Dr Kris Ram­per­sad

(Part II)

Where­as we can learn a thing or two from the struc­tures and sys­tems the de­vel­oped world has evolved for arts in­fra­struc­ture, ed­u­ca­tion, sup­port and pa­tron­age, when it comes to cul­ture, and in­deed mul­ti­cul­tur­al­ism, few, if any, can hold a can­dle to us. Our con­fi­dence in this fact that usu­al­ly on­ly sur­faces through chest-thump­ing pier­rot grenades or rob­ber-type talk have not found full ex­pres­sion be­cause of jus­ti­fi­able dis­sat­is­fac­tion with the state of the arts, and the un­holy align­ment of arts and cul­ture in our gov­er­nance sys­tem.

Just as growth and de­vel­op­ment of our arts and recog­ni­tion of their uni­ver­sal­i­ty have been over­shad­owed in the jos­tle for eth­nic and cul­tur­al space, our ap­pre­ci­a­tion and con­fi­dence in the di­ver­si­ty and mul­ti­cul­tur­al­ism we have evolved since we joined the in­dige­nous peo­ples in this land have been cur­tailed from full in­de­pen­dent flight.

The for­mer Min­is­ter of Arts and Mul­ti­cul­tur­al­ism, dur­ing our sit­ting at the in­ter­na­tion­al her­itage meet­ing in Bali last De­cem­ber, asked my opin­ion on the place of leg­is­la­tion in cul­ture, re­flect­ing the doubts all his pre­de­ces­sors have shown on this sub­ject-sim­i­lar to the ques­tion posed from the glob­al floor to the now erst­while T&T UN am­bas­sador, obliv­i­ous to the new in­ter­na­tion­al awak­en­ing and prob­ing on this sub­ject.

This un­ease that has plagued cul­ture min­istries of yore stem from ner­vous­ness about leg­is­la­tion and pol­i­cy pro­nounce­ments on our cul­ture. In gen­er­al de­f­i­n­i­tion, cul­ture is "our way of life" that in­cludes, but is not con­tained in, just the arts of mu­sic, dance, per­for­mance, paint­ing etc to in­clude el­e­ments as cui­sine, fash­ion, walk, talk, re­li­gious prac­tices-any num­ber of traits that iden­ti­fy a peo­ple who have evolved in a par­tic­u­lar en­vi­ron­ment. I have pre­sent­ed ex­ten­sive­ly abroad (Sans Hu­man­ite Sans Pol­i­cy in re­la­tion to the Car­ni­val Cre­ative Arts (Turkey); Tri­ni Lime Time: At­ti­tudes to Cul­tur­al Pol­i­cy in Rebel Cul­tures (France) among them-on the rebel na­ture of our cul­tur­al her­itage and be­liefs held, even by some judges, that the law has no place in cul­ture.

The roots and rai­son d'etre of our cul­tur­al evo­lu­tion-de­fy­ing ex­plor­ers, buc­ca­neers, slave mas­ters, po­lice, school­mas­ters, pri­va­teers, any au­thor­i­ty fig­ure-as the al­so erst­while Com­mis­sion­er Dwayne Gibbs would have oh too painful­ly, shock­ing­ly, re­cent­ly dis­cov­ered-in­hibits sur­ren­der to any (even just per­ceived) im­po­si­tions of struc­ture, rules/codes.

The in­abil­i­ty of our gov­er­nance to date to grasp this; its sig­nif­i­cance; the need to ful­ly ap­pre­ci­ate and un­der­stand it, is couched in the last regime's "sit­u­a­tion­al analy­sis" on cul­ture on the Vi­sion 2020 Com­mit­tee Re­port:

• At­ti­tudes of self­ish­ness, law­less­ness, greed, dis­hon­esty, in­dif­fer­ence to oth­ers.

• Vi­o­lent man­i­fes­ta­tions in the home, com­mu­ni­ty, work­place, lan­guage of lead­er­ship, mu­sic.

• Ten­den­cy to de­scribe our­selves through no­to­ri­ous deeds.

• Neg­a­tive "lan­guag­ing" of our space.

The vi­sion­ar­ies there­in seemed obliv­i­ous to their own neg­a­tive imag­ing of what is es­sen­tial­ly our sense of free­dom and the in­her­ent lib­er­at­ing ef­fect this has had on our cul­ture that is quin­tes­sen­tial to who and what we are. Fur­ther­more, the dri­ve to ur­banise our cul­tures and make them "eco­nom­i­cal­ly vi­able" (duh?), through in­stru­ments like the Eu­ro­pean Union-Car­i­fo­rum Eco­nom­ic Part­ner­ship Agree­ment, for in­stance, los­es its sense of di­rec­tion about the na­ture of cul­ture in a so­ci­ety in mad-hat­ter pur­suit of the almighty dol­lar.

Here­in is the na­tion­al, re­gion­al, in­ter­na­tion­al con­texts for a Min­istry of Di­ver­si­ty and So­cial In­clu­sion which it­self in­cor­po­rates the mul­ti­cul­tur­al­ism man­date-hence my rec­om­men­da­tion that this word be dropped and a Min­istry of the Arts ex­ist in its own right, just as a Min­istry of Mul­ti­cul­tur­al­ism/Di­ver­si­ty and So­cial In­clu­sion can ex­ist in its own right; as oth­er ap­pendages to the once Min­istry of Arts and Cul­ture-Sports, Women/Gen­der, Com­mu­ni­ty/So­cial Af­fairs et al-have evolved iden­ti­ties and man­dates of their own to­wards a more peo­ple-cen­tred ap­proach to gov­er­nance.

In a cul­ture-cen­tred ap­proach to de­vel­op­ment, there is more than enough for such an in­fra­struc­ture with a di­ver­si­ty man­date to: har­ness our sub­stan­tial ex­pe­ri­ences of mul­ti­cul­tur­al­ism for the ben­e­fit of a world reel­ing from es­ca­lat­ing im­pacts of new mi­gra­tions; build con­fi­dence in this ex­pe­ri­ence and knowl­edge to ben­e­fit us and the in­ter­na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty; re­verse the hurts and dis­sat­is­fac­tion of hav­ing our cul­tur­al selves forc­e­fit­ted in­to the corsets of alien gov­er­nance mod­els and ad­min­is­tra­tions. It seems op­por­tune, then, that in this the ju­bilee year of self-rule, we be­gin to re­dress this so every creed and race can find an equal place in a sub­stan­tive and prag­mat­ic way.

• Dr Kris Ram­per­sad is an au­thor and in­ter­na­tion­al cul­tur­al de­vel­op­ment con­sul­tant. Adapt­ed from her blog Demokris­sy HY­PER­LINK "http://www.kris-ram­per­sad.blogspot"