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Last week I dealt with this Government’s commendable moves to deal with the problems arising out of the use of amplified sound at Carnival fetes and similar events outside the Carnival season.
The explosive sounds of fireworks are also a major problem for citizens. The recent amendment of the Summary Offences Act intended to curtail the use of fireworks may turn out to be a disappointing piece of legislation.
This apprehension has led me to treat first with what I will call the fireworks legislation before proceeding with a follow up column on the performing arts.
I share the concern of many about the broad general exceptions to the permit structure put in place to curtail the indiscriminate use of fireworks. These exceptions provide that a person without a permit may discharge fireworks on a public holiday between 8pm and 9pm on the same day and on 31 December between 11.30pm and 12.30am the following morning.
The approach taken in curtailing the use of fireworks is similar to that used regarding the use of stadium facilities for Carnival fetes, in that there are provisions regarding specific dates and times.
(Copyright Clear Editz Studios.)
However, there is no practice or tradition of using fireworks on several of our public holidays, so why invite the use of fireworks on Corpus Christi, Eid al Fitr, Labour Day, Good Friday, Easter Monday, Spiritual Baptist Liberation Day, Indian Arrival Day and African Emancipation Day?
Whether those days should be excluded perhaps requires consultation with the appropriate representative bodies.
Regarding Christmas Day and Boxing Day, is the use of fireworks on those two days necessary given the freedom granted for their use on 31 December?
I have read verbatim the proceedings in the Senate on 11 December, which promptly followed the debate the day before in the House of Representatives. There was specific reference to Divali and the Christmas season.
In proposing the fireworks legislation, the Attorney General, Senator John Jeremie SC, accepted that the legislation was a work in progress and also anticipated legislative movement in the area of noise reducing fireworks.
It is fervently hoped that the fireworks legislation be revisited before matters get out of hand on those public holidays with which fireworks may now not be normally associated but in respect of which a bligh has now been given.
In the remaining space available this week let me begin the follow up to last week’s column by reminding readers that pan music has a scientific patrimony because its inventors were scientists, naturally gifted in the sciences of metallurgy and acoustics.
That scientific patrimony demands of us the highest respect.
Photo: Pan Trinbago.
In my advocacy for pan music in these columns and elsewhere I have emphasized that sponsorships of steelbands are in reality sound investments in youth and community development.
My advocacy has returned many times to the part the panyard plays in the social fabric of our society, particularly with regard to its significant contribution to self-esteem and youth development in disadvantaged communities.
As I repeatedly pointed out, the successful panyards serve as mentors, counsellors and homework centres for youngsters. They also provide music education in instruments other than pan as well as sources of income.
(via Highlanders.)
It was in a very early one of those columns entitled Potential peacemakers (February 2007) that I coined the phrase “panyard model”—a phrase appropriated by some without any acknowledgment of its source in my work and the work of Lloyd Best that preceded mine.
I described the Birdsong model in 2012. Birdsong also have a farming unit and, although I have not had the pleasure yet of visiting the panyard of Siparia Deltones, there is abundant information in the public domain of the ventures of Deltones into furniture manufacturing and hydroponic agriculture.
The new round of termination of pan sponsorships by Heritage Petroleum shockingly includes Deltones and Skiffle, despite their respective track records of youth and community development.
(Copyright Sbc.edu.)
If the message about the panyard model had been seriously acted upon instead of being superficially touted, we would not now, decades later, be agonizing over yet another round of state enterprise firing of steelbands from their sponsorships.
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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.
