Thru Novel Lenses! New Vision New Perspectives New Ideas New Directions For the New World! Futuring Sustainable Development in the Post Pandemic Planet From Pre School to Policy Making
Dear Lizzie
The value of #life, the value of #freedom -what dollar value could be put on that ... trillions? The skewing of our sense of value to dollars and cents based on the value on the labour market is itself demeaning and dimunitive as replicated in the calculations for #reparations. How damaged have become our sense of values and those who lead us to warped space when the real calculations shoe... more in #LettersToLizzie @krisramp @lolleaves
Peeps, I returned home from exploring the millennia old civilisations of the Incas of Peru and older ones of the Mayas of Belize to the sounds of a party. Blaring loudspeakers woke me up this morning and have been going non stop since between spurts of some newly concocted calypso - made me wonder if I had misjudged the time and it was Carnival Monday. They are announcing some political meeting or the other; and begging for my vote, and meh road still aint fix though I hear all parts getting box drains and thing, so I vex.
So peeps, you know I am a sceptic so help me decide. Who should get my vote?
Seeing that we have given up the traditional systems of governance where the people's needs were central to the commune - the traditional governance systems of the Incas that still influence agricultural practices in Peru; the communal systems of the Mayans, the panchayat system of India and village systems of Africa, and survival skils of Maroons of Mooretown and Rastafari in Jamaica for this West Minster thing that want to become the US Presidential thing - yeah - the same US system that right now holding the American public to ransom over some petty power play. Trying to open Caricom eyes to what reparations really mean, instead I opened my mailbox and there was a polling card - along with all kinds of documents of misdeeds here and there 'cause that's wat mail boxes are for, aint? I need to be convinced if I should vote, and who for, and why? So convince me nah, and keep the comments clean, okay, my vote's on you..Visit Demokrissy's New Home .Website: GloCakl Knowledge Pot
CARICOM should take advantage of the current renewal of its
memorandum of agreement with UNESCO to review and table collaborations and
cooperation that are relevant to the region, heritage educator and consultant
Dr Kris Rampersad urged yesterday (Friday).
Speaking at the close of a workshop she co-facilitated in Kingston,
Jamaica yesterday, Rampersad said the institutions, communities and NGOs in the
region should also take an interest in the negotiations on the MOU to ensure
that Caribbean priorities and interests are represented in ways that can bring
optimal benefits to our societies.
“In the workshop we addressed several contemporary obstacles
and challenges to advancing the process of leveraging the region’s vast cultural
heritage resources locally, regionally and internationally, and several
mechanisms which CARICOM can itself strengthen, including through using
international instruments as the UNESCO conventions and such cooperative
mechanisms as the MOU.
“It would be a major oversight if the region signs the draft
agreement which is an exact replica of one signed a decade ago between CARICOM
and UNESCO without taking into consideration changes in the situation and
environment over that period. Participants and institutions should now use this
knowledge to inform their government on how CARICOM may be directed to better
serve the region’s interests. It is not enough to just complain about how
institutions like CARICOM’s ineffectiveness but to find ways of instructing and
informing it on how it can better serve the interests of the countries it
represents.”
Caption: Heritage facilitator Kris Rampersad and participant in the workshop on Intangible Cultural Heritage Bunny Wailer shows his certificate in Kingston Jamaica
2nd National Workshop on Intangible Cultural Heritage
A second national workshop on community based inventorying of Intangible Cultural Heritage (ICH) is in progress, having been organised by the African Caribbean Institute of Jamaica / Jamaica Memory Bank in collaboration with the Jamaica National Commission for UNESCO and the UNESCO Cluster Office for the Caribbean.
The workshop runs from September 4th to 13th at the Hotel Four Seasons in Kingston. The opening ceremony was held on September 4th at 9 a.m.
(L-R) Mr. Robert Parau, Mr. Joseph Pereira, Ms. Anne Marie Bonner and Hon. Lisa Hanna
Funded by the Government of Japan, the workshop is part of a sub-regional project being implemented in Belize, Jamaica, and Trinidad & Tobago within the context of UNESCO’s Global Strategy on capacity building on safeguarding intangible cultural heritage.
“This is the 10th anniversary of the Convention and I want to commend the African Caribbean Institute of Jamaica / Jamaica Memory Bank and UNESCO for spearheading this strategy workshop in Jamaica,” commented Mr. Robert Parau, Officer in Charge at the UNESCO Kingston Cluster Office for the Caribbean.
