Carnival Two

In the article “Carnival One”, I give support to the thesis that first time carnival in the Caribbean was a regional feast – a CARIFESTA with a difference! Carnivals commemorated not slavery, but the liberating salvation from slavery. Carnival did not get its meaning or meaningless from the bacchanal festivities of Europe, but from the daily black experience of continued oppression.{{more}} Carnival One was a plea and praise giving to the GOD who liberates. Just like other people who praise GOD for ending oppression – whether pharaonic oppression in Kmet/Egypt (Exodus 15) or British Royal oppression in the American colonies, Caribbean blacks documented and renewed their liberation struggles in the feast we call carnival. (See CARNIVAL ONE in Searchlight). CARICOM and UNESCO should really collaborate on a regional project to examine the salvation history and culture that colonial ideology continues to deny – to reveal that God has a Caribbean garden also.

What about Carnival Two, the two weeks or more parade of Kaiso, women, mas, pan, fete and commerce? How much is Vincy mas a worthy offspring of Carnival One? Can we see in the creativity, sexuality, organization and social capital of all the Vincy Mas in the region, the meaning of our path to liberation? Is Carnival Two, a servant of our people’s struggle? Will you kindly help me to explore this question? Can we look at Carnival Two from the angles, from the back and from the front, the purposes(s) and the products(s)?

From the back

Watching carnival from the back should expose its foundation – not its forms, but the forces that shaped it, drives it and empower it. Behind Carnival Two, I see two difference forces, and a third coming up in the rear. To the question, who organizes carnival, what answers do we get? When we look at what we call the components/ products, i.e. Kaiso, Mas, Pan, Soca -fete, “Queen”…… don’t we have two, perhaps three groups collaborating with and sometimes confronting each other? In my language/idiom, carnival organizers are: “the PEOPLE” in kaiso and mas; “the STATE” in the CDC, Lotto, “Queen Parades” and thirdly “the BUSINESS houses” which do not have any “Carnival products” which they own, but they sponsor and collaborate with the people’s products, the state aspects, and they push their commodities. When we watch this coalition that organizes Carnival Two, we are really looking for the purpose each has in mind, the power and control they exercise, and the final meaning that comes out of it. For example, when 150 calypsonians get down, produce their work, do they have the same intention, a similar audience or an outcome that the CDC/ tourism ministry has? Which one of these two groups “the people” and “the state” has an approach to liberation that fits more closely with the motives of Carnival One- a struggle against oppression?

Watching from the back, imagine and examine the road this festival is taking and who is designing the road map. The driving purpose and the social group that gave birth to Carnival One are not so driving anymore when we look from the back. As the call to “wind up your waist” and wave a flag reach a crescendo, the element of salvation culture, the liberating factor slides down below the navel, the purpose becomes diverted from the people’s compulsion to an elite comfort zone.

From the front

From the front, we have another point of viewing carnival. This is the “show side” of carnival. The side that we look to see the “bigger and better” each year, But even as we watch or take part more actively in the presentation of carnival products, we need to look for meaning; we should trace in the forms that we see on stage, an evolution and transition that gives us pleasure, hope or leaves us unmoved or worse.

What meaning do the carnival products today bring – not to our eyes and ears, but – to our imagination and hopes? To examine and critique Carnival Two from the front, I invite those who are more upfront, than I am, to lead us from where I have left off. Of course, I hope what I have written so far, merits unapologetic and trenchant critique as well. Round table looks forward to your contribution.