Media mishaps, the mafia, the message as fodder & fuel of food wars, fundamentalism and the sound and fury of Caribbean cuisine all ABoudaing Bad Brets of a Tropical Arab Spring Storm backfiring PR bier bottles and musical spoons.
In an age of selfies, it is a selfie gone wrong.
I couldn’t
settle on a title so I included above all that came to mind, to give readers the
luxury of choice.
My first
bite at knowledge of the apple of Lebanon was through its literature, in the
musings of Lebanese poet/philosopher and it is said, prophet, Kahlil Gibran. A
knowledge-starved preteen, I was introduced to Gibran while poaching through my
sister’s nicely stashed away romance collectibles. The long nights reading
under the covers while everyone else was asleep, gripped by the poignancy and
potency of the poet’s outpourings and the philosophical depths of his passion
and pain recounted through everyday experiences, evoked A Tear and A Smile, or
two, as one of his books is titled. Feasting on my sister’s private hoard, I soared
with The
Prophet and moaned with The Broken Wings. They inspired me
to save my pennies to buy a second-hand copy of A Tear and A Smile
(dam'ah wa-ibtisamah, 1914) for on my father’s unpredictable seasonal market
gardener’s earnings, books were unaffordable, generally, and we had no TV. In district Trinidad
with the nearest public library some ten kilometres away in the nearest town with no public
transportation options, the books we knew were textbooks, usually hand-me-down
older editions, unless one got a spanking brand new one as a choice Christmas
or birthday gift or present from a benevolent ‘uncle’ – not necessarily a
relative but an elder - for doing extremely well in exams – an incentive if
ever there was one! My silent absorption into the philosophical musings of
Gibran must have come as welcome relief to my family and those close who were then
being assailed by my strategically precociously hurled quotes from Shakespeare’s Puck,
‘Lord, what fools these mortals be!’ having discovered and devoured a dog-eared
copy of A Midsummer’s Night Dream from one of my sibling’s high school
years, still years away from high-school myself when Shakespeare, as other
reading matter I love, would be presented to me as a subject of English
Literature and ‘text’.
With few
opportunities then of stepping out of the house compounds, much less the district and no television, curled up at the back of the house on a branch of a mango tree that time
forgot, books were my window to the world, a portal through which one peered
into the hearts and minds and souls of others and to become immersed in other worlds,
and resurfaced with options of the possibilities and potential of being and
becoming incomparable beyond and above what was presented by the immediate
reality.
Books, as
music, and drama and art, would open my mind and my heart to other peoples,
places and lifestyles and cultures. I entered their imagination as I would,
someday, enter their borders, to discover, explore, engage, and to love and to
breathe the air and savour the scents and the sounds that moved me as it moved
them. It can’t be by mistake that they fall into the body of disciplines called
the Humanities. They opened up humanism long before I would consciously engage
with The Humanities, academically, and humanitarianism, socially, and fed the
impulse in literary endeavours since - to free knowledge from the cages of
classrooms and textbooks to landscapes and life experiences and the local to
global connections through various endeavours and explored through LiTTscapes – Landscapes of Fiction and itsassociated LiTTours – Journeys Through the Landscapes of Fiction and LiTTributes.
I visited
many lands through books before I would visit many lands, even lands I have not yet visited,
as Lebanon which is still on my bucketlist to explore Gibran's Lebanon and the gardens named in his honour in Beirut.
With Gibran,
I
was in Beirut. The gardens were full of Nisan flowers and the earth was
carpeted with green grass, and like a secret of earth revealed to Heaven. The
orange trees and apple trees, looking like houris or brides sent by nature to
inspire poets and excite the imagination, were wearing white garments of
perfumed blossoms.
Spring
is beautiful everywhere, but it is most beautiful in Lebanon…. Beirut, free
from the mud of winter and the dust of summer, is like a bride in the spring,
or like a mermaid sitting by the side of a brook drying her smooth skin in the
rays of the sun…
– Kahlil Gibran from The Hand of Destiny in The Broken Wings/Al-Ajniha al-Mutakassira, 1912
This is the Beirut, or the first association I make, when I hear of
Beirut, just as Waterloo for me would be Samuel Selvon’s descriptions in The Lonely Londoners (1956) of early
West Indians, flocking into London at the boat-train station, rather than the
Waterloo of Napoleon – that too would come later, with formal education, trying
to erase what knowledge natural learning had implanted.
