Down from the balconies but still two Carnivals

February 20, 2002
By Bukka Rennie

There have always been two Carnivals. Two perspectives from time immemorial to the reign of the so-called Mad Monarch.

There was always the Carnival of the past governors and their entourage, the virtual "kings" and their court, the "citizens of substance", with their grand balls and masquerade parties particularly on "Big Sunday".

And then there was always the "Jammette Carnival", the Carnival of the streets, the Carnival of the ex-slaves and the plebs to whom Carnival was always about parody and portrayal rather than mere masquerade.

At one time the "citizens of substance" would simply observe the going-ons of the masses in the streets on Monday and Tuesday from up on high, the balconies along the streets.

Those balconies to them represented safe distance.

As they grew in confidence of their social control, they came down closer to play their mas' on the back of trucks.

With the ongoing process of social levelling they will in time actually step into the streets on Monday and Tuesday to play, though clearly demarcated by ropes.

Now they were into the broad mix, nevertheless still separate and apart.

That would continue until finally, with the massive bludgeoning of their class numbers and now no longer racially inclusive, they would take over the Carnival completely with the sheer weight of their historic commercial strength.

The "Jammette Carnival" of the masses has now been pushed to the fringes, relegated almost to mere nuisance value, the nostalgia of traditional characters of bats, dragons and devils, and the rare appearances of steelbands blocking up the competition points and hindering the flow of the so-called "big mas bands".

The impetus and drive for this nowadays Carnival comes from West Port-of-Spain rather than East Port-of-Spain.

And what have Woodbrook, ironically the home of deceased George Bailey, brought to bear on the Carnival agenda?

Carnival today is middle-class, largely feminine and superficial.

There is no creative portrayal, save and except Minshall who moves to a different drumming of the heart, and everything boils down to decorative adorning and the application of "bells and whistles" to bikinis that celebrate female nakedness, female narcissism and crude commerce.

What a departure from the supreme days of the "Jammette Carnival" when every portrayal required intense self-preparation and self-discovery, including specific dance, stance and speech as well as definition of space.

In other words, the fullness of art.

Today's Carnival is said, like everything else, to be "all-inclusive". Herein lies the rub!

There is more alienation today in Carnival than when the citizens of substance occupied the balconies in safe distance.

And today this alienation is further intensified by the general social breakdown, the lawlessness of the elite and the process of globalisation that polarises the world, marginalises the masses and reduces the disadvantaged to a big nothing, to a similar cultural sameness bankrupt of creative intelligence.

Are we surprised at the violence that rages today particularly at Carnival time? Read carefully what was written in this column on May 10, 1999:

"Ironically on May Day 1999, the most 'striking' event reported was the rampage of youths, both male and female, between the ages 14 and 18 in Finland. This marauding gang moved through the streets stabbing people at random. They were said to have been celebrating May Day.

"In Central Park, New York, the summer before, there was a similar incident involving youths, people were even raped. Afterwards they described their criminal behaviour as 'swarming'. There was no reason for this they said other than a compelling urge.

"The horror is there in the very word that they chose to describe their action. Bees swarm. Their action is instinctive.

Worker bees are exact clones. Self-preservation demands for worker bees an existence of mindless uniformity.

"For some time now there have been reports in T&T of teenagers 'swarming' particularly during the J'Ouvert of Carnival celebrations, causing many adults to stop playing mas..."

It was at its worse this year Carnival 2002, according to reports.

I stood at the corner of Frederick and Duke J'Ouvert morning at approximately 1 o'clock, waiting on the "Stars" and witnessed thousands of youths wandering in waves up Frederick Street.

None could say exactly where they were headed. But most interestingly to me, none could make their own music like we did back in the '60s.