The sigh of History rises over ruins, not over landscapes, and in the Antilles there are few ruins to sigh over, apart from the ruins of sugar estates and abandoned forts.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
Ruins, for me, are the beginning. With the debris, you can construct new ideas. They are symbols of a beginning.
History devours, but at times it resurrects. Some lives must wait for history to catch up.
We only have a limited amount of time left before many archaeological sites all over the world are destroyed. So we have to be really selective about where we dig.
The Caribbean is such an apocalyptic place, whether it's the decimation of the indigenous populations by the Europeans, whether it's the importation of slaves and their subsequent being worked to death by the millions in many ways, whether it's the immigrant processes which began for many people, new worlds ending their old ones.
I do believe that enduring geological features are important, though I don't think I can be clear about exactly why.
I keep being surprised by the amount of archaeological sites and features that are left to find all over the world.
There are many beautiful and resource-rich areas all over the Philippines that are still undeveloped or under-developed. These areas offer opportunities for better master-planning and the emergence of better communities as well as cities.
History shows us that other highly developed forms of civilization have collapsed. Who knows whether the same fate does not await our own?
Visual surprise is natural in the Caribbean; it comes with the landscape, and faced with its beauty, the sigh of History dissolves.
Even the pallid daughters of Albion forget for a moment their Pre-Raphaelite poses by burying themselves in the sonorous sortilege of the Antilles.