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For Panorama semi-finals, two weeks ago, I had probably the best listening position I have ever had.
Through the kind courtesy of panyard acquaintances, as well as through our bonding at my Carnival Days’ lime, I spent nine hours in row two of the Grandstand, right behind the judges with Cherry and friends.
Photo: Pan Trinbago.
The enduring strength of the social cohesion of the steelband movement remains evident. The enduring strength of kaiso in providing realistic social commentary was also evident through another semi-final—that one being Calypso Fiesta at Skinner Park a week ago.
For Calypso Fiesta, I had only a seat in front of the TV screen. I also had the benefit of replaying the performances of those eleven artistes who got through to the Calypso Monarch Finals.
Much attention has been focused on contestants who directly attacked the Government and the ruling political party. There were as well social commentaries that focused on the broader issues underlying violent crime and our constant anxiety and pressure.
Photo: AP Photo/ David Goldman.
Two outstanding articulations of the macro picture have taken their exponents onto the Calypso Monarch Finals to be held this evening.
The combined effect of the presentations of Kerice Pascal singing No Conscience and Giselle “GG” Fraser singing A Village Can’t effectively described “how the national conscience pack up and gone away” and “no village can raise no child again” leaving the children “to turn to the gang to put on their own show”.
The lyrics of these presentations mean more than narrow tirades of the politicians. Tirades obscure the real issues that neither major political party will face.
Photo: TUCO.
In respect of these issues and related degrading conditions, the politicians have rarely put forward credible socio-economic policies to lift communities in distress. Big prestige projects are not likely to function as instruments of community upliftment and healing.
Stinging condemnation came from Kerice Pascal for not hearing a child’s plea “while the judge and jury sipping tea”. Those lines are symbolic of pockets of general indifference to our descent into the wilderness of domestic and gang violence.
Of additional resonance with me was Giselle Fraser’s plea for the village to return to nurturing the children to save the next generation, because one of my many columns on the inestimable value of the panyards, was entitled The Nurturing Place, published in 2023.
Photo: TUCO.
The vitality of pan organization on the ground and the nurture of pan players is evergreen, as vividly demonstrated by the Panorama competitions, which were scheduled to conclude last night.
The panyard communities are exceptions to the broken villages; yet there was no place provided for them in the recently failed legislative proposal for extraordinary police powers to be wielded within areas to be declared as zones of special operations.
Instead, there were draft legislative provisions relating to support from Social Transformation Committees yet to be formed—a case of re-inventing the wheel in an environment where the panyard is already the nurturing place.
Photo: Pan Trinbago.
Would these proposed committees be dominated by party political operatives?
At least two senators also referred to the shortsightedness of debating community provisions at a time when state enterprise sponsorships of steelbands, whose yards were serving their respective communities above and beyond the call of the music, had been recently taken away.
It is to this nurturing place than pan aficionados from a variety of backgrounds are drawn and get to know and look out for each other. That is another form of togetherness that emerges out of the panyard.
Photo: NCC.
It leads to getting to know and accommodating each other, as mentioned in the opening paragraph of this column.
Meanwhile in respect of the massive Stink and Dutty disruption, described on the front page of the Trinidad Express newspaper as ‘Fete Madness’, it will not escape readers that David Rudder emphatically stated in song “this is not a fete in here this is madness”.
Many seek to escape the madness but, as we have to deal with evolving Carnival events, when will an honest discussion be had about the infrastructure and traffic management required for a Carnival that would balance competing interests and modes of enjoyment and the contribution of Carnival to the economy?
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Martin G Daly SC is a prominent attorney-at-law. He is a former Independent Senator and past president of the Law Association of Trinidad and Tobago.
He is chairman of the Pat Bishop Foundation and a steelpan music enthusiast.
