Carnival Unity

I have played J’Ouvert or mas here at home several times and I have tried some version of Caribbean carnival in other Caribbean countries, the US mainland and across in England, France and Holland, so I am a good example of what people call a Carnival person. I definitely love being on the road for Carnival and I enjoy all the auxiliary events that go with it, but the one thing I love the most about carnivals, wherever I go, is the unity. There is something really special about seeing everyone, regardless of their native language, the colour of their skin, or their place of origin, hug, jump, wave and wine to soca music together.

For no other reason than to continuously live in that carnival unity, I wish that Trinidad and Tobago would remain in a perpetual carnival stateof- mind. We need a unified Trinbago against racism, sexism, classism and the other ‘isms’, against criminals, against politicians and against the many corrupt technocratic leeches scattered across our government agencies and departments. We have to be a society unified against all injustices and compassionate enough to see homeless people — who for whatever unfortunate reason(s) were forced to live on the streets — as human beings because as I have said before, no one consciously and willingly chooses that life. We have to be a society united against all forms of discrimination and understand that it is not “us” against “them” based on superficial educational qualifications, type of vehicle, address or size of house.

We need to be a caring society that does not see a nude woman walking down the street and offer nothing but ridicule and embarrassing social media exposure.

At Carnival time, these things don’t exist. We are treated the same as we all get ripped-off equally to have the same amount of fun.

On the road, we all wear the same exorbitantly priced J’Ouvert and mas costumes and enjoy the same repetitive soca music as everyone else. And no one decides to take a wine based on whether the owner of the derriere is from Laventille, Scarborough, Westmoorings, or foreign-based.

“All ah we is one”... but apparently that’s only from Boxing Day to Ash Wednesday.

Of course, I am not naive or delusional to think that we could all love each other unconditionally because I am fully cognizant of the fact that despite the obvious unity and love we see oozing onto the streets at Carnival, there is still a lot of entrenched hatred from different sections of society, segregation, and dare I say, discrimination by certain mas bands and event organisers throughout the season.

I understand that there are some folks out there who are up to no good and by all means, should be excluded from Carnival festivities, but what are the criteria for determining that? It is sad that we have come to accept discrimination wearing the costume of “exclusivity”.

When party promoters determine who is allowed to attend an event based on their Facebook profile picture or band owners decide who plays frontline because of the shape of their body, we allow all our years of progress to be wiped away as these behaviours embody the same classism and separatist ideology from the days of slavery when French slave masters and colonial elites had their posh masquerade balls until slaves and indentured servants eventually created their own Canboulay.

Through my lenses, when PM Rowley was seen wining on a fellow female masquerader during 2015 Carnival, I saw unity, but of course, racists saw something else and caused a much-ado-about-nothing hullabaloo. The situation is the same with President Carmona’s dhoti costume this year — some people have a problem accepting the fact that diversity is OUR culture. And if that’s the case, they should hop on a boat or plane to wherever they feel comfortable.

May I also add that it always seems to be the same group of people, who, in my view, lack all moral authority to say a costume or wine is disrespectful, when they fully support little girls marrying big hardback men. Really, why can’t life in Trinbago be like feting and being on the road for Carnival all day, every day? If we cannot have real unity any other way, then we should remain in a constant state of Ca r ni v a l b e c a u s e honestly, I really love that version of my c o u nt r y.

Come on Trinbago – peace, love and true harmony.

jamille85@msn.com