The pow­er of the

spo­ken word

Crys­tal G Skeete’s piece “Life in ‘Bago” (pages 190 to 194) vi­brates at the epi­cen­tre of the art and process of Cul­tur­al Diplo­ma­cy. It has of­ten been said: If words can ig­nite con­flict and wars, then words can al­so end wars. Spo­ken word, oral tra­di­tion and lyri­cal ex­pres­sion live at the heart of Caribbean cul­tur­al re­silience, and in this con­text, they be­come es­sen­tial tools of soft pow­er.

As the cur­rent geopo­lit­i­cal cli­mate with­in our na­tion is in­creas­ing­ly en­veloped by the tox­i­c­i­ty of par­ty pol­i­tics, eth­ni­cal­ly and racial­ly charged rhetoric, and re­gion­al ten­sions, the so­ci­etal fab­ric has been strained. With­in the twin is­land state and even in our en­gage­ments with Cari­com part­ners and our Venezue­lan neigh­bours, dis­cord has in­ten­si­fied.

Yet, in the midst of this ris­ing ca­coph­o­ny, one cross-re­gion­al bea­con con­tin­ues to of­fer op­por­tu­ni­ties for in­reach and out­reach in diplo­ma­cy: the Christ­mas Sea­son and the en­dur­ing fes­tiv­i­ties of parang.

Parang: His­to­ry, her­itage and har­mo­ny

Ac­cord­ing to the Na­tion­al Archives of Trinidad and To­ba­go, Parang has a Span­ish his­to­ry span­ning sev­er­al cen­turies and is be­lieved to have been brought here as a mu­si­cal art form called Paran­da by Span­ish colo­nial­ists. Parang, de­rived from Paran­da, em­bod­ies Span­ish, French, Amerindi­an and African mu­si­cal prac­tices, evolv­ing over time in­to a dis­tinct­ly Trin­bag­on­ian genre. As a re­sult of these rich cul­tur­al in­flu­ences, many dif­fer­ent sub­forms of parang ex­ist to­day.

This di­verse fu­sion po­si­tions parang as not on­ly a fes­tive cel­e­bra­tion but al­so a pow­er­ful cul­tur­al bridge across lan­guages, his­to­ries and peo­ples.

Cul­tur­al diplo­ma­cy:

Soft pow­er in ac­tion

Cul­tur­al Diplo­ma­cy is a dy­nam­ic and ex­pan­sive peace-mak­ing mod­el root­ed in soft pow­er. The Unit­ed Na­tions and the In­sti­tute of Cul­tur­al Diplo­ma­cy de­fine it as the strate­gic ex­change of ideas, val­ues and cul­tur­al el­e­ments be­tween na­tions to fos­ter mu­tu­al un­der­stand­ing and build stronger re­la­tion­ships.

Parang em­bod­ies this ex­change in­trin­si­cal­ly. Its his­to­ry, per­for­mance tra­di­tion and com­mu­nal na­ture pro­vide an ide­al space for rekin­dling uni­ty and re-har­mon­is­ing our po­lit­i­cal­ly bruised na­tion­al psy­che. Thus, the Christ­mas Parang sea­son be­comes a poignant syn­er­gy of cul­ture and diplo­ma­cy, a re­minder of the past, a cel­e­bra­tion of the present and a bridge to­wards heal­ing.

Caribbean Christ­mas parang: A panacea

His­tor­i­cal re­search af­firms that parang was brought to Trinidad from Venezuela. This ge­o­graph­i­cal, ocean­ic and an­ces­tral Amerindi­an con­tin­u­um be­tween our First Peo­ples and Venezue­lan com­mu­ni­ties lends a holis­tic ra­tio­nale for el­e­vat­ing this De­cem­ber’s fes­tiv­i­ties in­to a trans re­gion­al Cul­tur­al Diplo­mat­ic event and cam­paign.

NPATT: A con­duit

for diplo­ma­cy

Ali­cia Jag­gasar, leader with­in the Na­tion­al Parang As­so­ci­a­tion of Trinidad and To­ba­go (NPATT), iden­ti­fies sev­er­al sub-gen­res of parang:

• So­ca parang, sung in Eng­lish

• Parang so­ca, sung in Span­ish

• Chut­ney so­ca, draw­ing from In­do Trinida­di­an mu­si­cal tra­di­tions

These sub gen­res, along­side the tra­di­tion­al Chris­t­ian lyri­cal forms, cre­ate eth­no­cul­tur­al in­clu­siv­i­ty across our di­verse de­mo­graph­ic land­scape.

As Caribbean and Latin Amer­i­can com­mu­ni­ties be­gin their fes­tive prepa­ra­tions, po­lit­i­cal rhetoric across the re­gion re­mains coarse even at the high­est lev­els of gov­ern­ment. This tone has fil­tered in­to dai­ly dis­course and so­cial me­dia, height­en­ing di­vi­sion.

But Parang of­fers a counter nar­ra­tive: one of warmth, cel­e­bra­tion and cross cul­tur­al con­nec­tion.

A pro­posed parang panoram­ic cul­tur­al diplo­ma­cy pro­gramme

1. NPATT to lead strate­gic con­sul­ta­tion and plan­ning.

2. In­te­grate a Cul­tur­al Diplo­ma­cy Ac­tion Plan in­to the Na­tion­al An­nu­al Parang fes­tiv­i­ties.

3. En­gage Span­ish-de­scend­ed com­mu­ni­ties, refugees and re­cent ar­rivals in Trinidad and To­ba­go.

4. Col­lab­o­rate with the Venezue­lan Em­bassy Cul­ture and Tourism Di­vi­sion for of­fi­cial com­mu­ni­ca­tion with Venezue­lan cul­tur­al or­gan­i­sa­tions.

5. Con­duct gov­ern­men­tal pro­to­col con­sul­ta­tions.

6. Host a ma­jor in­ter­na­tion­al press con­fer­ence to launch the ini­tia­tive.

7. Co­or­di­nate a par­al­lel, syn­chro­nised Parang fes­ti­val launch in both Trinidad and Venezuela, pro­mot­ing it as a Caribbean-wide cul­tur­al diplo­ma­cy cam­paign.

Parang, with its vi­brant colours, in­stru­men­tal­ists, singers, dancers and house-to-house cel­e­bra­tions, par­al­lels tra­di­tions such as the Mex­i­can Mari­achi. It em­bod­ies warmth, joy and com­mu­nal spir­it, mak­ing it the ide­al fes­tiv­i­ty for a soft pow­er cul­tur­al diplo­ma­cy cam­paign.

Parang as a heal­ing force

The ob­jec­tive is to cut through for­mal po­lit­i­cal rigid­i­ty and en­trenched ide­o­log­i­cal po­si­tions. Parang, as a soft pow­er mod­el, es­pe­cial­ly in part­ner­ship with a si­mul­ta­ne­ous fes­ti­val in Venezuela, be­comes a pi­o­neer­ing in­stru­ment for a na­tion ex­pe­ri­enc­ing in­ter­nal tur­bu­lence.

In the words of Crys­tal Skeete, “more wars can be won with words than with guns.” This mes­sage res­onates be­yond To­ba­go; it echoes across the Caribbean.

Yishe­bah Baht Gavriel,

Chil­dren’s Au­thor, Sto­ry­teller,

Book Re­view­er.

Mem­ber of the To­ba­go Writ­ers Guild

Brand Am­bas­sador, UK