Culture advocate criticises Tobago Heritage Festival

Cultural advocate Rawle Titus has reiterated his call for the establishment of a folk research centre to document Tobago's rich heritage.

"I am on record as calling for more research, through a whole research centre," he told Newsday Tobago.

Saying such centres are already operating in several Caribbean islands, Titus recalled he was a guest at a folk research centre in St Lucia many years ago.

"Every little thing they do. They even have a booklet."

Titus said he even spoke to former secretary for culture, tourism and transportation Tracy Davidson-Celestine about establishing the centre. Davidson-Celestine is TT's High Commissioner to Costa Rica.

Titus, a former Senate vice-president, raised the issue as he criticised aspects of this year's Tobago Heritage Festival, including the event's opening production on July 12 at the Shaw Park Cultural Complex.

He lamented that after hosting the festival for the past 32 years, Tobago has nothing to show for it.

"I ask everybody concerned, 'How come, after 32 stagings of the Tobago Heritage Festival we don't have a DVD to sell. We don't have anything on the shelf?' You walk into any local video shop and you could get umpteen videos from all over the place featuring people's culture."

Titus said when the heritage festival was introduced in 1987, "it was a beautiful idea, but I did not see it in isolation."

Titus said seven years later, in 1994, he wrote a cultural policy for Tobago, which he linked to tourism.

"Because through our culture, heritage in particular, there could be so much cultural input into Tobago."

Titus said what he saw on opening night did not speak to that line of thought.

"Everybody has a right to their own views and thoughts and I don't know who gives advice to whom, but definitely what I saw on opening night was not in sync with tourism.

"The opening night's show, over the years, actually featured a number of facets into what people could look forward to over the two-week extravaganza. But on opening night this year, I didn't think that thought was given justice to."

Saying he attended the festival's opening night for the first time in more than a decade, Titus said: "This year marked 15 years since I got an invitation to a heritage event. I don't know what happened but since 2004, I have not been getting invitations. And I hear about all kinds of things but I don't bother at all because I think the opening night's show left me with a bitter taste in my mouth and I ask myself, 'Are we going back instead of going forward?'"

He went on: "I felt very disturbed and disappointed about the opening night's show because there are some elements that I don't think should be on that stage at all. When people say they felt that way also, I too, felt that way. When people say it was a let down, I felt that way also. And, I make no bones about it."

Titus, who said he has been involved in culture since the age of 12, also believes the festival is being seriously affected by a lack of respect for those who have worked diligently in culture on the island.

"In Tobago, we have all of the resources, all of the people who can make a difference. But we suffer from a lack of respect. We talk co-operation and collaboration but we don't mean anything like it."

"We took a massive resource and we are actually destroying it. I am really upset about it."

To compound matters, Titus said people do not know where to go to lodge their concerns.

"To whom do we complain?" he asked.

"You can't complain to anybody because the person you are complaining to will laugh and say, 'Nothing for you.' So, instead of trying to collaborate and work together for the benefit of Tobago, we spend time thinking about how we could keep this person out."

Titus' strong sentiments came after two of Tobago's cultural activists, Elvis Radgman and Jesse Taylor, also spoke openly about what they considered to be the declining standard of the festival. Both men called for a meeting of the island's stakeholders to get the festival back on track.

Titus told Newsday Tobago culture is a way of life and should not be decided on "in any office.

"Culture is not to be micro-managed by any individual or any individual committee. You cannot have ten cooks in the kitchen and everybody with their own ingredients and pot spoon. You are going to spoil the thing."

Titus claimed many of the villages that once took part in the heritage festival are no longer doing do.

"You have to ask yourself, "How did this happen? Where are they today?"

Titus said collaboration is the key to the success of the festival.

"Too many times I am discovering that efforts are being made to keep some people out of the decision-making process, which is totally wrong."

The Tobago Heritage Festival ended on Thursday with a stage show and street procession from the Pigeon Point Heritage Park.