Gail Alexan­der

Se­nior Po­lit­i­cal Re­porter

In­de­pen­dent Sen­a­tor An­tho­ny Vieira is call­ing for a na­tion­al col­lo­qui­um on the fu­ture of Car­ni­val, ar­gu­ing that key is­sues such as venue lim­i­ta­tions, con­ges­tion, ac­ces­si­bil­i­ty and the role of the Na­tion­al Car­ni­val Com­mis­sion (NCC) re­quire ur­gent, co­or­di­nat­ed dis­cus­sion.

Vieira yes­ter­day pi­lot­ed a pri­vate mo­tion in the Sen­ate urg­ing Gov­ern­ment to take steps to­ward the sus­tain­able de­vel­op­ment of Car­ni­val as both a cul­tur­al and eco­nom­ic en­ter­prise, in­clud­ing con­ven­ing a na­tion­al fo­rum on the fu­ture of Car­ni­val and re­lat­ed events in T&T.

He not­ed that his mo­tion was filed be­fore the Min­istry of Cul­ture and Com­mu­ni­ty De­vel­op­ment’s re­cent pub­lic con­sul­ta­tions on the busi­ness of Car­ni­val, adding, “My mo­tion does not seek to de­ny or di­min­ish the Min­istry’s wel­comed ini­tia­tive. In­deed, I am very much look­ing for­ward to hear­ing from the Gov­ern­ment about the out­come of those con­sul­ta­tions and its plans for the fu­ture of Car­ni­val.”

Vieira al­so chal­lenged the no­tion that Car­ni­val—and the so-called “Car­ni­val men­tal­i­ty”—is in­her­ent­ly neg­a­tive. Be­yond its eco­nom­ic val­ue, he em­pha­sised its his­tor­i­cal sig­nif­i­cance and so­cial func­tion.

“Car­ni­val is part of the glue that holds our so­ci­ety to­geth­er. The abil­i­ty to ‘let off steam’ pre­vents the ac­cu­mu­la­tion of frus­tra­tion and so­cial pres­sure. When so­ci­eties lack safe and cul­tur­al­ly ac­cept­ed av­enues for en­joy­ment and emo­tion­al re­lease, ten­sion can man­i­fest in far more de­struc­tive ways. Car­ni­val serves as a crit­i­cal pres­sure valve for our so­ci­ety.”

Vieira point­ed out that T&T has played a lead­ing role in ad­vanc­ing in­tel­lec­tu­al prop­er­ty pro­tec­tions for “works of mas,” with sup­port from the World In­tel­lec­tu­al Prop­er­ty Or­ga­ni­za­tion dur­ing the tenure of the cur­rent Prime Min­is­ter as At­tor­ney Gen­er­al.

“Yet, para­dox­i­cal­ly, while the world has pro­fes­sion­alised, glob­alised and mon­e­tised Car­ni­val, we our­selves have not ful­ly or­gan­ised it as a na­tion­al de­vel­op­ment strat­e­gy. That is the cen­tral con­cern of this mo­tion,” he said.

He called for a “se­ri­ous, in­clu­sive na­tion­al di­a­logue in­volv­ing artistes and aca­d­e­mics, pro­mot­ers and pol­i­cy­mak­ers, youth and el­ders, tra­di­tion­al prac­ti­tion­ers and in­no­va­tors,” stress­ing that the aim is not an­oth­er com­mit­tee, but a struc­tured process lead­ing to a long-term na­tion­al Car­ni­val de­vel­op­ment strat­e­gy.

Among the is­sues he iden­ti­fied is the need to treat Car­ni­val as part of the cre­ative, or “or­ange,” econ­o­my rather than a sea­son­al event.

“From the first Car­ni­val launch to Ash Wednes­day, we mo­bilise ex­tra­or­di­nary cre­ativ­i­ty, then dis­man­tle it. We re­build an­nu­al­ly what could op­er­ate sus­tain­ably year-round,” he said, not­ing that the sec­tor rep­re­sents one of T&T’s strongest glob­al com­pet­i­tive ad­van­tages.

Vieira al­so high­light­ed mount­ing lo­gis­ti­cal chal­lenges, in­clud­ing venue lim­i­ta­tions, traf­fic con­ges­tion, en­vi­ron­men­tal im­pact, waste man­age­ment and pub­lic safe­ty.

“Re­cent ex­pe­ri­ences of se­vere traf­fic con­ges­tion sur­round­ing the ‘Stink and Dut­ty’ event re­mind us that suc­cess with­out plan­ning can un­der­mine the very prod­uct we pro­mote. A world-class fes­ti­val re­quires world-class co­or­di­na­tion,” he said.

He sug­gest­ed mea­sures such as util­is­ing mul­ti-storey car parks in Port-of-Spain, ex­pand­ing pub­lic trans­port op­tions, in­clud­ing PTSC shut­tle ser­vices and wa­ter taxis, and im­ple­ment­ing pre­mi­um park­ing at ma­jor event venues like Ch­aguara­mas. He al­so not­ed that the cap­i­tal’s nar­row streets are in­creas­ing­ly un­able to ac­com­mo­date large bands and truck con­voys.

Turn­ing to the NCC, Vieira—who dis­closed pre­vi­ous in­volve­ment with the com­mis­sion and work as le­gal coun­sel for the Na­tion­al Car­ni­val Bands As­so­ci­a­tion—said there is on­go­ing un­cer­tain­ty about its role and ef­fec­tive­ness.

“I have seen both the good and the bad of the NCC. I am not seek­ing to take sides on whether the or­gan­i­sa­tion should be scrapped or re­tained, but the NCC Act it­self is vague and am­bigu­ous—a recipe for con­fu­sion,” he said.

He added that the NCC is not a reg­u­la­tor but a fa­cil­i­ta­tor, legal­ly re­quired to co­op­er­ate with stake­hold­ers, the Gov­ern­ment and law en­force­ment in co­or­di­nat­ing Car­ni­val ac­tiv­i­ties.

Vieira al­so raised con­cerns about ac­ces­si­bil­i­ty, not­ing that ris­ing costs risk ex­clud­ing or­di­nary cit­i­zens from par­tic­i­pat­ing in what has tra­di­tion­al­ly been a peo­ple’s fes­ti­val.

“When cit­i­zens feel priced out of their own cul­tur­al in­her­i­tance, we must pause and re­flect ... should a na­tion­al cul­tur­al in­sti­tu­tion de­pend sole­ly on mar­ket forces, or should pub­lic pol­i­cy en­sure in­clu­sion, com­mu­ni­ty par­tic­i­pa­tion and cul­tur­al con­ti­nu­ity?” he asked.

He added that a na­tion­al col­lo­qui­um could al­so ex­am­ine the de­clin­ing vis­i­bil­i­ty of tra­di­tion­al mas, which con­tin­ues to strug­gle for promi­nence along­side the dom­i­nant beads-and-biki­ni mod­el.