- 4 months ago
Category
📺
TVTranscript
00:00For many black countries, tourism is a major economic driver.
00:06But for the first time in recent history, black travelers from across the diaspora
00:11have become a massive demographic.
00:14They're making waves not just for their spending power,
00:17but also because of where they spend and how they spend their money.
00:21Black travelers, they're not just all getting together and going to an all-inclusive.
00:25Most of them are going to find how they can put their dollars into the local communities of color.
00:31Welcome to the rest of our indigenous village.
00:34I'm curious about the ways black countries sell themselves on the global market
00:39and the impact of these decisions.
00:41The year of return, I think the timing and social media together is what made Ghana really blow up.
00:48It's one thing to invite people to come back, but it's another thing for people to be prepared
00:52to experience what they would when they got here.
00:55I think that year we ran out of ice.
00:57Right.
00:58I'm also wondering about my own role as a black traveler.
01:01What's my responsibility when visiting these countries?
01:04Jamaicans do not have the right to their beaches.
01:08But for tourists, they have all of the access to these beaches. Is that correct?
01:12That is correct.
01:14I'm heading to Jamaica and Ghana, two countries divided by an Atlantic Ocean
01:19and very different tourism industries.
01:22I'm Amanda Paris and I'm exploring black tourism for the culture.
01:36It feels a little surreal to finally be here.
01:39Ghana has been on my bucket list ever since I learned about the trans-Atlantic slave trade.
01:44I'm starting my journey in Cape Coast, home to one of the most notorious slave dungeons.
01:52The story I often hear is that this experience will change me.
01:56It will be moving. It will be transformative. It will be enraging.
02:00It will be something deep and profound.
02:03I'm struck by the water and how angry the waves seem to be on this side of the Atlantic.
02:17Amanda, good afternoon.
02:18Oh, hello. Hi.
02:19Welcome to the historic Cape Coast slave dungeons.
02:22Thank you very much.
02:23We have a beautiful architecture we've seen, but some story behind it.
02:28Cape Coast slave dungeon was built by the English merchant in 1664.
02:35All these wooden castles were also designated World Heritage Site by UNESCO in 1979.
02:43Let us get it right.
02:44It is not true.
02:46I see the very first day we encounter Europeans, then Ghanians, Africans, we started selling human beings.
02:52It's a lie.
02:53The selling was later on.
02:56It happened over time.
02:57Over time.
02:58And we became complicit, and there were reason for that.
03:02Innocent people were captured as a result of tribal wars, ethnic conflicts, slave raiding, kidnapping.
03:09Mm-hmm.
03:12So we're going to the male dungeon.
03:16It's dark in here, very dark.
03:19Our cameras create an artificial light, but in their absence, the darkness is overwhelming.
03:25How long would people have to wait here?
03:27They stayed here for two weeks, minimum six weeks, average, 12 weeks, maximum.
03:34How many people would be in this, sir?
03:36My sister, 150 to 200 were said to have been packed here, confined here for a period of time.
03:45The figure sounds so alarming, unbelievable, but it was possible.
03:51I know.
03:52I know.
03:53It's still shocking.
03:55None of this is new information, but reading about this history is very different from standing in the space where it happened.
04:03So we're going to the last part of the male dungeon.
04:11Sitting here is a priest in charge of the shrine.
04:18Nana Kwame is the name.
04:19Here we have Sister Amanda with a wonderful crew.
04:25Greetings.
04:26Greetings.
04:27I appreciate the idea of healing in this space and a ceremony that disrupts the horror and focuses on the notion of Akwaba, which means welcome.
04:37I am being welcomed back.
04:39Akwaba.
04:40But I find myself distracted from the ritual.
04:42I can't help thinking that this man spends all day, every day, sitting inside of a slave dungeon.
04:49It seems incomprehensible to me.
04:51It seems incomprehensible to me.
04:52It seems incomprehensible to me.
04:56The stark whiteness of the Cape Coast castle walls is a jarring sight after so much darkness.
05:13I wonder if it ever gets repainted.
