On Blogging In the Caribbean, and Specifically Trinidad and Tobago

One of the things that I haven't been quite able to put my finger on - until just now - has been what Caribbean bloggers seem to blog about. It's not that there are no Caribbean bloggers - in fact, quite the opposite is true¹.

GlobalVoices has been doing a decent job of aggregating things, I suppose. But each time I look at GlobalVoices, I get the that's-not-it feeling. It's not that Global Voices is not writing about things, it's that the Caribbean blogosphere seems more set on escapism than on the realities. I can't write about the rest of the Caribbean, but I can write about Trinidad and Tobago, and what I have to write is this: It's what is going unsaid that is probably the most interesting.

On this site, Crime in Trinidad and Tobago is the most popular - and if we consider that these hits are coming from search engines, it demonstrates that people - from around the world, perhaps the diaspora (as Nicholas likes to call them) - are searching specifically for 'Crime Trinidad and Tobago', or some phrase similar. I'm not kidding. 13,379 page views since August 21st, 2004. I don't sit down and write about crime that much; it takes a while for me to build up to it.

But why is that page so popular? Why is it that it ranks higher than the local newspapers? If we consider that the visits are from search engines, and that uninterested people wouldn't be searching for crime, well - it stands to reason that people don't want to read the local media, they want to read first person things. The local newspapers are full of them, from corrupt ministers to kidnappings and murder. That the most visited page on this site relates to crime in Trinidad and Tobago, well - that's a shame, I think, because there are many more interesting things on the site than that.

But the crime is important enough for people to consistently visit. Isn't that odd?

In the Caribbean blogosphere, and the Trinidad and Tobago blogosphere, what's most interesting is what isn't being written about. It's about what is being censored by people like myself and others in Trinidad who just aren't writing about it?

Why? Why is it that this is? My theory is simple: escapism. We see it every day, we read it every day, we hear it every day, we watch it on TV every day, and I honestly think that there isn't a blogger out there in Trinidad who is willing to take a stance on crime, or to write about it, because it's depressing. It's shameful. But the reality is that it exists, it hasn't been addressed and it continues to not be addressed. Maybe part of it is that nobody wants to be accused of 'ruining' Carnival season, they want people to come and visit - spend their money and go. There's a lot of promotion going on, a lot of discussion of the Caribbean isn't centered on criticizing or discussing Caribbean issues. But not one person, including myself, is writing about the real.

For myself, I got tired of being the voice in the wilderness.

The Caribbean has an alter ego, and that alter ego isn't writing. There's an elephant on the table, at least in T&T, and judging by that, I have to say two things: The Emperor has no clothes, and the tailors are good businesspeople.

I'd have to say that the Caribbean has found it's voice, but hasn't decided what to say. This could be the start of a discussion, if people would be willing to discuss.

Are they? We'll find out.

¹The Caribbean Blog list will be updated for February.