The aftermath of the recent Tobago Carnival has revealed a simmering controversy over the autonomy of the Tobago House of Assembly (THA) to host the event. The Chairman of the National Carnival Commission (NCC), Winston ‘Gypsy’ Peters, stated in a recent interview that the NCC is the body responsible for Carnival for the “whole country”. Needless to say, this position provoked a response from the THA over the question of jurisdiction and responsibility for the event.
Amidst all the revelry, it cannot be lost on the population that what is going on here is a response to the offer of autonomy to Tobago and a counter-response from the current NCC that they ought to have greater responsibility for the event by virtue of their “national” status.
While the two Tobago autonomy bills sit idly in the Parliament at Committee Stage in the House of Representatives after being stalled from the time of the last THA elections in December 2021, the autonomy genie is out of the bottle and is masquerading without the fear of powder from Port-of-Spain.
The THA has been hosting celebratory events for decades, the most notable being the annual Tobago Heritage Festival which was started in 1986 and has been designed to preserve and highlight the cultural traditions of Tobago. There has never been any Trinidad input in managing this annual event that is usually held in July.
The choice of date for the holding of the Tobago Carnival (the last weekend in October) separates it from the annual T&T Carnival in either February or March depending on when Ash Wednesday falls.
The important factor to observe here is that the February/March Carnival is not indigenous to Tobago. It was brought to Trinidad by the French planter class who came to the island from Martinique and Guadeloupe as a consequence of the Cedula of 1783, while their slaves and descendants subsequently developed the Canboulay. The Trinidad Carnival was brought to Tobago as a consequence of the union of the two British colonies in 1899. There has been a natural and organic development of Carnival in Trinidad alone for more than one hundred years before any adaptation of the festival would take place in Tobago.
Retired UWI historian Dr Rita Pemberton advises that there was a difficult induction of Carnival into Tobago society with the established churches on the island frowning on the practices of stick fighting, calypso and tamboo bamboo which were condemned as “evil practices”.
Tobago Carnival is an event that is designed to be unique to Tobago and offers an opportunity for Tobago to showcase itself as distinctive. The island’s history and culture are fundamentally different from Trinidad.
The NCC needs to put itself in a secondary role and try to assist the growth and development of a product that will not belong to them and will not be controlled by them. This is what happens when political games are played with concepts like “autonomy” and people are led to believe that they will get the autonomy that is being offered, and then it gets stalled for political reasons.
Tobagonians have moved on psychologically from the mindset of being dominated by PoS, and they are ready to receive a genuine offer of autonomy from the Central Government regardless of who is in power in Scarborough and PoS.
However, the current political directorate in PoS will be reluctant to hand over autonomy to a political party other than the PNM in Tobago. All that will cause is a further rise of Tobago nationalism to resist any and all forms of domination and control from PoS.
Tobago Carnival is more than just a festival, it is an identity issue for which the Central Government and its agents are unwelcome intruders if they try to take control and assert that they are the responsible authority for the whole country.
In Schedule 1 of the proposed Tobago Island Government Bill that deals with the List of Matters for which the Tobago Executive Council shall have Exclusive Administrative Jurisdiction in Tobago, the following is very clearly stated: “5. Culture and the Arts.”
From all reports, the Carnival in Tobago this year was a resounding success with the Tobago Chamber of Commerce giving it a thumbs-up for being economically successful from a business standpoint. For how much longer will Tobago autonomy be delayed?
Prof Hamid Ghany is Professor of Constitutional Affairs and Parliamentary Studies at The University of the West Indies (UWI). He was also appointed an Honorary Professor of The UWI upon his retirement in October 2021. He continues his research and publications and also does some teaching at The UWI.