05:16Was it always this white?
05:18I try to remember what I read, but for some reason, I don't ask any of these questions to my tour guide.
05:25See the water?
05:26I feel hot, emotionally drained, and reluctant to talk.
05:30My dear sister Amanda, keep your head low three times. I don't want you to carry that castle.
05:39Okay.
05:40You go ahead.
05:41One.
05:46So my dear sister, condenser, no light at a time, rough surfaces you see on the wall.
05:53Mm-hmm.
05:54The scratches made by our ancestors.
05:57Remember, they died in pain in language.
05:59Shackles on them.
06:00Pump, pump, pump, pump.
06:01Hitting the walls.
06:02Right.
06:03So it's supposed to be smooth as this, but here we have pocket of scratches.
06:08And in that process,
06:10gone.
06:19As much as I appreciate passionate storytelling,
06:22I wasn't ready for a Tony Award worthy reenactment.
06:25I'm not sure if this is for me or for the cameras,
06:28so I'm a little relieved when Morgan finally gives me a few moments alone.
06:32Just be in this experience.
06:38It's only in the silence that I begin to feel the weight of this place.
06:52I agree.
06:53I like looking forward.
06:54You're doing oh.
06:55I like Mori.
06:56I want to be out for me.
06:57Perfect.
06:58This is gonna be out for you.
07:00turned on one.
07:01I'd be moving on.
07:02Keep moving on.
07:03Very sad.
07:05All right.
07:06Good.
07:08We're done.
07:09We're done.
07:10We're done.
07:13So we are heading toward the espionist point of love to 씨na.
07:20i've heard so much about the door of no return the poetic full circle significance of walking
07:27through this gateway as a descendant of ancestors who are told that they would never return
07:37but when i walk through it i don't really feel that symbolism i step out to see a fish market
07:42with music blasting people working and hanging out everyone living a life that is completely
07:48unbothered and seemingly uninterested in my ancestral journey i almost want to laugh at how casual
07:57everything is and in a way i'm relieved to see these signs of life proceeding as it always does
08:03even at this historical site of violence and pain
08:11in 2019 the government of ghana made this pilgrimage the cornerstone of a new tourism campaign
08:18they called it the year of return it made waves because ghana did what few other black or
08:24african nations has ever done black travelers became their target audience
08:332019 marked 400 years since the first documented ship of enslaved africans arrived in virginia in 1619.
08:42home to more slave forts than any other african nation
08:45ghana recognized the opportunity to make amends draw connections and memorialize a history so often
08:52ignored they sent out a global invitation black folks from the us the uk the caribbean latin america
09:00and canada responded to the call to come home i'm originally from here we moved to canada when i was a kid
09:08but 2011 i actually stayed for a couple of years went back to canada and was like you know what ghana
09:15wasn't so bad ivy prosper is an award-winning content creator who grew up in canada but made the
09:23decision to move to ghana over a decade ago she has since become the go-to person for all things tourism
09:30and ghana okay so what i have been wondering is what was your entry point into this world of travel
09:36and tourism well you know i wanted to show people a side of africa that people didn't think of right
09:44because always seeing images that africa is always poor people are struggling people have disease
09:52there's war there's conflict like those are the images that we see yes i was going around to places
09:58and capturing content and sharing it on youtube sharing it on your own on my own on my own social
10:04media and then i met the manager of the year of return did you know at the time that it was going
10:11to be such a historic campaign no okay i had no idea what your thoughts are on the fact that the
10:22president of ghana has made a call for people to come back to the motherland what your thoughts are on
10:26the year of return i mean i just think it's a fabulous idea this is an inflection moment for
10:32people of the diaspora traveling from the u.s with over 250 people shows the significance of our desire
10:41to really bridge the gap i can see the appeal to the diaspora but i'm wondering how the government got
10:49the buy-in and the support of local communities in the year of return i think ghana's history has a lot to
10:56do with it because it was the first sub-saharan african country to get independence yeah and so
11:01from the beginning yeah the country has been very much about the diaspora because the first africanism
11:07yeah but the first president invited martin luther king yes to inauguration wb du bois wanted to be
11:13buried here and he is you know so there's so many people who throughout the history it was like it's
11:18like a snowball effect right about the year of return i think the timing and social media together
11:24is what made it really blow up as i think about the timing of the year of return i also realized
