The Shadow of Stolen History

Kincaid’s book, A Small Place is a kind of long and creative essay about a former British colony, a small island called Antigua that is located in the West Indies where the author spent her childhood. It deals with Antigua, a former colony and a country that has been affected by neocolonialism under the name of tourism. Throughout the essay, Kincaid discusses how Antigua suffers from the effects of European colonization. She mentions angrily how the past process of Antigua’s colonization steals common history from the natives, which gives them a kind of small mindset. It also makes them ignorant of their ancestor's exposure to slavery. Thus, the absence of common history leads to Antigua’s inability to judge current events and their ignorance of slavery.

Kincaid associates a small place, the description of Antigua with people's mindset and way of life in Antigua where people have an interest in small events and then make them more ordinary and superficial by just talking. She complains that Antiguan people cannot interpret and analyze the events because they do not consider themselves in a larger picture. She criticizes that they just watch the moment of arrival of any event without reacting to it. Thus, Antiguan people’s identity and destiny take certain shapes from the small events because they allow the events to affect who they are and what they really are, maintaining a passive attitude. She explains the reason why the Antiguans do not have got the ability of careful consideration by stating the fact that the lack of analytical thinking stems from the lack of existence of time in the Antiguans’ perception which is actually meant existence of common history. Accordingly, even if she seems to blame her own citizens because of having a narrow mind toward current events in Antigua, she actually sees the British colonial policy as responsible for the Antiguans deprived of the sense of belonging to their history. The Antiguans suffer from inexperience in terms of establishing the cause and effect relationship between events because there is no specific and concrete example of historical events that they take a lesson from. Thus, she describes how imperialist perception deprives a country of the common history and consequently the ability to judge current events.

Kincaid emphasizes their ignorance of the existence of slavery in Antigua. She criticizes that Antiguan people remain ignorant of their ancestors’ suffering because of slavery and behave as if their ancestors had been emancipated without being exposed to any cruel insult, human trafficking, or injustice. Accordingly, the Antiguans cannot interpret the historical facts because they do not have the consciousness of common history, so they associate what their ancestors experienced with liberation instead of slavery. She also mocks their ignorance by describing how the Hotel Training School celebrates slavery under the name of liberation in which the graduated students know nothing about their national identity except how to be good servants for imperialist countries. She attributes this situation to the fact that the corrupt government presents their country to corrupt foreigners. The government feels so alienated from the nation’s common history that they deny their roots and pretend to believe that they have an independent and powerful government. Thus, the Antiguans’ ignorance of the concept of slavery arises from the absence of common history and the corrupt government which overshadows people’s line of reasoning toward current problems.

Picture 1: https://www.amazon.com/A-Small-Place-Jamaica-Kincaid-audiobook/dp/B01MCRJYTC

Picture 2: https://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/17/travel/antigua-jamaica-kincaid.html