Mr. Robert Parau, Officer in Charge of the UNESCO Cluster Office for the Caribbean gave his address at the opening ceremony
In his address, Counsellor/Deputy Chief of Mission at the Japan Embassy, Mr. Koji Tomita expressed that ICH plays a central role in the Japanese culture and a workshop of this nature is necessary to strengthen Jamaica’s heritage in light of rapid social change and economic stress. He further stated that the workshop will lay the groundwork for future generations and lays the framework to protect our traditions and creativity.
Mr. Tomita also gave his address at the opening ceremony
The workshop is being facilitated by two international experts, Dr. Harriet Deacon and Dr. Kris Rampersad. Focus will be placed on a) community involvement in identifying and inventorying in accordance with/as advocated by the UNESCO’s Intangible Heritage Convention; b) information gathering with communities; c) organising, accessing and updating information in inventories and d) a hands on experience in preparing field work.
Whereas we can learn a thing or two from the structures and systems the developed world has evolved for arts infrastructure, education, support and patronage, when it comes to culture, and indeed multiculturalism, few, if any, can hold a candle to us. Our confidence in this fact that usually only surfaces through chest-thumping pierrot grenades or robber-type talk have not found full expression because of justifiable dissatisfaction with the state of the arts, and the unholy alignment of arts and culture in our governance system.
Just as growth and development of our arts and recognition of their universality have been overshadowed in the jostle for ethnic and cultural space, our appreciation and confidence in the diversity and multiculturalism we have evolved since we joined the indigenous peoples in this land have been curtailed from full independent flight.
The former Minister of Arts and Multiculturalism, during our sitting at the international heritage meeting in Bali last December, asked my opinion on the place of legislation in culture, reflecting the doubts all his predecessors have shown on this subject—similar to the question posed from the global floor to the now erstwhile T&T UN ambassador, oblivious to the new international awakening and probing on this subject.
This unease that has plagued culture ministries of yore stem from nervousness about legislation and policy pronouncements on our culture. In general definition, culture is “our way of life” that includes, but is not contained in, just the arts of music, dance, performance, painting etc to include elements as cuisine, fashion, walk, talk, religious practices—any number of traits that identify a people who have evolved in a particular environment. I have presented extensively abroad (Sans Humanite Sans Policy in relation to the Carnival Creative Arts (Turkey); Trini Lime Time: Attitudes to Cultural Policy in Rebel Cultures (France) among them—on the rebel nature of our cultural heritage and beliefs held, even by some judges, that the law has no place in culture.
The roots and raison d’etre of our cultural evolution—defying explorers, buccaneers, slave masters, police, schoolmasters, privateers, any authority figure—as the also erstwhile Commissioner Dwayne Gibbs would have oh too painfully, shockingly, recently discovered—inhibits surrender to any (even just perceived) impositions of structure, rules/codes.
The inability of our governance to date to grasp this; its significance; the need to fully appreciate and understand it, is couched in the last regime’s “situational analysis” on culture on the Vision 2020 Committee Report: • Attitudes of selfishness, lawlessness, greed, dishonesty, indifference to others. • Violent manifestations in the home, community, workplace, language of leadership, music. • Tendency to describe ourselves through notorious deeds. • Negative “languaging” of our space.
The visionaries therein seemed oblivious to their own negative imaging of what is essentially our sense of freedom and the inherent liberating effect this has had on our culture that is quintessential to who and what we are. Furthermore, the drive to urbanise our cultures and make them “economically viable” (duh?), through instruments like the European Union-Cariforum Economic Partnership Agreement, for instance, loses its sense of direction about the nature of culture in a society in mad-hatter pursuit of the almighty dollar.
Herein is the national, regional, international contexts for a Ministry of Diversity and Social Inclusion which itself incorporates the multiculturalism mandate—hence my recommendation that this word be dropped and a Ministry of the Arts exist in its own right, just as a Ministry of Multiculturalism/Diversity and Social Inclusion can exist in its own right; as other appendages to the once Ministry of Arts and Culture—Sports, Women/Gender, Community/Social Affairs et al—have evolved identities and mandates of their own towards a more people-centred approach to governance.
In a culture-centred approach to development, there is more than enough for such an infrastructure with a diversity mandate to: harness our substantial experiences of multiculturalism for the benefit of a world reeling from escalating impacts of new migrations; build confidence in this experience and knowledge to benefit us and the international community; reverse the hurts and dissatisfaction of having our cultural selves forcefitted into the corsets of alien governance models and administrations. It seems opportune, then, that in this the jubilee year of self-rule, we begin to redress this so every creed and race can find an equal place in a substantive and pragmatic way.