11:33that it coincided with a moment in history when black people and particularly black millennials
11:38started traveling in a way that wasn't always available to their parents and grandparents
11:43ghana saw this new market of black leisure travelers and spoke directly to them
11:48when we look back and we look at migration movements which is part of the original form
11:54of travel people were not able to think about traveling for leisure they were traveling for
12:00their lives you know they were escaping essentially and so is the first time in history where black
12:06people not only can travel but they could tell the stories of black spaces and places that have been
12:12left out of the travel narrative for so long i can't think of too many countries who have
12:18specifically created a marketing strategy geared to black people um can you talk about how successful
12:25this kind of targeting has been ghana is interesting they kind of hit a perfect sweet spot where
12:32there was already a rise in what people have termed the black travel movement black people wanted
12:37to go beyond the all-inclusive essentially you've described it in the past as like the perfect storms
12:42but what were the other factors that came into play that made the year of return in particular so
12:46successful interestingly enough dna testing especially african americans who don't know where they
12:52really came from there are 250 people here today and 70 of them are going to find out where exactly in
13:01africa their roots are found and so that combined with the black travel movement combined with the
13:08political environment travelers wanted to escape racism i want to go to a country where i just i'm just
13:15one of many and ghana was saying come we welcome you since going to the slave dungeons i've been wondering
13:27if ghanians and the diaspora are even understanding the history and its legacy in the same way
13:35i met someone who said he went to school in cape coast he would pass the cape coast castle every day
13:42and never set foot in there until he was an adult and so he didn't have a full understanding of what
13:48really happened there and understanding of why do people want to come to this building all the time he
13:52just learned that it was a trading post that's what he learned yeah not even slavery yeah it was
13:58just trading yeah so sometimes we have local people who are not understanding the full depth
14:07of the impact of what happened i met a gun in who said to me he wished that his family was the family
14:16taken in the slave ships and that means he would have ended up living in america instead of being
14:23stuck in ghana wow wow when i heard that i was like what that's the mindset of some people they look at
14:35it like that because they will be there all comes down to a lack of understanding what this history truly is
14:39and also the legacy of the history today like the afterlife of slavery yes yes it's also they look
14:46at it in an economic way because they're looking at it as if i was in america i would be making money
14:51instead of here hustling and trying to make it they think that it's easy there right wow wow that's
14:58gonna stay with me with so much focus on attracting travelers i wonder who has been left behind in ghana's
15:08ambitious new campaign perhaps what i'm looking for is not an explanation of the past but rather
15:14an attempt to process and address some of these ancestral wounds i'm off next to atafoa a town on
15:25the southeast coast of ghana i'm far away from the tourist crowds now i ventured here to visit the
15:33in chin chin museum unlike the slave castles built by colonizers this place is an ever evolving
15:39creation a deep dive reflection into african history by artists and griots from right here
15:46you said this to me and somebody who welcomed us to the space also made sure to emphasize that i was
15:51clear that this is a space of education it's also a space possibly of spiritual connection but it's not a
15:57tourist space and i wanted to understand why it was important for you to make that distinction yes
16:03tourism is only the byproduct of it's it's the way we are reaching this generation and our primary
16:11objective is to heal meet kwame akoto bamfo an artist and sculptor who created the inching museum
16:18he describes his work as an interrogation into ghana's role in the transatlantic slave trade
16:23it's not about slavery but slavery has to be confronted for the real purpose of the work to
16:34come out i'm not entirely sure what kwame means by that but it is incredible to see that the museum is
16:40a living breathing space filled with artists making work in real time tell me about this this is a sculpture
16:49of frederick douglas oh wow can we get a hairline wow you've done a lot of work connecting with the
16:57united states can you talk a little bit about how that has impacted you a lot like i have been so
17:04impacted just brushing with the african-american experience had cultural clashes with people
17:11uh based on my own inexperience and also their own experience it is good to teach people on the
