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So Gregory Aboud jumped out of his corner and suggested that we have a carnival celebration and everybody wants to kill him because, primarily, they say it is too little too late.
Is it possible that he is too far away from our perceptions of who can speak about carnival with authority? Are we being biased?
(Copyright TedxPOS)
On this occasion, I am jumping up behind the ‘Textile King’ because he has a point. Trinidad and Tobago must put down a marker and establish a placeholder if we are to live up to our boast of being ‘The Mecca of Carnival’.
While the notion of curating our carnival history is admirable and necessary it is insufficient. We need to think through how to have a carnival which provides the annual catharsis that more than 300,000 citizens voluntarily engage in. More importantly, how to retain our place as the world carnival leader?
The issue of the Trinidad and Tobago Carnival has been at the back of our minds for many years now and Covid has simply brought it, so to speak, right to the stage. Instead of writing it off as undoable, let’s dream of how it can be done safely.
In the absence of guidelines or conditions under which to have our Carnival, I assure you that there will continue to be ‘zesser’ and ‘wesser’ parties and other forms of gatherings that could result in more community Covid spread.
(via TTPS)
We do not have enough police to police the people. Our leadership has obviously not bought into the notion that form follows function and may have taken the view that it is easier and cheaper to just write off Carnival. But is it?
We are unlikely to ever be able to calculate the psycho-social cost to the country of doing so.
Here is an opportunity to engage the entire country, including businesses and schools, in addressing and answering the question: how can we celebrate Carnival 2021 safely and without government funding while following the rules of wearing a mask; keeping sanitised; keeping in clusters of ‘x’ and maintaining a physical distance of ‘y’.
We may not agree with the DOMA president’s view of two-metre-wide costumes, but what he is expressing is a feeling that many of us share. And that is our Carnival is as necessary as going to church.
Let’s use our ingenuity to place a marker in the sand and really own the carnival space of the future.
(via The Blup)
The fly in the ointment of this kind of thinking is that there is no obvious way of making money and too many of our ‘Carnival czars’ can only create on the canvas of dollar bills. 2021 is not the year for making money. It is the year for making magic for future money.
Let’s not simply consign Mr Aboud’s idea to the dump heap but find a way for it to stimulate us into re-thinking Carnival as a one love experience in which we engage in mutual respect and love for each other; and demonstrate that we can be disciplined in our behaviour and still find a way to have the catharsis that the festival gives us.
It can be our opportunity to show the world that we are living with Covid without cowering from it.
I am reminded of a scene from the movie ‘Matrix’ where Neo and Morpheus are in an empty white area and Neo asked where they were. Morpheus said it’s called a ‘construct’, and they can put into it anything we want.
We need to view Carnival in that space. It’s a construct into which the stakeholders can put anything.
(via Torontoist.com)
We do not have to be tied to the traditional forms of Carnival which may no longer be as valid as 100 years ago. Mr Aboud is simply asking us to think!
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Dennise Demming grew up in East Dry River, Port of Spain and has more than 30 years experience as a communication strategist, political commentator and event planner. She has 15 years experience lecturing business communications at UWI and is the co-licensee for TEDxPortofSpain. Dennise is a member of the HOPE political party.
Some people are living in a dream world where ‘x marks the spot’ means something to the average trinbagonian. It does not. Not even some of the people in charge can quite figure out how to properly place those “spots” for physical distancing so that it makes sense. There is no way to have anything allowing in-person presence by any number of people. Just DON’T do it. Despite my strong feelings re sanctioning any physical gatherings – (why do we think creating legal ones will negate the illegal activities?) I do agree our archived materials should certainly be sufficient to be put to excellent use together with whatever is being created and marketed digitally these days in creating something virtual for those with carnival tabanca – and soca monarch is going virtual, they say, a good way to go because, let’s keep it real – no Trinbagonian will pay any heed to any limits set – most of them barely even want to wear a mask – doing anything that depends on their good behaviour is a recipe for disaster – most of the soca tunes command mis-behaviour, so how are we to actually make it work? So, unless you have some nefarious population-control plans underfoot, there is no reason to court that kind of outcome. And no, carnival is not as essential as church, though it is a fun escape from the ordinary, for a few days, and the music lasts way beyond that now, with the digital space being what it is, so let’s not get over-excited and prematurely plan for an event as big as carnival – we escaped last year because the virus had not gotten a foothold here – this year is not going to be the same. The Christmas numbers are clearly showing us we don’t need to accelerate, but to slow down any further activities that encourage gatherings. Welcome to purely digital carnival, the way many trinis have been experiencing it, the ones who didn’t come home for whatever reason…it’s possible, and it is the only safe way to go.
“Mr Aboud is simply asking us to think!”
DD, hard not to agree with your essential point but every instinct within me tells me that you have overstated this.
Mr Aboud is a businessman, 100%! It’s in his DNA to never ask us to think. At best, he’ll ask us to think of the Nike slogan: Just do it!
well then … let’s just do it.