Now that Car­ni­val is over, dare we sug­gest a crit­i­cal eval­u­a­tion which is a dis­pas­sion­ate, ra­tio­nal analy­sis of an event that is all pas­sion and gay aban­don, if not "ir­ra­tional­i­ty?" Every year the Car­ni­val in ques­tion is dubbed the "great­est" ever, but to what ex­tent is it? This for­mat does not al­low for the de­tail that would do jus­tice, but first and fore­most and some­thing which is of­ten tak­en for grant­ed, is the fact that we as a peo­ple make mer­ry when so many in the world are en­gulfed in pover­ty, vi­o­lence and death and that is a plus.

In terms of mu­si­cal orig­i­nal­i­ty, cre­ativ­i­ty and the sheer plea­sure of sound and rhythm, pan has no ri­val, while the cos­tumes of the kings and queens are al­most "trag­ic" in their beau­ti­ful "im­per­ma­nence." Al­so, the lo­gis­tics of putting a band on stage are a mar­vel of artis­tic ge­nius and man­age­ment ca­pa­bil­i­ty, and the hu­mour of Car­ni­val is as ther­a­peu­tic as it is ri­otous and in­fec­tious. But in there is some ug­li­ness. The snarling, fren­zied bat­tle over prize mon­ey, ev­i­denced in the pelt­ing in­ci­dent and the ex­cess­es of cos­tume and lyrics in the chut­ney event, to­geth­er with the name-call­ing and squab­bling in the So­ca Monarch fi­nals re­duce us some­what and de­tract from true artis­tic ex­pres­sion.

The wide­spread dis­en­chant­ment over the judges' de­ci­sions in ca­lyp­so, es­pe­cial­ly in the Ca­lyp­so Monarch semis and So­ca Monarch fi­nals tells us a sto­ry of the con­tin­u­ing in­abil­i­ty to free our­selves from our po­lit­i­cal prej­u­dices and par­ti­san­ship and demon­strate true ob­jec­tiv­i­ty in as­sess­ing mer­it. As to lewd be­hav­iour in Car­ni­val, ask­ing peo­ple to wine dis­creet­ly is as con­tra­dic­to­ry as re­quest­ing of the mem­bers of the Catholic band to drink and dance dis­creet­ly, if at all. But the repli­ca­tion in this Tri­ni "art form" of the frontal ver­sion of the sex act and its sug­ges­tive­ly bes­tial coun­ter­part in bend­ing over, both in full view of the cam­eras, and the lat­ter es­pe­cial­ly so, for an in­creas­ing­ly dis­crim­i­nat­ing TV au­di­ence, leaves room for many ques­tions.

As to crime, the bla­tant op­por­tunis­tic crim­i­nal be­hav­iour in the se­mi-dark­ness of Ari­api­ta Av­enue, in which mas­quer­aders were sys­tem­at­i­cal­ly robbed and abused as re­port­ed, is a new "low" when com­pared with the oc­ca­sion­al pick­pock­et­ing and less­er in­ci­dents as­so­ci­at­ed with Car­ni­val as we know it, and a symp­tom of the can­cer now in­vad­ing this so­ci­ety. Space does not al­low me more, but in try­ing to bal­ance both sides of the coin, Car­ni­val seems to be worth it in many ways, but in its neg­a­tive as­pect, es­pe­cial­ly in our in­dul­gences, it would be in­struc­tive to con­sid­er the tenet that "the true test of free­dom is the abil­i­ty to know where to draw the line."

Dr Er­rol Ben­jamin

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