17:19continent about our ancestors who were enslaved and then to teach people uh within the diaspora about
17:27our ancestors so myself my team my grills we stand in the middle fostering this exchange and
17:36fostering these restorative processes we went to cape coast castle and the tour guide and he's a great
17:47storyteller but there's also sort of a performative theatricality it felt like to everything because
17:54of course he does this every day yes right it's like practiced and it's rehearsed and there it felt
18:00like in that performance there's maybe a bit of a disconnect from the way that it might be affecting
18:09somebody who's hearing this for the first time yeah and so yeah i'm just curious how you balance
18:16wanting to make this a space that people can come to and to access and to learn this history without it
18:21turning into a bit of a theater because it becomes a site that's accessed so frequently it's the creation of
18:28numbness when you go to some hospitals in ghana where they have so many emergency victims the nurses
18:42initially will become numb sometimes you will meet tour guides or may not have grown up with that english
18:49language so even the language itself is rehearsed if they were speaking in their local language they will
18:57find they will keep they'll find more space yeah yes i appreciate kwame's reminders about the limits of
19:05language and the dangers of numbness when you engage with trauma on a daily basis i wonder if this is just
19:11the necessary collateral damage when a country ties their tourism strategy to memorializing historical violence
19:18so you are welcome to the entrance of the sacred area okay
19:34there's a strong difference between our sacred spaces and then european sacred spaces
19:43so we create these portraits usher somebody who is transition into the afterlife they are essentially
19:53vessels and not every one of them is a dead person it includes the living
20:02it has nothing to do with demons the tradition was demonized
20:06there are multiple ceremonies that go on here the underlining culture or tradition it's the southern west
20:16african traditions which is understood by almost all the tribes in west africa
20:22there is something very moving about the space that kwame has created but as i stare at these faces i realize
20:40that this fixation on historical trauma may be the reason for my disconnect
20:45this tourism campaign was ignited by a need to honor the past what actually caught a lot of my attention
20:53on social media was the ghana of the present it's really great where's the funds are gonna be like
21:02okay okay i've been invited to a music and culture festival in the town of gamoa fete
21:08my hosts are abdul karim abdullah and ken ajia pong jr the masterminds behind afro future
21:15an entertainment platform that puts on parties concerts and community events throughout the
21:19continent and the diaspora it was their afrofuture festival formerly known as afrochella held during
21:28dutty december that cemented their brand so how did the year of return impact afrofuture very well
21:36our first year we had 4 500 people in 2018 12 000 then with the year return we came to 16 500
21:45that's the silver lining i mean i think that that's the positive part if it's one thing to invite
21:49people to come back and it's novel and it sounds great but it's another thing for people to be
21:55prepared to experience what they would when they got here tourism was young here we had ways to go as
22:01far as the infrastructure of traffic as far as service with customer service you know i think that
22:07yeah we ran out of ice in a lot of places yeah right and something as simple as ice but it impacts
22:12people's experience you know what i mean it definitely pushed us to grow a lot faster than we
22:18we wanted to what we expected to you talked about you know there had to be a a shift in expectations
22:25one for the tourists who are coming i guess and then also for the country do you think that you've seen
22:30both kind of grow in their realization of what this needs to be one part that i wish in hindsight
22:37happened was just a lot more education about what it means to come back or what being black or what
22:45being african means to everyone i do think it's happening i think people have a more well-rounded
22:51understanding of africa than in 2019 but there were still layers of trauma layers of education that
23:00needed to be bridged i just think that locally people didn't understand why why this was meant
23:09so much to people coming back coming back here yeah they didn't understand it and in some cases they
23:14made fun of it yeah i don't blame them for making fun of them you know because they just didn't
23:21understand it because they had the privilege of waking up and everybody looks like them you know
23:25it's like what is it maslow's hike hierarchy means right like over here maybe the need is i need to get
23:33resources to survive you're in america no matter how bad it is at least when you wake up you have
23:41resources that nuance of understanding each other's struggles is a missed opportunity
