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Mary Gordon (American novelist): I've thought about the similarities between African-American and Afro-Caribbean culture and Irish culture. People are always comparing the Irish and the Jews and it doesn't work. I think the Irish and the African-Americans have a lot more in common and I think it's because neither of them really believe in the material world in a very strong way, and they don't believe in the future. They're very bad at being bourgeois.
Nuala Ni Dhomnhnaill (Irish poet): This is true especially with Irish-speaking people. There's been a theory recently about the different between English-speaking Irish people who came to America and the Irish-speaking Irish people. The Irish-speaking Irish people didn't do as well in America as the English-speaking ones, and people put it down to the actual thought forms of the Irish language which are filled with a great sense of the other world and a very deep sense of fate and destiny.
Gordon: There's a different relationship to the future. I was noticing that in the West Indian language future is not even in tenses; it's not constructed syntactically in a straightforward way, like you'd say "I be going." The line between the present and the future isn't as straight as in English. It seems to me what makes a middle-class person is the belief that if you save now, if you're restrained now, you'll get your reward later. The English have the same kind of criticism of the Irish that the Protestants have of the black community: how could they spend all their money on a funeral or why are they spending all that money on a car?
Mustapha Matura (Trinidadian playwright): That's very interesting because the Christian concept is: you make your sacrifice on earth to get your just reward in heaven. Whereas the poor people or the non-Christian people will enjoy themselves, have a bottle of rum and have a party now and to hell with tomorrow. But apart from the psychological reasons for that there's also the practical: since I'm going to have to be working for this man tomorrow and the next day and the next day and the next day, why should I have to sacrifice today? The Christians are usually the ones who employ the people who want to party and have a good time, so I think there's a political aspect to this, too. The Irish and the blacks -- black American, black Caribbean -- never quite bought into the idea of the virtue of the master. They may not have had the ability or opportunity to do something about it, but they didn't buy the philosophy.
-- "The Charm of the Words," New Theater Review (now known as Lincoln
Center Theater Review)
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