ABSTRACT
Martinique is an island where outside money controls a moribund economy, where many people depend on French welfare, where people still feel racially oppressed by those on whom they depend, where they feel their own cultural identity slipping away, where dissatisfaction is pervasive. For observers of contemporary Martinique, a pervasive but ambivalent expression of political themes should come as no surprise. Much of the rest of the Caribbean became independent after World War II, but Martinique, then a colony of France, opted in 1946 to incorporate as a fullfledged part of the republic. Ambiguity over politics and identity is reflected in the ideologies of Martinique's major contemporary cultural movements. After the complete destruction of Martinique's capital, St.-Pierre, by the eruption of Mt. Pele in 1902, the new capital of Fort-de-France became the center of Carnival activity. Martinique's political, economic, and cultural history and current circumstances generate a pervasive emotional ambivalence.