24:02i spend my last day in ghana hanging out in accra revelating the fashion and getting pleasantly hustled
24:08in the markets i'm struck by how many times someone says akwaba i generally hear it right before a
24:14sales pitch but still i don't think i've ever been welcomed so profusely anywhere else in the world
24:27as the year of return transitioned to beyond the return the diaspora is being encouraged not just to
24:32visit but to buy invest and become citizens of ghana and the tensions i've been hearing about have
24:39metamorphosized online
24:45and i'm excited about the precedent they've set choosing to center black travelers to leverage a
25:02traumatic history to celebrate the culture that defines its future it's an innovative formula and
25:19it makes me question the tourism strategies of other black countries particularly in the region my family
25:25is from the caribbean the caribbean has long sold itself as the sun sand and sea paradise for white
25:36tourists but i've been hearing whispers of a more grassroots community-led tourism movement so i'm off
25:41next to one of the most iconic destinations in the world jamaica if ghana is an example of targeted
25:49tourism jamaica is a master class in the exact opposite mass tourism more than four million people
25:56visit the island each year most visitors come by way of cruise ships or staying resorts and i get the
26:02appeal after trying it a few times i've realized i am not a fan of the all-inclusive so this time i'm
26:10looking for a different experience my first stop is the rastafari indigenous village in montego bay
26:18not far from the main resorts visitors can come for short tours or longer stay retreats and immerse
26:24themselves in the rastafari way of life i'm so excited to be here wow look at this place lovely
26:31and blending in with everything welcome welcome yeah thanks for having me i'm welcomed by arlene mckenzie
26:41and first man two of the founding members of the village this is where we started the village and
26:46this is a main entrance and this is our welcome space okay king we've got visitors today that's
26:55king toto okay this is our drum hut and our drum space in our african principles and in rastafari
27:03you see everyone as a gift this is aizen hello so it's unlike the modern world and the colonial world
27:10that is trying to put you in a conveyor belt so in our spaces is about the creative energy that you
27:16have been born with smells so good in here you got your own natural lipstick here really yes let's see
27:23we've been here 17 years and this is an interpretation center an education space
27:40a wellness cultural heritage space the village came about because we felt there was a gap in people
27:47coming on holiday the major attraction being our music our culture our identity who we are
27:54and then coming for a week two weeks and then leaving with no understanding
27:59so we created the space for that conversation about the traditional knowledge that was being lost
28:08this is our pharmacy with a f in the ancient days you take this and you put it on your door
28:14and if it doesn't grow you know that the husband is cheating and there's a struggle one there's
28:25there's money coming in for beaches and new construction the other which is our heritage our
28:35environment our culture our history that's struggling to survive and this side needs protection and this
28:43side is coming in with big money interesting just thinking about the money specifically where is the
28:48money going to whoever owns whatever they own because most of the resorts are not owned by jamaicans
28:54no not now tourism makes up over 30 percent of jamaica's gdp approximately 60 of those billions
29:04flows out to foreign-owned companies and investors
29:07mass tourism is really where we are creating infrastructure to bring in a lot of people at one
29:15time over and over so thinking like cruise ships many of which can hold thousands of people thinking
29:22all-inclusive resorts the same thing the idea is we want a lot of people here they that mass tourism
29:28focuses on keeping them contained so for the example of cruise ships while you do come to port
29:36really they want you to experience a lot of your vacation on the cruise ship and so there's kind
29:42of this containment model which is really good for businesses and corporations but not so good for
29:48local communities right but what is all this that's happening over here oh man we call that
29:56destruction disguises development yeah what are they it's a highway it's a highway that's coming in
30:03more the congestion that takes place in the city but for us you know as people who live from this land
30:10has been here with this land close to 20 years a lot of a lot of our neighbors and trees and
30:16in different plants and animals are just gone it's just a constant fight for people who love the earth
30:25to continue to protect the earth you know we've lost a lot and we're just in negotiation to see if we
30:31can get any restoration okay yeah restoration is what we're about now the rastafari indigenous village
