Sometimes, we stumble upon a book, and are shocked to find out that the story we are reading is ours, and the voice we are hearing is ours, too. Everything that you were unable to articulate before is spread in front of you in fluid and exacting prose. The bubbling passion that was once contained is freed from their moorings. How could a woman, so different and distant from my part of the universe, be able to speak my people’s story? How could she have known that beneath the surreal beauty of the islands lurks the putrid ugliness of reality?
A Small Place is Jamaica Kincaid’s ocean – her bellowing rage slams against the shore only to retreat with cool sarcasm. She illustrates Antigua, a nine-by-12-mile island in the British West Indies, and the precarious situation that her country has been in for years. Discovered by Christopher Columbus in 1493, it was later colonized by the English who used people as though they were just any other commodity – black slavery. As time passes, the state of affairs ensues in corruption of a culture both by the colonizers and the Antiguan people themselves. She talks in two points of view: that of a tourist and a native. It is transparently clear how she varies from love to hate and dwells in the myriad of emotions in between. She believes that the "human rubbish" which used to rule them were "bad-minded people with no manners." However, she still touches on the changes the colonizers have made such as improvement in the educational system of Antigua. Sadder than her disgust for England is her dismay at her own people. Especially those, who after being abused, instead of campaigning against it, learned how to use this abuse on their fellowmen.
What attracted me to this book was the fact that she might as well have been describing the Philippines. It was even funny to me, even if this book was by no means a comedy. There was, of course, the vivid description of the islands – and I remembered my trips to Puerto Galera, of its orange sunsets and azure waters. She told of a reckless taxi driver who overpriced the rate for a ride, and I wondered if that man had driven before in Makati. I felt her consternation when an important library, damaged by an earthquake, was still in ruins ignored by the government. I did not have to look very far to count the decaying buildings around me. There was the Mill Reef Club, an exclusive clubhouse for North Americans who "wanted to live in Antigua but who seemed not to like Antiguans at all." The only black people who went there were servants of these elite group of people. It was a ringing example of the chasm between the colonizers and the colonized. In the Philippines, the squatters along highways and railroad tracks which lead to the gilded mansions of the blatantly rich who both live in Metro Manila are the opposite ends of the economic spectrum. How about the foreign capitalists who live off the fat of our land but forbid their children to speak Tagalog (lest they be infected) while some Filipino families have to survive on P200 a day? Is it not unlike the Princess of England who the Antiguans got "worked up for as if she were God Himself" while the people languished with no medical support to depend on to the point of being afraid of their three measly doctors?
I could mention a dozen more parallelisms between Antigua and the Philippines. I couldn’t help smiling at the mention of the natives who had returned home from some European country lugging cardboard boxes of cheap clothes and food for their relatives. Was she talking about overseas Filipino workers, I wondered? And one couldn’t miss the full-force finger pointing at the corruption of government officials who swallowed the government funds for personal pleasure and refused to relinquish their positions. The names Joseph Estrada and Ferdinand Marcos easily flitted across the mind.
At first, this book could easily be interpreted on the surface, as a woman’s fury over her country’s apparent rape. But A Small Place can be examined at so many different levels. There was patriotism, disloyalty, ignorance, wisdom, exploitation, development, resentment, gratitude, history, honesty, corruption, beauty and evil. A host of ideas both contrary and complementary to each other. Knowing now the actual conditions despite the obstacles, it all leads to the question: So what are you going to do about it? In Jamaica Kincaid’s case, she chose to inscribe her grievances on paper for the world to know. She might have been criticized and doubted for her simple style of writing yet she got her message across. The reader realized that there was more to a picturesque landscape and the somewhat indifferent people. There were hungry souls and minds incensed with ideas that are unable to take flight. There was poverty not only in the economic sense but in spiritual and moral values. A Small Place had grown into something bigger and rose above its tiny geography. This book not only speaks for Antigua, and not just for the Philippines despite the similarities in status. It speaks for the countries, people and the individuals who could identify with being taken advantage of.
It stands for those who want to take a stand for their beliefs but feel oppressed. But I would believe in Bob Marley when he said, "Emancipate yourselves from mental slavery for none but ourselves can free our mind." And I can only say, Amen to that.