Prakash Per­sad

The bac­cha­nal called Car­ni­val is back up­on us, once again. It is hailed as "our cul­ture" and the "great­est show on earth." Both claims need to be sub­ject­ed to some more ob­jec­tive and rig­or­ous scruti­ny. There is a mass ex­o­dus of Trinida­di­ans/To­bag­o­ni­ans out of the coun­try on the week­end of Car­ni­val and an even big­ger pop­u­la­tion shift to the beach­es on the days in ques­tion. If, as some sug­gest, there is a huge in­flux of for­eign­ers to join in the pa­rade of the bands and to at­tend the var­i­ous shows and fetes, then we need to quan­ti­fy what is the per­cent­age of the pop­u­la­tion that ac­tu­al­ly ac­tive­ly par­tic­i­pates in mas play­ing and make the sub­se­quent de­ter­mi­na­tion as to whose fes­ti­val it re­al­ly is. If it is our fes­ti­val then it must be dri­ven by the cul­tur­al forces at work lo­cal­ly. One gets the dis­tinct im­pres­sion that the tra­di­tion­al Car­ni­val cul­ture of wire bend­ing, cos­tume mak­ing and oth­er his­tor­i­cal art forms are no longer in vogue or prac­tice.

This would sug­gest that non-tra­di­tion­al forces, with­in and with­out, are the main de­ter­mi­nants. So the fol­low­ing ques­tion must be posed. Whose fes­ti­val is it and for whom is it aimed? The move­ment away from clothed and cos­tumed mas­quer­aders to "cov­er-as-lit­tle-as-you-can" pelvic vi­bra­tional gy­ra­tors is cause for na­tion­al con­cern and shame. Sure street danc­ing is good, some dis­play of skin might be ac­cept­able but what pass­es for "cul­ture and art form" would put se­ri­ous blush­es on hard­ened bar­bar­ians. The line must be drawn be­tween what is art and what con­sti­tutes out­right vul­gar­i­ty. The mo­tions that take place on the street, par­tic­u­lar­ly when the cam­eras are fo­cus­ing on the rev­ellers, might re­mind an en­to­mol­o­gist of the move­ments of "mad ants in heat." It would ap­pear that the sense of shame and de­cen­cy are alien at that point in time.

Hu­mans are wired for a sense of en­joy­ment but there are things of joy that are il­le­gal and the law must be en­forced even-hand­ed­ly. So even though hero­in or co­caine may bring joy to ad­dicts, their use is il­le­gal.

The con­sump­tion of al­co­hol and dri­ving is al­lowed once the amount con­sumed is with­in the le­gal lim­it; de­ter­mined by the breathal­yser test. There is al­so a test for danc­ing. It has been re­port­ed on sev­er­al oc­ca­sions in the me­dia that peo­ple have been ar­rest­ed for lewd and sug­ges­tive danc­ing in night clubs and hous­es of ill re­pute. Clear­ly there is a test that de­ter­mines the bound­aries be­tween what is ac­cept­able what is lewd and sug­ges­tive. One would pre­sume that sex­u­al­ly ex­plic­it move­ments would qual­i­fy as lewd and vul­gar. The mo­tions that oc­cur dur­ing the Car­ni­val sea­son in the pub­lic spaces are not just lewd, they are ex­plic­it­ly lewd and cre­ate the en­vi­ron­ment for sex­u­al per­mis­sive­ness and sex­u­al ex­ploita­tion; small won­der that the Caribbean and Latin Amer­i­can re­gions, in gen­er­al, and T&T, in par­tic­u­lar, are gain­ing at­ten­tion as sex tourism des­ti­na­tions.

The tight­en­ing of the laws and more rig­or­ous en­force­ment of same in the Asian coun­tries once known for sex tourism has seen a shift­ing ten­den­cy to­wards the Caribbean as the new hot spot. All of the gov­ern­ments of T&T, for the past few decades, have put tourism and trans­for­ma­tion of the econ­o­my on the front burn­er. None had or have sex tourism in mind. No one is sug­gest­ing that we in­sti­tute a cadre of "clothes po­lice" but sure­ly there must be enough cit­i­zens who think that enough is enough; that it is time to bring back some san­i­ty and de­cen­cy to these fes­tiv­i­ties. How­ev­er many they are, this is a call on their be­half to the law en­force­ment agen­cies to en­force the law with re­gard to not on­ly drink­ing and dri­ving but al­so on lewd and vul­gar danc­ing. To en­sure that the mes­sage is crys­tal clear, a procla­ma­tion must be made be­fore Car­ni­val Tues­day that those, ir­re­spec­tive of their so­cial po­si­tion or of­fice or cit­i­zen­ship, who sim­u­late the sex­u­al act, singly, as cou­ples or in groups, will be in breach of the law with the at­ten­dant con­se­quences. Sim­u­lat­ed sex­u­al ac­tions qual­i­fy as lewd and vul­gar danc­ing and the law should be en­forced. The trend from clothed and cos­tumed mas to scant­i­ly dressed gy­ra­tors is in ur­gent need of re­ver­sal.

Prakash Per­sad is the di­rec­tor of Swa­ha Inc