30:39truly is the kind of grounded cultural experience i was hoping to have in jamaica it's disturbing to
30:45realize that it's under threat and what i quickly learn is that this is just one example of the many
30:51ways that jamaica's cultural and environmental heritage is at risk in the name of development
31:05have you been downtown montega b yeah a little bit it was just like one strip that i got to
31:10experience very briefly so our downtown this is very political downtown all of the main shopping areas
31:18owned by chinese and downtown the main tourist strip is owned by indians that's yeah definitely
31:24experience right yeah yeah yeah and these are not chinese and indians who came in when we came these
31:30are newer arrivals these are newer arrivals money's being made images the rest of manner the big spliff
31:38and the big penis this is what's being sold we're no longer controlling our own image and this is very
31:45serious how are we being presented to the world through the eyes of other people
31:55jamaica's interesting right it's in one of the most tourism dependent regions of the world in the
32:00caribbean you fly in you drive out from the airport you begin to see walls and it's interesting because
32:08on one side you have the walls you have the gates behind which are resorts all-inclusive resorts
32:13and then on the other side of the road right across from the beach are homes where people are living
32:20but there's no back and forth there's no access so these walls and gates are essentially walling off
32:28access to the coastline access to the beaches there are reports that say that there's only one percent
32:35of coastline and beaches in jamaica that's openly accessible to the public wow unfortunately the model
32:41that they have built has really led to a literal physical divide between the tourism experience and
32:52the local everyday life
32:58i want to know more about how this divide is experienced by local communities
33:02so i'm in port antonio to meet ringo a very swaggy boat captain who takes tourists on boat tours and
33:10bamboo rafting we're meeting at a small fishing cove he wants to tell me about how his work has been
33:17affected by recent attempts to limit commercial activities at a key tourist destination the blue lagoon
33:23it's okay that i keep my shoes on yes yes you can keep your shoe on yeah tell me about where we are
33:32today yeah we are here in sanco bay so since the closure of the blue lagoon sanco bay becomes main
33:39spot for the boat tours and the bamboo rafting it doesn't look like a very big area though it's a small
33:46area but it was happening i used to do the tours there at the blue lagoon and where do you take people
33:51on your tours i'll take them along the villas of blue lagoon over to the monkey island where they
33:57have nice coral reef for snorkeling and then i take them along the coast up the cocktail beach from
34:02the movie tom cruise all the way back up to winifred beach where they do club paradise with robin williams
34:07also too where you apparently you were starred in those two days i'm a background extra yes yes i get
34:13the opportunity to be a background extra club paradise and also cocktail yeah keep the background busy while
34:19tom cruise was flipping his bottle i love it it was such an experience that the blue lagoon was the main
34:24attraction yes was it also a spot that you and your family would just enjoy for yourselves as well
34:29too yes by the minute that they have a mineral spring around there they call the fountain of youth
34:35yes man we always loved that part of the blue lagoon you know fresh and cool just flowing from the
34:40mountain i would put my back against the wall and it could feel that water just pushing through the
34:46system yeah during the pandemic the blue lagoon was one of the only sites still open which led to
34:53overcrowding and disorder ringo is the vice president of the blue lagoon alliance a group that consists of
35:00more than two dozen raftsmen craftsmen boat operators and fisher folk the organization agreed with the
35:06government for a six-month closure three years later they say that their access to the site is still limited
35:13and they are restricted from operating their commercial businesses leaving local livelihoods
35:17in limbo so what's the reasoning a lot of red tape a lot of bureaucracy yes and you have some
35:25people the homeowners association by the blue lagoon they are the capitalist guys they honestly
35:31doesn't want it to be reopened oh yes they want it to stay just like that because then it becomes just
35:36for their private access for their private access only it's told everything is underneath their
35:41control yes the security guards here that is working and their private enterprise interesting so
35:47they're not government security no not government security private enterprise yes so who are the
35:52homeowners are they jamaicans are jamaicans um rich jamaicans and they they are the one that run the
35:57country they own all the homes along the village there they come over here into the country for a piece of
