Interview with Chief Garnette Joseph
Feb. 17, 2000, Salibia/Dominica
Kalinago: Chief Garnette Joseph, what does it mean to you to be the elected chief of the Carib Indians?
Joseph: Well, I do not feel in any particular way. My election has left me with no particular feeling as such, my election to the office of chief. What it gives me is an opportunity to do some of the things that we have been doing on a different level. I've been always active in community development work, cultural work for the cultural development in the Carib Territory. I only work with a limited number of people but being in office gives me the responsibility for the entire Carib Territory, the entire Carib people.
Kalinago: Could you line up briefly what the powers of the Carib chief are, let's say what are you in charge of and in which way are your actions limited by the national laws?
Joseph: The Carib Council operates under the local government division. The way that it's structured is that your actions are limited by the powers of the minister responsible for Cultural Development. In order to have by-laws to govern the Carib Territory these by-laws have to be approved by Parliament, by government. And if it is not approved it cannot be put in place as law. It not have the autonomy the majority of Carib people want, it makes you think sometimes that you are only a representative of government to your people. However, on the other hand, the Carib people do not see it that way, they think the chief is responsible, some people see the chief as a king, not just an elected chief. And they have much respect for the office, for the person that is chief. For me I'm not a politician, I see myself as a cultural worker, a social worker who have gone into the office. I mean, I had to go to the usual way of getting in there by selling myself to the people as the best among six of us who, well, five of us who were also running for the office. And the people had enough trust and confidence in me to elect me in that position. I think a lot of people are looking up to me for what they consider the good government of the Carib Territory. And that would mean looking at the various sectors of the Carib Territory and putting certain things in place that would help make life easier. What's an important line is a better life for everybody in the Carib Territory, that was what I was elected in office to look for for the Carib people.
Kalinago: Is it still alive, the old traditional way of looking upon the chief as a person of a lot of wisdom, a person of a lot of respect who might be in a particular situation, maybe family problems, approached by somebody for advice?
Joseph: Well, I guess so, because personally I have always been approached before, not because I'm in the office now. I've always been approached before to provide some advice to people, but more so now that people come to me as chief to be able to ask certain questions to fill out some forms, to do certain things for them that they want done. People look at people in office as supposedly educated enough to be able to function and people do have respect for the person in office ...
Kalinago: What are the biggest problems the Caribs are facing nowadays?
Joseph: One of the biggest problems is the access to grade, also is the lack of education, accademic education. And that is important we need to develop our human ressource base and that would also mean that we would be able to look at issues in a different light. Our whole scope, our outlook in life could be different. That difference could mean a difference in our life as well, our hopes and general aspirations. We want to think although we ask to get more autonomy from the government we like to be independent, however, if we cannot find sufficient staff for our schools and be able to do things oneself I don't think that independence is anywhere close. I think that we have to be able to take control of our own life and the Carib Territory and decide what to make out of it. But at present I'm not too sure that if we have sufficiently developed to that point where we would be able to do some of the things that we need to do for ourselves. How many builders do we have in the Carib Territory, how many carpenters, how many teachers, I mean, do we have the ressource people that we need to be able to make things rule for oneself. We are heavily dependent, heavily reliant on central government to provide almost everything. We have longest pauper's list on the island, we are very dependent on welfare, and with that I'm not too sure if our thinking is on the right path. I think education is a problem, as I mentioned earlier, the access to graduate. However, we got a serious money management problem, as well, because there are a number of people who have been able to obtain the credit and mismanage the money and are heavily indebted to the banks. So I think that our problem, our main problem now is to find necessary ressources to be able to develop our human ressource base.
Kalinago: Which are the biggest achievements or improvements of the last ten years in the Carib Territory?
Joseph: In the line of infrastructure, well, we've had some improving of the roads over the last ten years, we've had electricity, before that we had water over the past year also. But we've not gone very far. We have an increasing number of Carib children been able to go to secondary school, but our overall groove has not been very much, we're still very dependent on subsistent farming and bananas for survival, we have not been able to sufficiently diversify our means of living, we have not been able to make full use of the small tourism industry on the island. And I guess there are limitations to all the things I been mentioning not being able to do but I think as well that we could have done more for ourselves as individual and as a people. I think that culturally we have not grown because we are bombarded on every side by foreign cultures and that too has been serious in roots and has rid our culture. Young people have a different outlook in life and I think some of that might be good but some of that has a very negative effect, as well. We've seen an increase in the use of hard drugs. Well, there might be some improvement but there have also been some very negative factors-that came into play as well over the last ten years.
Kalinago: In which fields would help from outside Dominica be most useful?
Joseph: We've had assistance over the years in providing school buses for the Carib Territory, we've had some assistance coming in for small economic projects, but I think what has been coming in to support education has been very useful. I think we would want more assistance in being able to develop some more skills, Carib skills, young people in particular, in the line of technology or advanced technology, computers, being able to be computer-literate because that's essential as well for getting into the job market.
Kalinago: The mixing of the Caribs with descendants of the former black African slaves is going on. So could you imagine a situation where the history, traditions and legends of the Caribs find a lot of attention and support throughout the world but the actual Caribs as a people have died out?
Joseph: That itself is something that is very difficult to change. That chnage has to come from inside of the individual Carib. There has been a growing number of intermarriages in Carib people, Carib women in particular with the Afro-Dominican men. But I think a lot of that comes out of the situation that confronts the Carib people. The women see that there could be or there is a better life with the Afro-Dominican man, instead of having to live with the Carib man who would not be able to provide the better life that they would be looking for. I think that better life has been portraited in the various pages of magagzines, the radio or television, that is what they are looking for. The Carib woman is no different than any other woman worldwide who will be looking for a new life. It will be a shame and a pity that would have the rest of the world knowing of the Carib people and its legends, well, inside of the Carib Territory people are not even aware of what culture has been theirs, it is one thing that has always worried me over the past twenty or more years and my work for the Karifuna Cultural Group has been able to project the Carib people in a better light than they've been known before ... I myself am disappointed with the work that we've been doing in the sense that we have not been able to reach our own people as much as we want to able to provide them with a stronger sense of pride, stronger sense of identity ... Maybe that way we'll be able to create a pride itself in the individual and pride in the race and pride as a distinct people.
Kalinago: Thank you very much.