The mas­quer­ade on the streets of­fi­cial­ly opens this morn­ing with the de­pic­tion of the Can­boulay re-en­act­ment at Pic­cadil­ly Street, Port-of-Spain, the re­put­ed clear­ing where the Africans, freed from the bur­den of en­slave­ment, ex­pressed them­selves about the in­iq­ui­tous treat­ment of their an­ces­tors.

As the day pro­ceeds to the af­ter­noon, the orig­i­nal char­ac­ters of the mas­quer­ade will adorn parts of the city. The mas is hinged around im­per­son­ation, vivid flights of imag­i­na­tion, while the fierce dev­il mas and the wild, black and red In­di­ans will be roam­ing the streets of the city seek­ing to bring ter­ror to those un­aware of their harm­less na­ture. So too will the bats, dame lor­raines and the book mans read­ing the fate of those still around be seen.

The T&T Guardian ex­tends a spe­cial wel­come home to those who have glee­ful­ly wrenched them­selves away from the cold, and our vis­i­tors, first time and or re­turn­ing, for this, the “Moth­er of all Car­ni­vals.”

The week­end be­fore the street pa­rade of Mon­day and Tues­day will in­ten­si­fy the Car­ni­val ex­cite­ment with the great steel­band and ca­lyp­so com­pe­ti­tions, the splen­dour of the kings and queens of the Car­ni­val and the cli­max of the so­ca fetes and shows.

From what has been seen and telegraphed by the bands prepar­ing for the street pa­rade with colour, imag­i­na­tion and the rev­el­ry, the ex­pec­ta­tion is for a won­der­ful time of re­lease for all.

In­creas­ing­ly, the Car­ni­val is pre­sent­ing op­por­tu­ni­ties for wide­spread eco­nom­ic ac­tiv­i­ty. For­eign ex­change is earned and many of our artistes in­volved in the Car­ni­val will “get ah lil some­thing,” ac­cord­ing to cel­e­brat­ed ca­lyp­so bard, Black Stal­in.

Un­for­tu­nate­ly, though, the Gov­ern­ment, the com­mit­tees which stage the Car­ni­val, and parts of the na­tion­al com­mer­cial and busi­ness com­mu­ni­ty have not yet been able to make full use of the eco­nom­ic pos­si­bil­i­ties pre­sent­ed by this ex­plo­sion of cul­tur­al ex­pres­sion.

All of those in­volved in this as­pect of Car­ni­val should make this year the start of a new era lead­ing to the fes­ti­val be­ing fash­ioned in a man­ner to re­tain its cul­tur­al qual­i­ty, but yet have, es­pe­cial­ly for pri­vate en­tre­pre­neurs and the artistes, op­por­tu­ni­ties to earn. The sad re­al­i­ty is that for many of the artistes, the Car­ni­val is the boom pe­ri­od and soon af­ter they re­turn to the long gua­va sea­son till the next Car­ni­val.

We have to dis­pense with the im­age of the “strug­gling artiste” liv­ing on the mar­gins, but yet cre­at­ing for our plea­sure and sat­is­fac­tion.

At an­oth­er ex­treme of the Car­ni­val are the crim­i­nals who seek to make an­oth­er kind of bac­cha­nal for those who just want to “free-up.” Over the last decade and more, the po­lice have adopt­ed very strate­gic and ef­fec­tive ap­proach­es to thwart those who live par­a­sitic and venge­ful lives.

Newl Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Er­la Hare­wood-Christo­pher faces her first ma­jor test to come good and give re­ward to the Par­lia­ment for her ap­point­ment and to the peo­ple des­per­ate­ly in need of pro­tec­tion from the crim­i­nal el­e­ments.

Com­mis­sion­er Hare­wood-Christo­pher will al­so be judged by her abil­i­ty to sys­tem­at­i­cal­ly dif­fuse the traf­fic jams which take the joy out of get­ting to the fes­ti­val cen­tres. You are on the big stage Com­mis­sion­er, time to din­go­lay.