36:04mine and they would mind it just stays like that they doesn't care about us the locals in around the
36:09communities what do you think needs to change now they need to restore about the commercial activities
36:16the bamboo rafting the boat tours yes because that's the commodity that the visitors keep asking for
36:22for three years now every day you will find someone come and ask about the bamboo rafting about the boat ride
36:30the communities in around depend on commercial activities i head next to visit the blue lagoon
36:37to see this truly stunning sight and to meet some more members of the alliance as soon as i enter i see
36:44the private security guards that ringo mentioned they allow me to walk in with no issues but i notice
36:50that one immediately gets on the phone as he sees me approaching a short while later the police show up
36:56believing that i'm there for a boat tour they declare that no one will be allowed on the water
37:02today no no stop no man stop no let's just confirm is that the only issue sergeant what he's saying
37:09he's not in agreement with what he's taking place this what he's doing is coming from there yes superior so
37:15so this is the sea all right and the sea is the common use for mankind i have not seen any order
37:28that we cannot enter the sea from here so what i'm saying to you is that we have to communicate to you
37:34also right while we are pushing back at it i'm not attacking you right what i'm attacking is the system
37:42of oppression after the confrontation members of the blue lagoon alliance explain that these types
37:49of encounters have become their new normal they have used bullying tactics like what happened today
37:57these rich people they want everything it is not enough that they can own villas along the coastline
38:06but they want to own the business that surround their villas
38:12look at rapush raw for the boat ride and i said my son to college i said my daughter to high school
38:20i never bought take a loan from no one this is what i do all these years over 30 years
38:27for my other family make my house and do my living and they just take it all like that
38:32it's kind of right limiting the access locals have to their own natural resources seems to be a common
38:42practice in jamaica there are 86 public beaches on the island but according to local activists the
38:49movements of locals are highly policed on many of them they're poorly maintained far from local areas
38:54and are often seen as the leftovers of the tourism industry among those who are arguing with the
39:07police at the blue lagoon was dr devon taylor a research scientist and the founding member of job
39:13the jamaica beach birthright environmental movement job m has been one of the loudest voices exposing the
39:20way locals have been restricted from their own beaches i'm meeting with devon at winifred beach
39:25to find out more about this fight and why he was inspired to join during covid there was a lot of
39:31restriction in movements beaches were off limits so them used that as style and they fenced the property
39:40under the disguise of covid and the communities really responded and protested only to be faced by armed
39:48people right it got that serious it's got that serious so the community took the fence down
39:54wow did that end up being a like a violent encounter it's a conflict you know we're in conflict zone yeah
40:00and the fence went up in the form of a concrete wall
40:11now you're asking yourself how do we fight back so you have to start study the law you start
40:17catch up on advocacy and figure out what do you do and that's how job m came to be that post job m came
40:23to be right now devon and i are sitting at winifred beach in 2007 when locals found out that winifred
40:32beach had been sold and would be converted into a commercial development the community fought back
40:38it was a seven-year battle that made global headlines but eventually they secured a landmark ruling
40:44the government now legally guarantees permanent public access to the beach no matter who owns
40:49the land in the future it's an important precedent for folks like devon who are continuing the fight
40:54for beach access
40:59i'd love to talk about some of the successes that have occurred i know that here this is one success
41:04story yeah we feel good about the winifred story because it showed that the community of fury here
41:10you know could come together all right and fight a case and won and that's i guess must have set an
41:16important precedent as well it did it did set an important precedent and so the advocacy has been
41:22really helping to galvanize friends of jamaica could push back at that kind of a tourism model
41:32it hits me that the common factor in all of this conflict and dispossession
41:36is jamaica's tourism model i know mass tourism is an economic driver for the country but i'm also
41:42starting to wonder is it worth it you'll hear lots of people say tourism is an economic driver it gives
