anti in Barbula's National Office of the Disaster Services
Speaker 1: film O Melon he said, in my twenty five years
Speaker 1: of disaster management, I've never seen something like this. It
Speaker 1: is optimistic to think anything like this be rebuilt in
Speaker 1: six months. They have to rebuild entirely all of their
Speaker 1: public utilities. UM. And so essentially what Prime Minister Gaston
Speaker 1: or Funds who Brown is trying to do is revoke
Speaker 1: communal land ownership, allow the residents to buy some land
Speaker 1: and use the rest to basically introduce UM resorts and
Speaker 1: who Tells and other to risk attractions to help fund
Speaker 1: the rebuilding efforts. But of course we know the way
Speaker 1: that money is actually going to go. And that's as
Speaker 1: far as I know about the situation. UM. Unfortunately don't
Speaker 1: have any connections in Antiguan Barbuda yet UM, but unfortunately
Speaker 1: that is what it's been going on in another example
Speaker 1: basically of disaster capitalism trying to cease and accumulates through
Speaker 1: violence and for exploitation as usual. I hope that you know,
Speaker 1: we've seen and been inspired by Barbuda's efforts, and I
Speaker 1: hope that probably don't able to continue to prove themselves
Speaker 1: resilient in the face of this disaster. That's fascinating. And
Speaker 1: do you know, like I'm interested in these diasporic communities,
Speaker 1: like you said, there's one in Leicester and stuff. It's like,
Speaker 1: do they still have like a very strong community coherence
Speaker 1: like when they when they go elsewhere and to like
Speaker 1: like you said, they tend to gather in like certain spots.
Speaker 1: Be interested in like how those folks I guess dealt
Speaker 1: with a very different life in like New York or
Speaker 1: Leicester or wherever. Right. Well, Um, like the Caribbean people
Speaker 1: who have emigrated, we do tend to concentrating suitain places
Speaker 1: where we already have family connections. Um. I think most
Speaker 1: Scribbean people have at least a relative living abroad. Yeah,
Speaker 1: an uncle, a great uncle, second cousin, the cousin whatever. Um,
Speaker 1: And so it sort of builds from there. And so
Speaker 1: you try and piece that you create, like a piece
Speaker 1: of home, and sort of settle and concentrate in those
Speaker 1: areas and live in those areas and support each other
Speaker 1: in those areas. Yeah, and that I would say helps
Speaker 1: with the adjustment. Yeah, yeah, that makes a lot of sense. Yeah. Um.
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