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Ian On Sunday

A festival Caricom badly needed

Carifesta X was a splendid and significant success. There were dropped catches, fumbles in the field, times of anxiety, periods of doubt, batting failures, technical errors and fractious disappointment among loyal fans here and there but the Test Match was gloriously won and that is what matters for Guyana and the Caribbean. I personally did not believe it would have been possible in a year to organize the monumental number of events within the whole great event. No Carifesta, except the very first, has come close to matching Carifesta X. This was a tremendous national achievement in an important regional cause. Guyana’s confidence in itself and Guyana’s standing in the Caribbean are substantially enhanced. At times I felt disappointed at glitches, many more times I felt exhilarated attending inspiring, life-enhancing events. Pride and excitement were the overall sensations. We won this one in unexpected, convincing, magnificent fashion.

What was on show was astonishing in its abundance. It would have taken a few extended families, sharing events carefully between themselves, to have attended half the cornucopia organized. Time and time again, coming away excited by some performance or display I had experienced, I was told by friends of some other show or exhibition which they assured me I had made a big mistake to miss. But I couldn’t be at five different places at once. The entertainment value, in song and music, drama and dance, arts and crafts, readings and debates, film and folk lore, all on show for free, was a feast within a festival. The creative energy assembled in one place in one short period I cannot think has been surpassed in Caribbean history. To bring all this to fruition, with so few mistakes and miscalculations, was an astonishing feat.

For me there were outstanding events I attended every day. Night after night at the Umana Yana there were unforgettable readings by celebrated West Indian writers. Earl Lovelace, Karen King, Willi Chen, Pauline Melville, Nancy Morejon reading eloquently from their latest works I remember vividly. More than 30 books were launched which alone would have made Carifesta X an outstanding cultural event. Night after night the new Theatre Guild Playhouse, admired and praised by all, staged powerful Caribbean theatre not to mention ageless Ken Corsbie’s lovely story-telling and Keith Waithe performing with pure beauty on the flute with drums out of Africa and India. The displays of national art treasures at Castellani House and at the Convention Centre were nothing less than remarkable. And let me say it here – in Winslow Craig’s sculpture shown in its glory at the Convention Centre we had striking evidence of world-class genius.
The symposium at which Derek Walcott spoke and recited his poetry was for me especially memorable. Walcott’s exchange with President Jagdeo at this stimulating meeting was dramatic and productive. It led to a long and wide-ranging meeting over lunch between the President and the Poet along with other literary figures the next day which, I believe, will produce profoundly significant results. The encounter, far from being accusatory and confrontational, became a vigorous and important engagement between one of the Caribbean’s greatest writers determined to declare forthrightly what Caribbean art, theatre and literature needs and a Caribbean political leader listening and responding just as forthrightly and very positively. I think this encounter will turn out to be a Carifesta highlight.

Caricom very badly needed Carifesta X. In the Caribbean I find it a more difficult and threatening time than I can ever remember. Huge doubts about identity, purpose and direction suddenly seem to loom.

We are at a political crossroads. The whole Caricom project of West Indian integration is faltering. A splinter group now speaks of another circle of political union and claims this will not affect the larger project – but it will.
We are at an economic crossroads. The CSME has stalled. It seems to be more a slogan repeated at summit meetings and less and less a practical programme advanced between meetings.

We are at a trade crossroads. The recently initialed Economic Partnership Agreement with the EU is facing growing opposition and seems to be coming apart at its seams. We are in no man’s land at the WTO – a dangerous place to be for the small and vulnerable.
We are at a crossroads in our cricket, that “imaginative possession” above all which gives us a sense of ourselves united and successful. The path back from the depths is far from clear.

We are at a crossroads in how we treat each other in the region. The impulse to free up the movement of people between our countries is causing a backlash of suspicion, resentment, reaction and restriction.

In this extremely difficult phase of the Caribbean integration project we absolutely must secure and extend the cultural bedrock which those who have come before us have built – because who can ever doubt that a most valuable possession West Indians hold in common is a flourishing intellectual and cultural ground. We need never relinquish pride in local variety. But we must cultivate that larger sense of sharing continually in each other’s intellectual and cultural life, of forming a broad but distinctive community of writers, scholars, singers, musicians, architects, artists, sportsmen, creative people of all kinds who belong to one West Indian home, workshop, playing field, theatre, concert hall and art gallery.
In the current context of crisis and uncertainty about our Caribbean identity, the holding of a successful, vibrant Carifesta took on a tremendous importance. We needed and we got a strong demonstration in this Carifesta of the bedrock created by our community. We needed to assure ourselves that the arts and culture and creative accomplishments we own and enjoy together are far too valuable to be lost or dispersed into pockets because we are slowing down or temporarily losing our way. Carifesta X came at the right time for a dispirited and directionless Caricom.

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One Response to “Ian On Sunday”

john robert lee
on September 13th, 2008 5:14 pm

Ian McDonald quite rightly places Carifesta X - and the arts and culture of our Caribbean/Caricom - in the wider context of our social, economic and political life. While the arts are given lip-service everywhere, their fundamental importance to the substantial and meaningful development of our societies are routinely neglected. In spite of the problems (familiar to those who have attended other Carifestas), Guyana did well in its hosting of Carifesta X, and provided, once more, the opportunity to showcase our arts and culture. Just the chance to see art from other Caribbean nations, to meet other artists, to see face to face well-known names in literature, dance, drama, painting etc - was worth it, as it always is.
As other blog and newspaper comments coming out of Guyana (and no doubt the wider region) have suggested (no, implored), creative arts education must return to a prime place in all our Caribbean educational curricula; the CARICOM secretariat must take seriously the establishment of a working and viable Arts and Culture desk that is vibrant and really interested in the artistic development of the Caribbean. That desk should be primarily responsible for the professional organisation of Carifesta. And the recommendations of persons like Dr. Keith Nurse must be implemented if the standards of Carifesta are to be raised. They need to be raised from the overwhelmingly amateur (with the minority high professional on view), the repetitive, the fumbling - to the kind of Arts festival that will bring Caribbean International artists back home, and draw international artistes from all over the world to our shores. And in between Carifestas, many of us long to see more regular interchanges and exchanges of art and artists across our sea and continental borders.
Guyana itself has a rich resource of art and artists, writers, crafts workers. Not many of our islands have the national galleries, arts schools, and national collections possessed by Guyana. Guyanese artists ought to be encouraged.
I congratulate Ian McDonald on his forthright and in-context piece.

John Robert Lee
Saint Lucian writer.

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