World Steelpan Day and common sense

THE EDITOR: Once again the sheer disdain for what is truly ours rears its shameful head with the complete non-observance of World Steelpan Day. The low self-esteem now replete among us is left to deepen and reinforce itself, particularly manifested in alienated, under-educated, uncultured and discourteous youth (and others).

One administration after another has failed to do the obvious and imperative thing in order to address this glaring problem. Instead, they opt for tokenism in addressing matters of history and culture, allowing these institutions to wane and die.

Observe the sheer tokenism of statues of Sparrow and Kitchener, with the main NAPA auditorium being named for the latter while other calypso champions are ignored – especially Trinidad’s very first calypsonian, Gros Jean. Memories and music of significant contributors like Roaring Lion and Atilla the Hun are left to languish in the archives.

No need of course to educate our youth about the history of the art form but simply to engage in token gestures, pandering to a few vocal narcissists. The public consciousness is now devoid of any notion of the “lavway,” the “leggo” and re-minor. There has even been a myth concocted about the origin of soca, now referred to as a “Caribbean” thing.

A well-conceived calypso hall of fame would be a good initial step in addressing this situation – unimaginable in the past.

Thus, an environment is perpetuated in which any and every narcissist can flood the media with his or her own version of revisionist history rooted in irrelevant notions imported largely from North America. The superficial radicalism they have unleashed on us currently manifests itself in the refusal of almost half the population to be socially responsible and get vaccinated, as we would all have done quite comfortably in the past.

The evil is compounded by those who feed our delusion by telling us the fact that the World Steelpan Music Festival is held outside of TT is not inimical to our own interests. This even as Dr Rowley’s call for a reinstatement of Pan is Beautiful as yet goes unheeded – all an insult to our intelligence and continuing the destruction of our institutions.

This pathological breakdown is often facilitated by groups and individuals who are either too bitter or too insufficiently educated to understand the difference between culture and entertainment.

Hence tourism and culture now fall under the same ministry and the once-productive Division of Culture is now a shadow of its former self.

Please recall also that the baby was thrown out with the bath water when the Discovery Day jump-up, which was about pan, was dumped along with Discovery Day (and Columbus?). A word to the wise is sufficient.

When will we realise that the emigrants who foster these misunderstandings have chosen to become North Americans and, accordingly, are now engaging in the worst form of capitalism? Lacking any profundity of thought, they steal what they simply imagine to be a mere commodity then rebrand and sell it for their own profit. This they have been doing with Carnival, soca, J’Ouvert, etc, apparently undeterred, even as we foolishly applaud and encourage their efforts when there is clearly no benefit for us. They and others have been ripping us off and laughing at our naivete, a manifestation of our low self-esteem.

When, despite the success of our nationals in sport, Miss Universe, Miss World, etc, it is quite publicly stated “we have to put up tall buildings so people will come here” – even as the tourists walk past them and eagerly take snapshots of our historic buildings – something is wrong. When before the pandemic we were routinely closing a portion of the Diego Martin Highway for sport while we were partying in the Hasely Crawford Stadium, depriving nearby residents of their sleep, exposing their properties to damage and precluding all civil conversation at restaurants in the vicinity – something is wrong.

I can only recall the priest’s words as we prepared to leave school, “Gentlemen, one thing you will learn about common sense is that its not so common after all.”

STEVE ESCALIER

via e-mail