In light of the caustic tone of my last column, I challenged myself to be a little more positive with today’s submission, so I decided to write about Carifesta, the week-long extravaganza of Caribbean culture that T&T recently hosted. Truthfully I didn’t even know it was going on until a friend of mine warned me to stay away from the Savannah in the evenings because of the traffic. And boy was there traffic!
The same friend declared, “There may be only one million people living in Trinidad, but there were about ten million people in the Savannah.”
Of course, it was an exaggeration, but it nonetheless alluded to the excitement it created and how well it was patronised by locals and visitors from the region. Its apparent success seemed like a worthwhile topic to heap some well-worded praise upon. But as things turned out, a prominent member of our society had a caustic opinion of their own.
President Paula-Mae Weekes wasn’t too pleased with the rendition of the National Anthem as performed by trained-singer Danielle Williams during the closing ceremony of Carifesta XIV. In an official statement, she extended congratulations to everyone involved, but also offered a scathing reprimand, calling it a “discordant note” and an “aberration”.
She said, “The National Anthem must be sung in its original music; no introduction or coda can be added or other artistic licence taken in its rendition.”
Considering the strong language, it makes you wonder if the President’s ire could result in Ms Williams being arrested and charged with sedition. Putting that weak attempt at humour aside, it is clear that Her Excellency places immense importance on the sacrosanct nature of our national icons. But could this just a matter of personal taste? And, if so, is this a matter worth the President’s attention?
Now there’s no law regarding the proper protocols for the National Anthem. According to a book titled The National Identity Guidelines of the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago—which can be found on the National Archives website—“The National Anthem should be accorded the respect due to it when played, and on no occasion should it be treated with scant courtesy. When the Anthem is being played all persons should pay respect to it by standing at attention.”
It also advises that civilian men should remove their headwear, and that uniformed personnel should salute. But nowhere does it stipulate that the anthem must be sung in any particular way. You don’t even have to stand up for it. In other words, despite the President’s insistence as laid out in the before-mentioned statement, these are preferred practices as opposed to absolutes. Am I splitting hairs? Most definitely. But that’s part of what freedom of speech and expression is all about.
It is highly unlikely that Ms Williams intended to offend anyone’s patriotic sensibilities. I think she probably just watched one too many American sporting events, taking inspiration from pop stars who tend to overdo the singing of the Star-Spangled Banner to varying degrees of success, I might add. That being said, I think what happened here is that Ms Williams seriously misjudged her audience. For as easy-going as Trinbagonians may be, they remain surprisingly rigid when it comes to certain things. And it seems the National Anthem is one of them.
I perused a couple of conversations on social media (not exactly a scientific poll) and found that people’s opinions on whether they liked it or not were equally split. I didn’t care much for it. The operatic opening needlessly dragged on, and the sound quality over the televised broadcast didn’t do justice to the singer’s talent. But I would hardly call the performance a travesty.
Disagreements aside, I am encouraged to see citizens engage in healthy discourse. At the same time, however, I believe this issue was only thrust into the national spotlight because the President commented on it. In much the same way that I was oblivious to Carifesta, I only watched a recording of the closing ceremony after reading Her Excellency’s statement to see what all the fuss was about and I suspect I’m not the only person who did so. That would make this just another example of typical Trinbagonian “bandwangonism”—to jump on a topic and offer a steadfast opinion because everyone else is doing the same. And if that be the case, the person responsible for all the brouhaha is President Weekes.
The irony here is that just as Her Excellency pointed out this one “discordant note” in the Carifesta celebration, her chastisement was the one “discordant note” in her statement. As her, otherwise congratulatory message was overshadowed by overly harsh criticism. There’s a certain dignity that a Head of State is supposed to embody, and President Weekes brought this high office low by using it to pick on someone who meant no ill will towards the country’s national icons.
How the anthem was sung isn’t a question of was it right or was it wrong. You may not have liked it, but that doesn’t make it wrong. Instead, what we have here is an example of poor taste, both in how Ms Williams sang the national anthem and how President Weekes responded to it.