Joshua Seemu­n­gal

and Geisha Alon­zo

The Down­town Own­ers and Mer­chants As­so­ci­a­tion (DO­MA) has list­ed ways the or­gan­i­sa­tion be­lieves that a Car­ni­val can still be held in Trinidad and To­ba­go this year.

Among the con­cerns of the Port-of-Spain busi­ness or­gan­i­sa­tion, is that the lack of some sort of Car­ni­val can have psy­cho­log­i­cal ef­fects on na­tion­als.

How­ev­er, Min­is­ter of Tourism, Cul­ture and the Arts Ran­dall Mitchell is main­tain­ing that Car­ni­val this year re­mains can­celled.

DO­MA laid out its po­si­tion in a me­dia state­ment yes­ter­day, re­mind­ing the gov­ern­ment that Car­ni­val is part of the ‘eco­nom­ic DNA of T&T’ and is usu­al­ly what kick­starts the econ­o­my each year.

“We how­ev­er al­so wish to pos­ture that, in our re­spect­ful opin­ion, Car­ni­val is al­so part of our cul­tur­al and psy­cho­log­i­cal DNA for huge cross-sec­tions of our cit­i­zens es­pe­cial­ly our young peo­ple. It rep­re­sents our cre­ativ­i­ty, ex­u­ber­ance and fun-lov­ing na­ture that has made us the pop­u­lar Car­ni­val des­ti­na­tion that we are. It’s ab­sence could have a very de­press­ing ef­fect on us psy­cho­log­i­cal­ly,” DO­MA said.

In that re­gard, DO­MA out­lined five ways in which, what it called a COVID Car­ni­val can be held.

The mea­sured in­clud­ed:

(1) A unique lim­it­ed edi­tion 3ft di­am­e­ter cos­tume that by de­f­i­n­i­tion would keep two mas­quer­aders at least 6ft apart.

(2) A mov­ing pa­rade of re­duced num­bers, which care­ful­ly su­per­vised, would main­tain so­cial dis­tanc­ing and be­cause of re­duced num­bers would be al­lowed to move freely through the streets.

(3) A mov­ing Panora­ma com­pe­ti­tion, judged on the move by judges who are al­so mov­ing on plat­forms and in­clud­ing a re­arrange­ment of pan so that the sound ef­fect is not di­min­ished by the re­quest­ed so­cial dis­tanc­ing.

(4) An open-air ca­lyp­so tent rem­i­nis­cent of the very ge­nius­es of ca­lyp­so who sang un­der a tent with all ap­plic­a­ble seat­ing arrange­ments and dis­tanc­ing em­ployed with all safe­ty pro­to­cols ap­plied.

(5) The cre­ation of a unique Car­ni­val Covid Mask (per­haps a Car­ni­val Mask Com­pe­ti­tion with health cri­te­ria in­clud­ed in the con­di­tions) which not on­ly pro­tects the spec­ta­tors and the mas­quer­aders but be­comes a sym­bol of the de­sign ge­nius among our cit­i­zens which is of­ten paid lip ser­vice but hard­ly giv­en its right­ful recog­ni­tion by those who hold the reigns.

DO­MA said that to dis­card Car­ni­val 2021 with­out any ef­forts to find an imag­i­na­tive al­ter­na­tive, “is to say that we have al­so dis­card­ed our cre­ative think­ing that we so of­ten pride our­selves on.”

It added: “We, of our own vo­li­tion, seem to be giv­ing back the cul­tur­al ‘tro­phy’ that the world gave us and stand­ing on the side­lines with­out any ef­fort at in­no­va­tion. We seem to be ful­fill­ing the doc­trine of un­der­de­vel­op­ment of ‘why take risks when we can do noth­ing and have noth­ing to do’.”

It added that com­par­isons with oth­er ma­jor car­ni­vals that have been can­celled will on­ly prove a “spe­cial T&T brand of in­tel­lec­tu­al im­po­tence.”

“The mere fact that oth­ers have can­celled their Car­ni­val ac­tu­al­ly leaves the prover­bial stage of life va­cant for us here in T&T to host some type of unique evo­lu­tion­ary fes­ti­val. Scaled-down sub­stan­tial­ly of course but an ex­hi­bi­tion nev­er­the­less of our great tal­ent and cul­tur­al rich­ness,” DO­MA not­ed.

DO­MA ar­gued that the Car­ni­val vac­u­um cre­at­ed in­ter­na­tion­al­ly by COVID-19 rep­re­sents a nov­el op­por­tu­ni­ty for this coun­try to prove its Car­ni­val worth and cre­ative ge­nius to the world.

Re­spond­ing to DO­MA’s pro­pos­al, Min­is­ter Mitchell re­it­er­at­ed that, “Car­ni­val 2021 was can­celled as an­nounced by the Prime Min­is­ter. This de­ci­sion was based on the best health da­ta and ad­vice in or­der to pro­tect the lives of our cit­i­zens and to re­duce the spread of COVID-19.”

Pan Trin­ba­go’s Pres­i­dent Bev­er­ly Ram­sey-Moore saw mer­it in a pos­si­ble mov­ing-pan com­pe­ti­tion but said it cer­tain­ly will not be Panora­ma.

“Not a Panora­ma. We don’t want to take away from Panora­ma. You don’t want to do some­thing that takes away from what Panora­ma is re­al­ly all about - the vibes, the pre­sen­ta­tion and mu­si­cal arrange­ment,” Ram­sey-Moore said.

Say­ing Panora­ma typ­i­cal­ly be­gins in De­cem­ber, Pan Trin­ba­go’s pres­i­dent said the com­pe­ti­tion is all about com­mu­ni­ty, mean­ing it in­volves high lev­els of in­ter­ac­tion be­tween peo­ple.

“It’s com­mu­ni­ty soul,” she added.

Giv­en the con­tin­ued threat of the pan­dem­ic, she added, Pan Trin­ba­go is not pre­pared to take any chances.

“Be­cause it en­cour­ages large crowds and be­cause peo­ple come from all over Trinidad and To­ba­go, then we have to be ex­treme­ly care­ful. Our first pri­or­i­ty is the lives of our play­ers and peo­ple com­ing to the pa­n­yard,” she said in clos­ing.

At­tempts to con­tact the chair­man of the Na­tion­al Car­ni­val Com­mis­sion Win­ston ‘Gyp­sy’ Pe­ters by tele­phone for his views were un­suc­cess­ful.