So when I heard the term ‘like Beirut’ in that widely circulated video,
I was already aware of alternative interpretations of the expression, to the
images of Beirut that had gained worldwide currency to become the simile of the
1980s. That’s when, ‘Like Beirut’ became the common expression to describe a
city under siege, a city in chaos, besieged by lawlessness, a city in decay and
despair; a place that has lost control over itself – and this was long after
Gibran had passed on. ‘Like Beirut’, in this context took root, from the
Lebanon Civil War that lasted close to two decades from 1975, beamed from the
new phenomenon of life televised images directly from Beirut into living rooms everywhere
in the era when television sets became household fixtures, streaming stories of
western hostages, like the humanitarian Terry Waite whom I would later encounter, first as a high school student as he is accompanying the Pope on a visit to our school and later, as his Guardian in Uganda at a Commonwealth meeting where he shared memories of the days he spent in prisons in this
dark place, Beirut (featured in my youtube video on this page, Keep Hope Alive).
In the same way television sets and their now microcosmic mutation as
cellphones and wrist cell phone watches attached themselves as indispensable to
our lifestyles, the simile, ‘like Beirut’ has become the term for an imaginative spectacle
of chaos, lawlessness, a place under siege, and consumed with internal strife
whose people are in depths of despair. It does not help that a syllable in the
two-syllable name, is ‘rut’.
Although
Lebanon and its capital city, Beirut, might be climbing out of the rut that
besieged it, more than two decades later, the potency of the image remains in
the simile 'like Beirut', a metaphor resounding with indelible impressions of
the city.
It becomes
almost inconceivable that the expression can be re-associated with a sense of
pride as one looks down at any city. One would assume that any citizen of the
modern age would know that, and would know, too, that the potency of media
extends far beyond what we can possibly conceive it to be, even beyond our
fondly held ancestral memories and pride. It is an assumption one takes for granted,
as it takes an insider – bred and fed on independent and critical thought, and
how many really are? - to really know what ingredients are in a cuisine and its
cultural underpinnings; a culture and its violent underpinnings; and of course,
a media and its representations: How it will be best received? What flavours
will beguile? What aromas will entice?
Cut, spiced,
spliced and sliced artlessly, ancestral pride can become a recipe for fostering
racism and to inspire social chaos – not unlike the images of a media finding
its power through television of the seventies and eighties; and the hints of
the pivotal role media has played, even in instigating some wars.
Media and
message, and even the casual off cuff statement, packaged by a producer in one
context can be received by a consumer in other contexts that are the antithesis
to what may have ever been intended, if one wants to give those producing and promoting
the show the benefit of the doubt.
But that in
itself would be lost to those in a society fed and bred on foreign consumer
products and consumption habits, including in its consumption of (foreign)
media over local, growing obese now with ostentatious consumption of cable and
internet.
So it was
with a tear and a sigh that I watched the eager anticipation and impatience
displayed in awaiting airing of what to minds conditioned by tourist brochures,
must be a glorification of how we does cook. Without cultivated pride in self,
including home generated local productions, they could hardly be expected to
have an objective understanding, much less anticipation, of the resonances and
repercussions that would come. Unanticipated, even by the colonized public
relations spin doctors and stunts men and women still in awe of the new selfie
obsession and toasting the strategically placed beer bottles as the public
relations coup of the century – the same ones who would lament the deficiencies
of local media while simultaneously bemoaning the BBC’s decision to close its
Caribbean programming when it was no longer profitable to what would become
Brexit ideals.
Until it
backfired.
The shots still echoing – and reechoing with shares and likes and comments ad nauseam; the Yankee cowboy having rode off into the sunset without a backward glance – just like in the movies - the tribes rush at each others’ jugglers, hurling insults and accusations, shaking fists and threats.
The shots still echoing – and reechoing with shares and likes and comments ad nauseam; the Yankee cowboy having rode off into the sunset without a backward glance – just like in the movies - the tribes rush at each others’ jugglers, hurling insults and accusations, shaking fists and threats.
Puck’s
impish hurls surfaced as it had in my salad days, but I resisted that urge, and
the urge to shout above the din ‘It’s about the ratings, Stupid!’ No one was
listening anyway, nor were they listening to themselves or each other, too busy
casting the blame and the self-shame on someone other than themselves.
