Dear Editor,
I suspect that it has been going on for decades, but it has only come to my attention in recent years that France and Haiti are rival claimants to the historical fame that Alexandre Dumas represents.
The Dominican Republic and Spain are both claiming that Christopher Columbus is buried in their respective countries. Both countries, I suspect, earn revenue from tourists touring the rival burial sites. I know for sure that the Dominican Republic does.
And here we are, the only country in the world that can make the unrivaled claim of being the landfall of Europeans in the New World. But what are we earning from that fact? I suspect nothing, or nothing much.
I'll bet that the people of the Dominican Republic are also earning revenue from the existence, the possible existence, or the non-existence of La Navidad, even though in recent years I have heard the claim that such colony may have been in the part of Hispaniola now known as Haiti.
What is wrong with us? Where are our entrepreneurial instincts?
After one of the recent hurricanes in Freeport, safe drinking water was scarce and at a premium. So one of the foodstores was selling a gallon bottle of water for a dollar and people were lining up in the store to buy it. I am told that a Haitian man went into the store, bought every gallon bottle of water the store had to sell and went right outside in the store's own parking lot and sold every bottle at two dollars each. The idea would not have occurred to most Bahamians - to a few, no doubt - but most of us Bahamians would not have thought of that very intelligent business possibility.
The Ministry of Tourism employs many, many persons - too many, I'm sure - and has been doing so for many years. But nobody appears to have thought up the possibility of marketing the very important historical event of The Bahamas being the landfall of Columbus in the New World.
Let me tell them a secret: Columbus sells. There are some, shall we say, unwise persons who are campaigning to do away with Columbus and the holiday by which he is remembered, not only in this country but in the wider world.
Such persons are so, shall we say, unwise. You cannot do away with history. Columbus came. He first landed in our country. That is a historical fact. And we ought to market that historical fact. As I said, Columbus sells. And we ought to market him to the hilt. Cuss him, if you like, but market him.
Recently, I believe I heard that the government wants to market Mardi Gras and Carnival in this country. Why? Because other people have already thought it up and are marketing it? The idea is a low-hanging fruit; that is why its gaping existence has finally come to the notice of our tourism managers, our tourism "thinkers" sitting there all those years unable to come up with an original idea, even when it is right there staring at us from the pages of our history.
We must bring Columbus into our tourism product. Do so annually with related activities, over a week, say, that will include Discovery Day.
Do I correctly understand that our government has decided to do something else with Discovery Day? My God, how, shall we say, short-sighted and unwise.
We should build ourselves three ships of the period and name them the Pinta, the Nina and the Santa Maria, have a world-class celebrity come every year to play the role of Columbus and land on the beach near Arawak Cay, while the governor general (the cacique) shall be assembled at Haynes Oval to welcome him.
Now, you tourism "thinkers" can take it from there. Let your imaginations go wild.
It should be a spectacle rivaling the Carnivals at Trinidad, Rio and New Orleans, but not competing with them. If we try to do the Carnival thing, we will fail. You cannot compete with those festivals; certainly not in the short term.
I can imagine "Columbus" coming ashore and making his way with his "Spanish" entourage, dressed as the Spaniards of the day would have done, to meet the cacique (governor general), with appropriate ceremony. Of course, the cacique would be surrounded by "Arawaks" in appropriate dress. I can almost hear the Remy sellers salivating at the suggestion. There should be Arawak music in the background. Then the music genres would develop to evolve into Bahamian music through the years and up to now.
Inspired by the spectacle, we can harvest "a new crop" of Bahamian songs each year and poetry and plays and artwork and many other cultural expressions.
The stalls can sell Arawak food and drinks and Bahamian food and drinks and food and drinks of yesteryear and up to date.
I can think of fufu and coocoo, pepperpot, mauby, coconut jimmy, etc.
Arawaks still live in Guyana, for sure, and in other areas of South America as well. There are Caribs in Dominica, too; and, I believe, in some other places in the region. If we go for the Carnival idea, we'd have to compete with Rio, Trinidad and New Orleans. But we would have no rivals for our landfall festival which ought to incorporate the Discovery Day holiday. As I said, let imaginations run wild.
- Norris R. Carroll

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