A promotional documentary on Carifesta, aired on Channel Seven WRHM Wednesday evening, must have stirred the senses and fired the imagination of writers and culture aficionados. For in that presentation, Suriname officials spoke of the massive preparations that have been made to ensure that the upcoming event will prove to be one of the best gatherings of performing artists in recent times. There will be the Carifesta village, Palmentuin, which will accommodate many of the hundreds of persons expected at the six-day exposition. Some 28 countries of the region and beyond have indicated their intention of participating in the event. There will, of course, be delegations and individuals from the Commonwealth Caribbean. However, what is most intriguing is the fact that delegations will be arriving from such far off countries as India, Indonesia, Japan, The Netherlands and Ghana. Yet, when one considers the sub-theme of Carifesta, “Honouring Origins and Civilisations”, the participation of most of these far-off lands is understandable.

Several territories in the wider Caribbean can boast of polyglot societies equal almost to any Mediterranean country. Guyana, for one, is a nation of six peoples - East Indians, Africans, Chinese, Europeans, Portuguese, and the indigenous Amerindians, who comprise nine tribes. Suriname is blessed with East Indians, Africans, Javanese, and Bush Blacks; Belize is home to Africans, Mestizos, Maya and Garifuna; Trinidad and Tobago, one of the most cosmopolitan societies, is home to Africans, East Indians, European and mixed races; and Cuba boasts a population of whites, Mulattos, Africans and Chinese. With the exception of the aboriginal tribes, who peopled this part of the world before the birth of Christ, all other nationalities are immigrants. The Africans, or Blacks in the main are descendants of slaves shipped from the continent of Africa 300 years ago in the same way that most of the East Indians are descendants of indentured workers who were brought to these shores in the 19th century to take the place of freed plantation slaves. Other groups from Asia and Europe are the grandchildren of settlers, who came to this part of the world seeking, in many cases, a better life than they had in their homelands.