Waiting for
the smoke to clear sitting at the centrepoint of the North-South divide, I instead
decide to produce my own exposition into parts unknown of a culinary culture of violence.
I scan the
landscape for ingredients and wade into the lagoon to harvest some of my best
grains – not from the once-lagoon grounds on
which sit the Parliament and the city on the unsteady foundation of land reclaimed from
the sea, but the best grains South of the border, as Damascus is to Beirut, or Mexico to the soon-to-be walled USA.
Not in the
least imagining whose head is in this mix, I pound out the chaff from the grains
in the antique mortar and pestle in my back yard; toss the grains in the soup
I cut out from an old biscuit pan, and hold it up to the wind to blow out the
chaff, feeling the air of contention drift off, too. As the coolness descend, I
know it may be time now, to bring my pot of pelau into the mix, because
rationality is best served with the cool dispassion that I knew would only make
sense after the sound and the fury, signifying nothing, subsides. Still
chaffing from the absence of the most representative of dishes, a delicious pelau,
in a media pot said to be representative of local cuisine - someone must have
forgotten to heat up the Chulha – I decide to turn on the heat and set up my
own melting pot, with a musical mix.
Melting Pot of Pelau: A counter
revolutionary play in five Acts
I was washing the grains with some lagoon water, rising with the rains to engulf my kutiya on stilts, when the fellah from up East pass by, and say he has a chicken and he would feather, clean and bring it.
I was washing the grains with some lagoon water, rising with the rains to engulf my kutiya on stilts, when the fellah from up East pass by, and say he has a chicken and he would feather, clean and bring it.
“We could
make a nice pelau, eh,” he says, as if this pelau thing was all his idea. I
nod, suspecting the chicken might be one of his neighbour’s which he had been
threatening in fowl language to cook for straying in his yard and he going to set up a
Berlin Wall that could provoke one of those border wars, but, ask no questions
and you hear no lies. I zipped my lips. He said he will get some peas from his
pardener in the food basket, in Aranguez. What is pelau without some fresh
peas, eh? I acquiesce, not knowing that that was also an invitation to the
Aranguez pardner and he tassa side along with their fanclub which was really
the whole of the food basket, yes.
I asked if
while he in town if he could get some seasoning from the ‘panyol’ in Paramin.
He called me back to say they said I could have all the seasoning I wanted if
they could join the lime. They would bring a parang band, too. I didn’t know I
was having a lime, but I say okay, and they could bring some limes too. I call
up meh friend on the train line and ask for some brown sugar she was making
from she patch of sugar cane in she home factory - the national sugar mill, like the railway, close nah, because they too colonial. So cut off nose to spite face, or cut off race to spite State, is an old unsustainable development modus operandi in a Small Island State that already limited in human resources but happily cutting off its most compentent because of deep seated prejudices that it fails to confront and I am here waiting for the six hours it take to get through the bumper to bumper traffic to get the ingredients for my pelau.
I light the
Chulha. Brown sugar, set in oil from the coconut estate in Mayaro, saute the garlic and onions,and
some bandania from Chaguanas. It bubblicious. Chicken, Peas, Rice, go in,
in that order, and I licking the back of the spoon ahready. Somehow word get
around town and the babash man from Moruga turn up with his brew, and crew, who
manage to dudge one of the many colonial legal orders that stamp down on local
enterprise long time ago because it served the purpose
of the nouveau riche, one percentile to build a top heavy economy that now
crumbling because it had no bottom. I thought of Puck again and that Bottom
donkey and realise that this thing beginning to sound like ‘Bottom’s Dream,
because it had no bottom,’ as the bard himself wrote. It did cross my mind that I could relocate it to that bigger lagoon, of the Merchants of Venice and get more attention demanding my ounce of chicken parts.
Moruga babash crew hail out the other side of the River
who cross the racial divide and descend on my fireside, en masse
like Burrokeets coming dong the hill on JOuvert morning, pounding on their pan
round the neck.
