Newly-appointed chairman of the National Carnival Commission Patrick Arnold is warning that efforts must be made to properly establish TT Carnival as a viable industry. The former President of Pan Trinbago is also planning to present Government with a document which was prepared in 1998 for the total development of the steelband movement and Trinidad and Tobago's Carnival. He said if these moves are not made at this time both cultural forms could be in trouble with other countries already having steel orchestras and playing Carnival.
Q: Mr Arnold, it is good to see you back in public life after some five years off the scene. But tell me something, do you still have your PNM party card?
A: (Coughs before laughing out loud at his Cipriani Boulevard, Port-of-Spain, office of the NCC early Thursday morning) You start already? I What? I never had one.
Q: When you were in Parliament as a Senator weren't you appointed by the then PNM administration?
Yes, I was there but never had a PNM party card. They thought I could have assisted the party in Tobago and while I accepted the appointment I subsequently got disenchanted with them for reasons I don't want to go into at this time. I am now a firm supporter of the Tobago Organisation of the People. So if you didn't mind Clevon, let's move on to some real issues that I feel you have come to discuss, especially at this early hour of the day. (Rocking and laughs out again).
Q: You sure you don't want to give us some juicy details of your former connection with the PNM?
(Smiles) If you want to know...even though I was in the Senate I had nothing to do and they did not live up to some of the promises they made to me. Anyway, that is in the past and as I said, let's deal with the real issues of today.
Q: Very well, Sir. What have you been doing the last few years when you were private citizen Patrick Arnold, after leaving Pan Trinbago?
You know my job is a pan tuner and I have my steelband, so I was out there making money and I never expected to be chairman of the NCC today.
Q: You know it is said that when someone gets this kind of position they have to be a party in power boy or girl?
Well, as I said, I support the TOP and quite recently my telephone rang and the person on the line asked if I would like to be chairman of the NCC and I said, "Give me time to think about it and...."
Q: Who was that person?
(A coy smile) Somebody called and I am not going to say who...eventually I said ok, and I had no problem accepting it because as you know my whole life has been in culture, especially the steelband.
Q: OK. Carnival they say is bacchanal, but it doesn't seem that there is enough of this in 2012?
(Chuckles) Bacchanal? Well there won't be much of that when I am around. One of the things that I turned down which I thought would have caused some bacchanal was a request to hold the Calypso Monarch, King and Queen of Carnival outside of Dimanche Gras. Even if they were to be taken out of that big Carnival Sunday night event it was too late to have done it. People would have had to be sensitised long before dropping it on them at this late stage. There would have been no Dimanche Gras, as we know it.
Q: That unfortunate incident at the Panorama semi-finals, what's your take on that?
When I came in as chairman of the NCC I wanted to know what was happening at the Greens and was told that Pan Trinbago was using the area for something which I did not understand really, because I thought the focus would have been on the Panorama competition and I couldn't see them putting on another event at the same time.
Q: Mr Arnold, Trinidad and Tobago's Carnival is touted as the greatest show on earth yet it does not enjoy the popularity of let's say the Brazilian version, why?
(Stroking his chin) Well, we need to look at it, and as I told the board of the NCC we have to do so after this Carnival. We have to go into a retreat or something like that. This board runs all year so that we could start planning and marketing our shows very early. And we have to understand there are Carnivals all over the world, and what that could mean for ours if appropriate action is not taken to enhance it.
Q: Which we have to compete against?
Yeah. Since I am here I have received calls from Phoenix, Arizona, in the United States, wanting me to come there to launch