An artist never likes to supply a literal explanation for a poetic utterance. The poetry is more evocative of what is essential. But when the artist is dangerously misconstrued, there is, alas, no choice. I visited Wayne Kublalsingh in the midst of his hunger strike.
It seemed to me that his action was one of high moral principle and great courage, a stand not so much against a segment of a highway, certainly not against the Government, but a stand for principles of accountability, good governance and the truth. Whether or not one agreed on the particulars, one had to respect the principled nature and the courage of the stand.
The press asked me for a comment. I thought a moment, then sang the refrain of the ancient calypso:
Rum, rum, sweet rum, when I call yuh, yuh bound to come.
Yes, rum, glorious rum, when I call yuh, yuh bound to come.
Yuh was made from Caroni cane,
And they bring yuh to Port-of-Spain.
I going to send meh scorpion to bite yuh centipede,
Santimanitay.
Our creole "santimanitay" derives from the French, sans humanité-without humanity. I take that to be an invocation of the tragedy of man's inhumanity to man, a tragedy with which our chantwell ancestors would have been all too familiar in this land of sugar and slavery and indentureship. To say that I will send my scorpion to bite your centipede is to say, no matter how bad you think you is, I is badder. Whatever terrible pain you think you can inflict upon me, I will do worse to you. And I will have no mercy. Santimanitay!
The tragedy of santimanitay is alive today in our politics. When politicians mock and revile a principled man who has taken a principled stand, in gutter language most foul, that is santimanitay. This is why I sang the refrain. It is not about the rum. It is about the inhumanity. To invoke the rum is to invoke the spirit that occasioned the brutalities of slavery and indenture, the spirit that linked Caroni to Port-of-Spain in such inhumane transactions.
In last Sunday's Guardian, in a column devoted to innuendo about an alleged drinking problem of the Prime Minister, Maxie Cuffie quoted me singing the santimanitay refrain as though I were throwing accusations about such alleged problem. I was not. Not at all. I was making a statement about the tragedy of santimanitay in our public life. I have no knowledge of the private habits of the Prime Minister. And I have too much empathy and understanding of the frailties of the human condition to think of passing judgment on such matters.
It would be good for our society, I think, if our politicians, and our columnists, could learn to exercise more understanding, more empathy, and more restraint, so that the tragedy of santimanitay comes to be a matter only of our past history, and not of our present.
Peter Minshall