11 days of sxm: liberation; the lesson of The Ponum Dance

The official national dance of Saint Martin is one of the most expressive, groundbreaking, and vibrant dance that’s out there. The Ponum, originated around the time of emancipation, as former slaves used the arts of dance and song to express the pain and joys of freedom. Since then, the dance was regularly performed after salt harvest, or at parties. Unfortunately, throughout the mid 20th century, the dance was almost lost as the focus of the island shifted more to developing to cater to tourists than preserving our island’s culture. During the ’90s and early 2000s, the dance was brought back to the forefront of the island through the efforts of the then Imbali Dance School (now known as the National Institue of Arts). Now, students are taught the dance as well as the important history behind it.  

Sint Maarten Unesco alongside the Department of Communication partnered to document the importance and the history of the Ponum dance in this short documentary: https://fb.watch/1A0YJsOlca/. If you haven’t seen this before, I urge everyone to watch it as it gives great insight into The Ponum dance. 

I titled this post, a lesson from the Ponumn Dance for a very specific reason. We are currently living in a peak era where the majority of the world is fighting for their basic human rights. As the Black Lives Matter movement set precedent for a fight in governmental change and how they treat their populations. The continent of Africa has seen a plight of protests urging for human rights as well. Now you might be asking, what does that have to do with us in Saint Martin, and what does that have to with the Ponum? 

In the context of our beautiful island, we have to remember something, we are still two colonies under the Netherlands and France. No matter how much more ‘power’ we got or what fancy title we have, we are still under the control of the white man. For many of us who are younger millennials or gen z, we are only truly now being able to see how these powers behave. A lot of our eyes were opened after the response we got from hurricane Irma. While military forces were there to aid after the hurricane, it took a long time (on both sides) for the monetary aid to be provided. The same issues that we are seeing with the Covid-19 pandemic. It just proves that to these powers that the value of items is more important to them than the livelihood of the people. 

The Ponum is a dance of freedom but also tells the pain of the enslaved. The dance was used as a way of liberation and push for new change for our ancestors. Of course, after 200+ years, we haven’t received the full freedom that is needed, but the main goal is to strive for it. 

So the lesson from the Ponum dance is liberation. Let’s quickly break it down and explain how it can be utilized in the context of Saint Martin. 

Liberation (noun): the act or process of freeing a country or a person from the control of somebody else. [Oxford English Dictionary]

So I know you are saying to yourself, not another discussion on independence. I am here to tell you this is not what we are going for right now. While the end goal is to become an independent country, we have to sit down and sort out the trash in our back yard (Alexa play Backyard Dutty by King Kembe). Every year we love to sing “emancipate yourselves from mental slavery’ but what are you actually doing to break that. For so long we’ve held tight to a lot of colonial views and mindsets that have been utilized to morph the characteristics of our ancestors. We love to preach that we are all for the liberation of our people, but we’ve been stuck in the same ways. Here are some ways we can clean up our back yard: 

1. Dash way the bigotry. I don’t care what your father says, what your pastor says, what you think the bible says, it’s time for all of us to sit down and unlearn all the bigotry behaviors we’ve adopted in our lives. As an island that loves to boast about our diversity, we do not accept a lot of the diversity that isn’t race-related. Your homophobia and transphobia? Check da. Your whorephobia? Check da. Your anti-blackness (and yes Black people can be anti-black)? Check da. 
   
2. Leave Charity behind and adopt Mutual-Aid. A lot of times, older persons would tell us about their neighbour would always have their back and I believe that this is one of the few times we have to go back to an old way. In our community there a lot of us that is struggling to survive. It’s not just the ones that look ‘poor’. With the cost of living on the island so high and the minimum wage so low, we have to help feed each other, cloth each other etc. You might say, but this sounds like charity! It’s not because it’s I help you, you help me. (a good example is @ictcommunityfridge). 
   

While this isn’t everything that would push us forward to our main goal, these are some personal things that we can work on. Our institutions such as government and schools have to be held accountable. Simple questions such as the way students handle at learning institutions, to our environment, to the lack of livable wages are ones that we have to continuously ask our elected officials. If it’s one thing we aren’t great at is holding the politicians we like accountable, and that also needs to change now. 

Sidenote, the island being super capitalistic is a major issue, but that’s for another post. 

To wrap up, the Ponum dance urges liberation. In order to be liberated, we have to do some self-reflection and decolonize the systems that govern us. From there, we can take the bigger step what is needed, independence. I also encourage everyone to watch the Parliament meetings that speak on decolonization and engage in conversations around this topic. 

That was Day 5, see you tomorrow for Day 6!!

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