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OBITUARY
EUGÈNE EDWARD GODFRIED
10.23.1952 - 03.29.09
Caribbean Specialist, Radio Journalist, Community Organizer, Musicologist
Director, Radio Eugene Godfried International
Director, Caribbean Division, Radio Havana Cuba
Eugène
Edward Godfried Presilia passed on to the ancestors Sunday morning, March 29,
2009, in Willemstad, Curaçao, his homeland, after suffering a grave stroke
March 21st. He was 56.
Eugène Godfried was a widely respected and renowned radio journalist,
scholar, community organizer, political activist, and ethnomusicologist. For
over 30 years, he worked with Caribbean nations to promote ideas and actions
regarding popular culture and Caribbean identity. He dedicated his life to
researching, articulating, and interpreting cultures of the Caribbean and to
fostering Afro-Caribbean pride, and was especially recognized for his expertise
on Afro-Cuban music, history, and culture. As a political activist, he fought
against colonialism, racism, exploitation, and oppression.
Eugene Godfried’s life and work were of deep importance and impact to the
Caribbean region. As James Millete, Professor of African American Studies at
Oberlin College, notes:
“The death of Eugene Godfried has closed an
important chapter in the political life of the Caribbean in general and the
Dutch Caribbean in particular. For more than thirty years the name and the
activities of Eugene Godfried had to be reckoned with in the region. As
activist, as radical politician, as radio journalist, as researcher and
propagandist Eugene articulated a constant message of challenge and change, of
hope and transformation, from one end of the Caribbean to the other.
But as militant and radical as he was, Eugene was
also very human, very cultured, very sophisticated. He was the quintessential
Caribbean man. He was fluent in nearly all the languages of the region - from
Papiamentu to Patois to Kreyol to Sranang to French and English and Spanish and
Dutch and Portuguese, to name only a few - and willingly interpreted the various
cultures in language and in meaning to each other and to all those seriously
interested in knowing the real Caribbean.”
Highly learned, but also a man of the people, Eugene Godfried used his role
as a radio personality to foster open discussion among a socially diverse
listening audience. For Mr. Godfried, broadcasting was a methodology for
promoting active dialogue among all social sectors, and a strategic way to
defend popular Caribbean identity. His radio programs incorporated not only
music, but discussions of a wide scope spiced with Caribbean cultural
ingredients. His international interview guests ranged from all strata of
society, from the highest political echelons to the voices of common people
conveying their lived experiences.
Just as Eugene Godfried viewed the Caribbean as an integrated region, he
integrated broadcast journalism with elements of numerous other disciplines
including social psychology, cultural anthropology, linguistics, philosophy,
political science, economics, agronomy, religion, social geography, history,
sociology, musicology, and ethnography. Similarly, he integrated his experience
as a community organizer with that of radio journalist, heading directly to both
urban and rural areas to conduct fieldwork and record oral history for his
scholarly research.
Born in the Caribbean nation of Curaçao in the Dutch Antilles in 1952,
Eugene Godfried began his education in Catholic primary schools of his homeland
and took his higher degrees in Holland in social services with an emphasis on
culture and community organizing. In the 1970s, he became professionally
involved with radio, initially in Curaçao. His political mentor, Dr. Cheddi
Jagan, who had served as Chief Minister of Guyana and would later become its
President, personally encouraged Mr. Godfried to conduct progressive interviews
on radio and television. Jagan, who Mr. Godfried deeply respected as a
Marxist-Leninist thinker, was also instrumental in bringing Mr. Godfried to the
attention of the Cuban government, who asked him to delve into matters of
Afro-Cuban culture, music, and politics.
Eugene Godfried first visited Cuba and participated in its radio broadcasts
in the 1970s. He also traveled and broadcasted extensively in numerous other
Caribbean and Latin American countries. In the 1980s, following political
persecution by the governmental regime in Curacao, he decided to establish
himself in Cuba. He quickly became a leading voice, and conscience for
Afro-Cuban identity, in Cuban broadcasting, where he worked for several decades.
His professional work on Cuban radio stations included Radio Taino, Radio
Progreso, (where he directed Caribbean programming and collaborated closely with
Eduardo Rosillo Heredia), Radio Rebelde, and Radio CMKS-Guantanamo, among
others. Since 1995, he directed the Caribbean Desk of Radio Habana Cuba
International as a Caribbean Specialist. A talented linguist, Eugene was fluent
in thirteen languages. His main broadcast languages included English, Spanish,
Papiamentu, French, and Kreyol.
