Michelle Loubon

Car­ni­val should not be con­signed to fete­ing but seen as a se­ri­ous cul­tur­al prod­uct–a busi­ness.

Min­is­ter of Ter­tiary Ed­u­ca­tion and Skills Train­ing Fazal Karim made this com­ment while de­liv­er­ing re­marks at the launch of vet­er­an ca­lyp­son­ian/au­thor Dr Hol­lis Liv­er­pool's book Rit­u­als of Pow­er and Re­bel­lion The Car­ni­val Tra­di­tion in Trinidad and To­ba­go 1763 to 1962 at John S Don­ald­son, Uni­ver­si­ty of Trinidad and To­ba­go (UTT) Port-of-Spain cam­pus, Wright­son Road, Port-of-Spain, on Wednes­day.

Seiz­ing the op­por­tu­ni­ty, Karim paid ku­dos to both Liv­er­pool and UTT for their stew­ard­ship and con­tri­bu­tion to the busi­ness of Car­ni­val. He fur­ther chal­lenged UTT to seek out ad­vances for en­tre­pre­neur­ship which ex­ists in Car­ni­val–ef­fec­tive­ly al­low­ing the pub­lic to fo­cus on the beau­ty and busi­ness of Car­ni­val.

He al­so made ref­er­ence to Fi­nance Min­is­ter Lar­ry Howai's 2013 bud­get in which he had in­di­cat­ed the fifth de­vel­op­ment pil­lar would fo­cus on the cre­ative en­er­gies in­clud­ing film, dance and mu­sic.

Ze­ro­ing on Car­ni­val, Karim, an econ­o­mist, said, "As a peo­ple, we should not on­ly look at Car­ni­val as a way of fete­ing, but as a se­ri­ous cul­tur­al prod­uct to aid any loss­es from T&T's de­pen­dence on oil and gas. Our tourism prod­uct is heav­i­ly in­vest­ed in Car­ni­val and it is this re­liance on cul­ture and our cul­tur­al ex­pres­sion which brings peo­ple across the world to our shores dur­ing a pe­ri­od such as this."

He in­di­cat­ed Liv­er­pool's mag­num opus (great work) was an un­bro­ken thread which had be­gun with aca­d­e­mics like the late Dr JD El­der, Prof Er­rol Hill, Gor­don Rohlehr and Dr Jeff Hen­ry.

"They (his­to­ri­ans) in their wis­dom, saw the po­ten­tial of the Car­ni­val, not on­ly as a way to let off steam or for al­co­holism and de­bauch­ery to be prop­a­gat­ed, but for the de­vel­op­ment of the hu­man per­son­al­i­ty, en­tre­pre­neur­ship and T&T eco­nom­ic up­lift," said Karim.

UTT pro­mote Car­ni­val glob­al­ly

Turn­ing his at­ten­tion to UTT, Liv­er­pool added, "UTT has as its mis­sion the de­vel­op­ment of en­tre­pre­neurs. And Car­ni­val, with all of its eco­nom­ic in­vest­ments in mu­sic, sound, record­ings, cos­tum­ing, trans­port and tech­nol­o­gy, ful­fills that mis­sion state­ment."

He al­so not­ed UTT has a sa­cred mis­sion to dis­sem­i­nate knowl­edge of T&T his­toric de­vel­op­ment.

"It is a role which we must car­ry on. I am pleased that UTT's Acad­e­my of Arts, Cul­ture, Let­ters and Pub­lic Af­fairs is well-equipped and ea­ger to get this type of knowl­edge to the broad­er pub­lic."

UTT should al­so seek to spread its ten­ta­cles glob­al­ly dis­sem­i­nat­ing gen­res like ca­lyp­so, steel­band and Car­ni­val through the in­tro­duc­tion of pro­grammes that will bring over­seas stu­dents to T&T shores.

"It would pro­mote T&T as the land of Car­ni­val in a world where so many are stak­ing claims for the cul­tur­al prod­uct of T&T. Let us en­deav­our to do our part to keep this cul­tur­al fes­ti­val at the fore­front of our col­lec­tive con­scious­ness by un­der­tak­ing fo­cused re­search which will un­earth hid­den facts."

He felt Rit­u­als of Pow­er and Re­bel­lion should be the first sal­vo in the dri­ve to stamp T&T's feet on the Car­ni­val world. "Let us be cog­nisant of the busi­ness of Car­ni­val while recog­nis­ing its artistry, and fi­nal­ly the cul­ture that is Car­ni­val while recog­nis­ing its con­nec­tiv­i­ty of our peo­ple."

Shop­ping for the best ca­lyp­so­ni­ans to take to St Thomas

Among those present was chair­man of the US Vir­gin Is­lands Car­ni­val Com­mit­tee, Ken­neth Blake.

Apart from com­ple­ment­ing his friend Dr Liv­er­pool, whom he had known for years, he in­di­cat­ed he was in town to shop for the best ca­lyp­so­ni­ans for the tent back home.

Turn­ing to the busi­ness as­pect of his vis­it, he said, "Every year I vis­it for Car­ni­val. I love the splen­dour and the pageantry. But I roam the tents seek­ing about six or sev­en of the best ca­lyp­so­ni­ans to take back home to our tent."