The Caribbean Community (Caricom) is constantly asking itself: When will the economy take off? High hopes are not squelched by past performance, even in 2009. The region’s lower standard of living, ranging from middle-low-class to subsistence poverty, can be rationalized by many diverse strands of analysis, all of which need due consideration. The religious threads of the Caribbean fabric, however, may provide both the best explanation and the best hope for islanders.

Caribbean geography gives our first clue: the area is, by its very shape, organically tempted toward sectarianism. Thus Catholicism, with Santeria, is preponderant in countries beginning with “Dominica”, “St.”, or “Trinidad”; Anguilla and Barbados are highly Anglican; Rastafari has a foothold in Jamaica; the Baptist Church leads in the Bahamas; atheism dominates Cuba and Haiti; while Muslims, Hindus, Jews, and denominations and cults all have a share. Unlike regions with a strong national religion, islanders of widely divergent religions have natural difficulty with the mutual trust necessary for effective economic infrastructure, a problem that Caricom is only slowly unraveling.

The history of Caribbean colonization is also significant: among the most proselytist religions, only Catholicism really has taken hold. The history of Protestants in the Caribbean shows a motivation by the United Kingdom to retain the Caribbean for hoped-for imperial profits and to shove evangelistic outgroups to more out-of-the-way regions, like the risky “New England” venture. Islam too has not taken a strong interest in the Caribbean, in that Africans were more likely to carry on animistic or tribal religions, or to syncretize them into Santeria or Rastafari. Catholicism itself is well-known for biding its time in a mixed community rather than stirring up religious zeal, which it reserves to Catholic-majority regions. Centuries of this laissez-faire attitude translate directly into the modern trademark Caribbean nonchalance and laid-back culture, which often, though not always, feeds unbusinesslike practices.

Indeed, a history of slavery itself also strains recovery and promotes underemployment in any country. But when the slavemasters promote one or another religious sect, the native and immigrant slaves are predisposed to find their own palatable worship style. Thus a high-church Catholicism coexists with a folk Santeria, which has a different structure of venerations based on orishas, with sacred Yoruba and Lukumi drumming and dance instead of Gregorian chants and heavy instrumentation. A similar Protestant counterculture is obvious in Rastafari and reggae music. This antiauthoritarian cultural identity, arising from slavery, informs a notion of inner personal independence, which reinforces a slavery dynamic rather than a scalable responsibility hierarchy that can grow small businesses into large.

Religion can be drawn upon to give individual strength in the face of the negative factors which impact Caribbean development. But all too often, individual strength does not create trickle-down economics, with benefits distributing freely to the masses; instead, a highly competent and successful individual becomes an icon and is popularized on the continent as an epitome of Caribbean success. In reality, the foreign promoters and investors pocket the change and the Caribbean economy fails to benefit.

Religion is a central aspect of Caribbean heritage. Only by navigating the minefield of religious traps can one find oneself and one’s God, and assist others on the path to spiritual and material growth. Only then will the lyric of Bob Marley’s Uprising become realized: “None but ourselves can free our minds.”