Mr. Godfried first made an appearance on Eduardo Rosillo’s Radio Progreso
program, “Un Domingo Con Rosillo” in 1993. He and Mr. Rosillo became
increasingly concerned with the “de-Africanization” of Cuban popular music,
and the urgent need for survival of the Cuban son rhythm complex, which they
viewed as the most authentic representation of Cuban cultural identity. Mr.
Godfried feared that the destruction of this musical form would imply a denial
of the African component of Cuban society in shaping Cuban national identity.
Through his involvement with Cuban radio stations, Eugene Godfried actively
promoted and celebrated the son complex and other aspects of Afro-Cuban
identity. (Similarly, Mr. Godfried would strive to restore respect for the
African-originated tumba rhythm of
Curaçao.) He also researched deeply and spoke openly about the political
history of Afro-Cubans, including the 1912 massacre of members of the Partido
Independiente de Color (the Independent Colored People’s Party). Although a
member of the Cuban Communist Party, Mr. Godfried did not shy from openly
criticizing racism within the country. His criticism was accepted at the highest
levels, though naturally he made a few unhappy.
Mr. Godfried was also a specialist on celebrations of Carnival as expressed
in Caribbean and Latin American nations. He participated in the 1998 world
conference on carnival held in Hartford, Connecticut. He was a producer and
promoter for the longstanding Cuban group Conjunto Chappottín y sus Estrellas,
who were vital to perfecting and popularizing the son complex. Mr. Godfried was
responsible for the designation of the group as a National Treasure of the Cuban
people. As producer and promoter of the Conjunto throughout the Caribbean,
Eugene Godfried was committed to insuring that audiences of the world understand
Son as an authentic Cuban cultural creation.
Mr. Godfried was a visiting scholar and guest lecturer at numerous American
universities from 1999 - 2007. His lecture topics included issues of race and
identity in the Caribbean, as well as popular culture, history, politics, and
journalism. His research examined the connections between Africa and the
Caribbean, (as well as the world), from anthropological, linguistic, cultural,
religious, political, and economic perspectives. Mr. Godfried’s paper,
“Reflections on Race and the Status of People of African Descent in
Revolutionary Cuba” was presented in 2007 at the Caribbean Studies Association
conference in Bahia, Brasil. He was also deeply interested in the US African
American community and its civil rights movement. In addition, as a leader of
the youth movement Hubentut 70, he was directly
responsible for organizing the recognition and commemoration of the first
rebellion in 1795 of enslaved Africans in Curaçao.
Never one to stay idle, despite ill health, he mastered the art of self
broadcasting and set up his own Internet radio, Radio Eugene Godfried
International, www.regiradio.org,
in 2006. (Notable interviews included a lively conversation with Noam Chomsky.)
He also produced many videos on topics of Caribbean identity, culture, music,
and history, which can be found at that website. The word “International”
was an integral component of his broadcasting service, as Eugene Godfried
considered himself a truly international man. His deep humanity and open heart
respected, accepted, and embraced people and cultures from around the world.
Earlier in his professional life, Mr. Godfried served a four-year term as
president of the farmers’ cooperative of Curaçao. He returned to Curacao at
the end of 2007, and to this political mission in the last year of his life,
when in recent months he diligently promoted agrarian reform as the Chairman
of the Plataforma Agrario Nashonal (PAN). Throughout his life, he worked as an
organizer with local communities and labor unions in numerous Caribbean nations.
He
is survived by two daughters in Curaçao, Yomini and Nohraya Godfried, a
daughter in Oriente, Krisjocelyn Godfried , as well as his aunt Crisma
Merien-Presilia in Curaçao who raised him, his father Alwin Godfried, his
sisters Alwina and Nathaly, his brothers Egbert, Alwin Jr., and Nathaniel, and
his cousins, including Rutger Merien. Funeral services were held Saturday April
4, 2009 at the Church of Steenrijk in Willemstad, Curacao and were attended from
over 500 people from around the Caribbean and the world, including political
dignitaries from Curaçao, Saint Vincent, and Guyana. He was interred at Janwe
Cemetery.
He will be missed sorely, as now is the time
when the issues he confronted in such a deep way are coming to the fore and his
was an understanding born of hard-earned time in Cuba and elsewhere with people
at every level of society.
For more information on Eugene Godfried, including his collection of
writings, and testimonials from friends and colleagues, please visit www.afrocubaweb.com
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-- Julia Goldrosen / Africa Kabisa / WMBR 88.1FM
www.africakabisa.org
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