Carnival is bacchanal…I hate it!

Tue, Jun 5. 2012

Editor: The attempts to ‘clean up’ carnival will continue to be futile. Whether in Ancient Rome and Greece, Brazil, New Orleans, Trinidad and Tobago or St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Carnival celebrations everywhere have the main ingredients in common – drunkenness, looseness and misbehaviour.{{more}}

While many prefer to dress up carnival in the garb of ‘culture and self-expression’, we all know that bacchanal/carnival is a “time to get on wild”. The revellers will tell you, “it’s a time to get drunk and tumble down …free up and get on bad, bad”.

Carnival can be traced back to the ancient Roman bacchanal held in honour of Bacchus which is the Roman equivalent to the Greek Dionysis. The Free English (online) Dictionary describes bacchanal as “a wild gathering involving excessive drinking and promiscuity – an occasion of wild and drunken revelry”. Other sources and any honest observer will agree that this carnal festivity is mostly associated with drunkenness, carousing and senseless revelry. I am often disgusted by my women folk who indecently expose themselves all in the name of merriment and culture. Have you no value for your own bodies? Your bodies are the temples of the living God. Why use it to tempt and entice others?

It is sad to see that even children are a part of such lewd behaviour, encouraged by their parents and other adults. They can be heard singing the filthy songs and dancing to the sexually suggestive garbage called music. Why not help to fill the children’s mind with truths from the scriptures to preserve their morality and teach them how to relate lovingly and unselfishly one towards another?

Year after year, it’s the same thing around carnival time. Alcohol consumption increases…Road accidents result due to drunk and careless driving…Soca artiste lead out in behaving like animals (“party animals”, they call themselves) in a frenzy with hundreds of supporters sometimes trampling one another or destroying property…songs with sexual undertones…

I know that there are some who would tell me about the financial gains of carnival using similar arguments of economics as those used to support homosexuality. To them, I say “Better is a little with righteousness than great revenues without right.” Proverbs 16:8

As a Christian, carnival is not my culture…and I am 100% Vincy eh. He who defines my way of life instructs us to “Walk honestly, as in the day; not in rioting and drunkenness, not in chambering and wantonness, not in strife and envying. But put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make not provision for the flesh, to fulfil the lust thereof.” Romans 13:13, 14

Ann-Marie Ballantyne
svgpatriot@hotmail.com