41:49jobs and uh you know lifts people out of poverty and it can do that but in the model that we're seeing
41:56there it's not doing a great job at that and so yes people have jobs but are they good jobs are they
42:04jobs where they can save money are they jobs where they can advance the education of their children
42:12or are they just jobs where they can have a meal right and we should be pushing for more than that
42:34so
42:50tell me about this space and living here what is it like living here so over 17 years yeah i've been
42:56living here so i am the father of this place okay okay you're the one who made everyone realize this is
43:01a place we could live yeah i could be all over the world but i love it here you choose to be here
43:07yeah right here i love it you're happy i'm free i do some something that i love most every day i have no
43:14boss living better than a lot of people i know yeah it's not really about money yeah it's about who you
43:21you are and what you can do within yourself yes what you're making me think about my life now and having some reflections
43:33do you think that the local community understands the value of a space like this
43:39um i don't know i don't know that that's something that you can continually do
43:46within the community if the overall structure is not valuing it how do you value your cedar forest or
43:55if they're being cut down for the hotel right structure yeah how do you value your noni trees
44:01if you easily can run through it with a bulldozer if the governments are not recognizing it your
44:07community then become activists right and activism is tiring it doesn't pay and it doesn't put food on the
44:15table we know that it can be hard to yeah and that makes it impossible to sustain that impossible to
44:19sustain i'm curious about how you would say the beach is connected to jamaican identity
44:29500 years ago we came as slaves and shackled and so the beach is the graveyard is the space that we can
44:41come and come and honor our dead so that connectivity with the ocean is a traumatic one that's spiritual
44:50yes a spiritual one so we come to really peer homage to the ones that will sacrifice for the nation here
44:59and over the years the the relationship to fishing right the relationship to vending
45:07relationship to the recreation artistic expression and just coming here and find himself yes and one
45:17of the nicest thing is when i bring a girl to the beach
45:23is we gonna bring a girl to the beach at night and you sit and you just look
45:28in the beach at night i feel you there's so much here that brings people together that you know connects
45:42in tourism every place has a story black spaces and stories have been co-opted repackaged sold and
45:49exploited even we began to drink the kool-aid but it's exciting to see the ways that black travel has
45:55opened up new opportunities for black spaces to use tourism as a site of reclamation stories can be
46:03rewritten and value redefined tourism to africa most people thought about safaris right most people
46:11thought about east africa so people needed to first demystify the idea of africa in their brain most
46:18people thought about africa as charity and we didn't want that narrative to be associated with what we
46:23were doing we didn't want people to first think charity we wanted people to first think tourism
46:28we wanted people to first think creativity what business can i start what what opportunity can i
46:33create i mean 2017 the times did a great article on trends of black travel and how young millennials
46:42were now feeling more free to travel to different countries and for me that was inspiration to kind of
46:49ask but why not africa i want to know what you are most excited about in terms of the future of ghana's
46:56tourism strategy but also just largely the this idea of welcome that has been created and the beyond the
47:02return for me having grown up in canada the majority of my life and to be living here now and to have seen
47:10when i was growing up getting on the school bus being called dirty being called the n-word go back to
47:17africa you're made fun of because you're from the african continent people will just fade in and be
47:22like pretend i'm jamaican pretend i'm from trinidad even though they're from ghana or they're from
47:26nigeria or and to turn around now and have some of those same people be like i want to come and come
47:32to ghana and buy a house i want to come to ghana and buy land i want to start a business in ghana i'm like
47:37this is wonderful because it means that your minds have been changed
47:42this journey has left me with a new sense of responsibility in my role as a traveler
47:49engaging a space without getting to know its culture and its people doesn't hold much appeal
47:54i hope black countries stop selling themselves for the fastest buck i hope the rise of black
47:59travelers doesn't lead to new forms of colonialism but rather powerful connections between the diaspora
48:04and black spaces and i hope that when my son gets older his dream places to visit include countries in
48:11africa and the caribbean
48:25ea
Comments