Gangs in the Caribbean: Responses of State and Society eds. by Anthony Harriott and Charles M. Katz, and: Democratic Insecurities: Violence, Trauma and Intervention in Haiti by Erica Caple James, and: Violence in Caribbean Literature: Stories of Stones and Blood by Veronique Maisier (review)

Violent times as never before? Violence and Caribbean Development

The Caribbean region is ironically or paradoxically painted as paradise on earth but this bellies a place of great violence and poverty. The latter has often been reserved for Haiti, as it is so often referred to as the poorest country in the Americas, without, however, any explanation as to why it has become such. Jamaica, similar to Haiti, has been charged with being a poor, unsafe and aggressive place to visit. Two of the works begin with this understanding in mind and venture from there to explain the aftermath of a violent economy having been formed and the results of its continuation even after presumed emancipation. The three abovementioned works and their authors demonstrate the troubles of violence as well as the long-lasting and entrenched nature of violent structures and relations, notwithstanding the image of paradise used to lure holidaymakers to our shores to frolic and revel in the balmy sunshine of the tropics, where black bodies served majority white-owned plantation pleasures. Even with the break signaled by the 'end of colonialism' the space has fallen into a relationship even more insidious and controlling as people get poorer, states fail their citizens through greed and corruption, for example, and interpersonal relationship violence, not to mention broad-term violence and dysfunction, become endemic to a 'new' world that never broke with the old world nightmares. Although terribly disparate in their approach, these three literary, social science and international political economic studies show how the system is unraveling as the research continues and attempts to identify ways to disengage from old paradigms that continue to promote massive inequalities and violence to newer more supportive people-focused structures. However, as religion, transnational gang relations, corruption and personal exploitation and enrichment seem to blanket the landscape, the dystopia of paradise becomes more obvious.

As violence mushrooms and transforms communities in the Caribbean from peaceful colonial paradises into garrisoned community and gang-controlled, drug trafficking transshipment points where politicians 'seem' ineffective in or unable to change or manage the volatile situation that undermines the democracy they so often boast about. The United Nations Development Program (UNDP) and other international agencies release annual reports on the state of violence and crime in the Caribbean, and this often informs the reader of the increase in civil unrest and youth violence. Jamaica, much like Haiti has been infamous among Caribbean countries for the high level of insecurity and unrest, not to mention full-on violence. Recently, there have been a number of publications all hinged together by violence. This review examines three of them very briefly as each one approaches violence and crime from a distinct perspective. Veronique Maisier's work on Violence in Caribbean Literature: Stories of Stones and Blood articulates a less direct, more delayed and certainly filtered form of performing violence. Whereas Erica Cable James's Democratic Insecurities and Anthony Harriott and Charles Katz's Gangs in the Caribbean demonstrate and grapple with a far more direct form of violence performance and one that has developed tremendously in the second half of the twentieth century. The former text is a massive study of international and national overlaying of violence and how resource-poor Haitians struggle to survive by selling their stories of victimization and exploitation while the latter text focuses on the scourge of gangs in the Caribbean, a more recent development that is undermining, along with the cross-border delivery of aid, especially from well...