Whither Carnival, whither culture?

It also heralds fierce competition among steelbands for musical supremacy on the pan. It also brings to the fore calypsonians with skills ranging from the largely mediocre to the moderate to a few outstanding, all vying to gain monetary rewards and recognition.

The participation in these activities have been amplified and glorified by stakeholders and the media as the very essence of our creativity in costume design, music and song and as the celebration of our innate propensity for carefree enjoyment, gay abandon, revelry and merriment.

The question that must be asked is whether Carnival is the defining element of our culture and denotes who we are as a people; whether as a nation we are given to merriment and frolic to the exclusion of everything else or, as the Road March says, “we jamming still, we doh business;” whether as a society we engage in unbridled, feckless, crass, mindless and aggressive behaviour without thought or restraint; whether we abandon any sense of responsibility in pursuit of frenzied enjoyment and self-gratification for a limited period of time.

If it is assumed that the above-noted propensities are all part of our psyche as a people, then why do we inveigh against the assertion that we have a “Carnival mentality?” Many will argue that the above characterisation does not define us as a people or denote the complexity of our cultural expression.

The debate continues.

Nevertheless, if we agree for a moment that Carnival represents the essential embodiment of our culture, the question being asked today is what is the future of this festival and, by extension, the future of this allegedly pervasive element of the culture and whether we are in the throes of cultural demise.

Some will argue with conviction that Carnival today is even more buoyant, vibrant and energetic than it was previously.

Others maintain just as strenuously that Carnival is undeniably on the decline from what it was years ago.

Veteran calypsonian Winston Peters (Gypsy) is convinced that Carnival “is dying and fast,” that (it) “has lost its appeal as well as its creativity” and that “…the same Carnival we have here, you can get it in Antigua, Barbados, Jamaica or any other Caribbean island” (Express 6/3/17).

Carnival and pan enthusiast Martin Daly says “the delusion that our Carnival is ‘the Greatest Show on Earth’ has become a pappyshow claim” and that “…there is the withdrawal of spectators in ever increasing numbers over a decade not only from Panorama but from the two days of the parade of the bands” (Express 5/3/17).

One Patricia Blades in a letter to the newspapers laments that the mas is boring with “men and women with their bottoms pushed out, wining on each other, wearing last year’s tiny boring costumes… Revellers with a total lack of decency… Lack of innovative in costume design.” If indeed there is any credibility to these observations, then it appears that Carnival is fast losing whatever appeal it had to participants and spectators and can no longer lay claim to being the premier, culturally defining event.

Also symptomatic of the reputed decline of Carnival is what some observers regard as the creeping mediocrity of the general standard of calypsoes offered throughout the season as well as in the Calypso Monarch show.

Ken Ali in an op-ed piece (see page A13) urges that “we cannot afford another year of calypso decay” and was very kind in his assessment that “…today’s version generally lacks the creative honesty, flair, ingenuity and poetic mastery…” He then laments that “The just-ended Carn i v a l s e a s o n s a w m o r e a r t i s t e s than patrons at s o m e c a lyps o tents.”