Michelle Loubon

Reign­ing ca­lyp­so monarch Dr Hol­lis Liv­er­pool, al­so known as Chalk­dust, says the world should have ad­dressed the Hait­ian ques­tion many years ago. Liv­er­pool, a Pro­fes­sor of Ca­lyp­so Arts at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Trinidad and To­ba­go (UTT) said Haiti's long-term prob­lems had to be ad­dressed to pre­vent the first black re­pub­lic from laps­ing in­to a sec­ond spell of pover­ty and de­pri­va­tion. In a tele­phone in­ter­view, Liv­er­pool said: "The Hait­ian ques­tion is one that the world should have done some­thing about years ago. The world should not have wait­ed for an earth­quake. The great pow­ers of the world cre­at­ed that sit­u­a­tion in a sense." Among the fac­tors re­spon­si­ble for Haiti's so­cio-eco­nom­ic demise were: The block­ade im­posed af­ter the Rev­o­lu­tion in 1804; the de­struc­tion of Hait­ian agri­cul­ture; and hav­ing to re­sort to bor­row­ing monies from the Unit­ed States to pay its in­dem­ni­ty. "The Haitians had to bor­row monies from the Unit­ed States to pay its in­dem­ni­ty to France," he said.

France de­mand­ed 90 mil­lion gold francs – the equiv­a­lent of US$20 bil­lion – be paid to them by the vic­to­ri­ous Haitians. "So with all the pay­ments made and the de­struc­tion of agri­cul­ture and the fact they couldn't mar­ket the goods they had, they fell in­to the hands of pover­ty. They built in­fe­ri­or goods," he said. "To­day, Haiti still man­u­fac­tures rum from sug­ar cane," he said. De­scrib­ing the de­struc­tion of the Hait­ian cap­i­tal Port-au-Prince as "a painful sit­u­a­tion" Liv­er­pool said the world need­ed to as­sist them prop­er­ly. "They should not reach out to them on­ly on a short term ba­sis, but on the long-term," he added. He said long-term plan­ning would pre­vent mi­gra­tion and em­i­gra­tion to the Unit­ed States and neigh­bour­ing Caribbean ter­ri­to­ries. "You have to as­sist them to build their com­mu­ni­ties so they could have a bet­ter stan­dard of liv­ing," he added. Liv­er­pool said he and his col­league Dr Kim John­son were plan­ning to host some Hait­ian artistes. "Af­ter things have set­tled, we are plan­ning to see how best we can help them by bring­ing some artistes," he said.

Car­ni­val plans

Quizzed on whether he will be de­fend­ing his ti­tle in 2010, Dr Liv­er­pool said he hadn't made up his mind. "I am busy at work and so I don't have the time to com­pose as I would like. But if my songs go down well and I see I have a chance not to be dis­graced, I will take part," he said. Mean­while, he has been re­ceiv­ing en­cores at The Re­vue tent with his 2010 se­lec­tions – In Praise of Kitch­en­er and Dr Look Lai. The lat­ter ad­dress­es his pet sub­ject – the Ude­cott is­sue and the im­ple­men­ta­tion of the Prop­er­ty Tax. Promi­nent politi­cians like Fi­nance Min­is­ter Karen Tesheira, and Trade Min­is­ter Mar­i­ano Browne, and their shenani­gans are men­tioned in the com­men­tary. Dr Liv­er­pool won the ti­tle in 2009 with My Heart and I (a satire on the per­ceived deal­ings be­tween Prime Min­is­ter Patrick Man­ning and Ude­cott Chair­man Calder Hart). He is no stranger to the Di­manche Gras com­pe­ti­tion hav­ing sung in the "Big Yard" no few­er than 28 times in his il­lus­tri­ous ca­reer.