The only woman among 15 regional leaders, Persad-Bissessar on Sunday celebrated her ties with the host country of the 31st Caricom Heads of Government Meeting, saying Jamaica, where she lived for 14 years, influenced her career in politics. She also found love in this country, but did not say who had won her heart.
“Jamaica was once my home for some 14 years. I studied here, fell in love here, taught here and attended my first political meeting right here in Jamaica. So in a sense one can say that Jamaica helped prepare me in becoming Prime Minister of Trinidad and Tobago. I guess if my political opponents knew this would occur they would have done everything in their power to ensure I stayed right here,” Persad-Bissessar said in her debut address to Caricom leaders at the Half Moon Hotel at Montego Bay.
She observed she had a personal connection to another Caricom country, Barbados where her son Kris was born.
“May I add that I also spent a few years in Barbados as well, in fact, my son is Barbadian born. And I believe such experiences help to sharpen an understanding of that unique Caribbean identity and perspective,” Persad-Bissessar said, who is married to Dr Gregory Bissessar.
She learnt many life lessons from her years in Jamaica and Barbados which contributed to her ascendancy as a leader in Trinidad and Tobago.
“During those early periods of my life I never dreamt I would be one day addressing such an esteemed group of Caribbean leaders at all, much less as Prime Minister of my nation.
But I guess one can never underestimate the education of a Caribbean experience, especially that of a woman who encounters it,” she said.
Although she leads a new government in Trinidad and Tobago, Persad-Bissessar assured this country remains committed to supporting its Caricom neighbours, pausing to extend her sympathy to President of Haiti Rene Preval over the devastating earthquake which killed thousands in the impoverished nation on January 12.
“The fortitude, dignity and resilience demonstrated by the people of our sister isle state of Haiti in the wake of this terrible event have won profound respect,” she said, renewing a pledge to continue to provide aid to Haiti.
Persad-Bissessar said Caricom remains a symbol “for an improved quality of life for all in the region”, and made an appeal for leaders to “reduce poverty throughout the community so that all our people can enjoy a higher standard of living”.
She held up several early initiatives of her government as examples, such as the $100 million Life Fund, proposing a similar Caricom Life Fund to help provide better care for sick children. President of Guyana Bharrat Jagdeo welcomed this proposal yesterday saying his country is now pursuing similar initiatives. Jagdeo also said greater effort must be made to protect women who are single heads of households in the region.
Jagdeo himself came in for praise from Persad-Bissessar, who commended him for receiving the Champion of the Earth award from the United Nations for Guyana’s low carbon emission programme.
As Guyana has done, Trinidad and Tobago too is adopting measures to protect the environment, such as the Clean Up and Beautify initiative which the Government launched on June 27, Persad-Bissessar told the leaders.
Stating it was the “largest collaborative effort between government and the private sector ever introduced”, Persad-Bissessar also disclosed plans to introduce tough anti-littering legislation, and again held such programmes up as examples that could be implemented across the Caribbean.
“I long for the day when I can learn of a pan-Caribbean approach within a specific initiative in dealing with environmental issues,” she said, further stating that the resources of the Petroleum Fund should be allocated to promote sustainable development of the region, as well as education. It can also be used to support a Caricom Life Fund, she suggested.
Noting her role as lead Caricom Prime Minister with responsibility for matters relating to Crime and Security, Persad-Bissessar again called for cooperation among states to “strengthen the peace and security of the region”.
“In the Caribbean, guaranteeing public safety cannot be confined to military and police action. The dimensions of criminal activity are increasingly associated with human trafficking, repatriation of deportees, money laundering, the trade of illicit drugs and firearms and other forms of organised crime and terrorism.
“Trinidad and Tobago remains committed to bolstering the security of the region as it is one of the cornerstones which must be strengthened to ensure that the foundation for the collective prosperity of our region remains solid,” she said.
Commending Persad-Bissessar, Prime Minister of Jamaica Bruce Golding said Caricom is fortunate to have her as one of its leaders as the regional body faces a defining moment in its history.
“I want to congratulate her on her historic achievement. My colleague Heads and I look forward to the wisdom which she will bring to our deliberations. Trinidad and Tobago has always played a significant role in Caricom and we have every confidence that it will continue to do so under her leadership.”
Golding thanked Persad-Bissessar for accepting his invitation to remain in Jamaica after the Caricom meeting ends tomorrow for a two-day working visit. “We have so many things to discuss,” he stated. Persad-Bissessar is expected to discuss the Caribbean Airlines-Air Jamaica arrangement when she meets Golding.