All this
keep me busy while waiting for the smoke to clear, the Yankee cowboy long gone,
and we waiting for a new day to dawn when everybody, toute bagai, passion spent, ready to come back to feast on meh
melting pot of pelau and so now I could get back to my pantomime of From Beirut
to Port of Span in Five Acts, and How the West Was One Pelau with the three
visible tribes (and, burp, three invisible ones - who would know they missing
anyway?) – and then braps, one love break up and the shout was:
‘Who’s Yuh
Leader?’ or was it ‘We in Charge’, bang bang! The most powerful one percentiles of all the
tribes – except the Invisibles - went at it, and the remainder sit up wondering
and declaring, ‘we eh taking that so’ - well ah handful of the remainder; some
of the remainder waiting for the signal for the rioting and looting to start;
the rest declaring ‘wake me up when it is over;’ and the rest of the remainder of the Invisibles, still maintain a hostile and recalcitrant minority silence of the mafia, Cantonese style. Inscrutable. But
it ain’t over yet – through courts, and regime changes, and killings of a
former Attorney General, a former Chief Prosecutor, a few businessmen and women
and plenty plenty other folks from Laventille to Enterprise, Rio Grande to Rio
Claro and it still ain’t over, because the poor get poorer and the rich richer
and the middle class getting angrier and more and more jealous of being called have nots by the haves and the powerless
power structure more flaky and crumbly and still chest thumping and blaming but
nobody make jail or if they make jail they bust out, holding up the key, so
everyone else could live in jail. That's when jurisprudence lose she virginal prudence.
With that thought Penguin calypso fly into my head. We Living in Jail won Penguin (Seadley
Joseph), dishing out his biting social commentary in flavours of soft diplomacy, the Calypso Monarch crown of 1984. I had to back back a little and came on the track with his attempt to make a case for equal (sexual) privileges for the ‘remainder’, as high and mighty Sheriffs, Presidents and Ministers already had the privilege that a Deputy Essential. The masses, who
had their priorities right took his protest to the street – power to the people
- and Deputy won the Road March of 1982.
But I had back back too much. It was the 1983 track I was looking for to be the
background track for this pantomime, as my pelau pot boileth
over.I don’t even have to change any of the words. It is the calypso that took to the airwaves in the days of the demanding winds of change leading to the landslide election of 1986 with its own subtle inferences to power, corruption, misdirected education and diminishing acculturation in the clash of traditional knowledge-based culture of the ‘prophets of old’ versus modern. Everybody gather around the pot and start singing yes, tassa, parang and steel band side – north south and central, dipping into meh pot of pelau and sing de chorus of What Sweet In Goat Mouth (Penguin, 1983, italics mine):
Dey send me
down, like prophets of old
To
cool dis town, keep it more control
Me eh get no
vision and ting
Neither no
big message to bring
All dey tell
me in hand, as a kaisonian
Go and sing
dese songs through the land.
Chorus: Keep
singing everyday, remember Mammy say
What sweet in goat mouth does sour in the
bambam
What
keep you flying high, same ting does make you cry
What sweet in goat mouth does sour in the bambam
Little
bit of treasure, little bit of pleasure
So
you take, and you take, and you take, and you take. Mistake!
Please say, What sweet in goat mouth does sour in the
bambam
Forget
who vex/and dem school girls tell
That
books and sex/ doesn’t mix too well
Tell
the youth who gone off on dope
That
they are the future and hope
Tell them if
dey too tight/Nothing wouldn’t go right
Is dem and
the whole country blight.
Chorus
Dey tell me watch
at the new bourgeois
Drinking
scotch, travelling afar
Video
and stereo like peas
Air-conditioned
car, dey ‘fraid breeze
But
not a plantation/so next generation
Could
truly say this is my land.
Chorus
And if you
check, you will see is true
The
ill effects of the wrongs men do
All
who make women catch dey tail
All
who lie and send men to jail
All
who rob dey neighbour
All
who rape dey daughter
Sing
de chorus loud, let dem hear!
Chorus
What sweet in goat mouth does sour in the
bambam
Instead,
down below, in the hills and the valleys, another tribe, see the foreign
cameras showing them sitting in their high tower, looking down upon a city on
which they climbed, standing on the backs of the down trodden and discussing
them, the have nots, with dispassionate indifference, and even a slight sense of
unease at what displeasure dispossession may brew.
Did one have
to know a bit about consumption habits to see what was bubbling in that media
brew? Had the Yankees carefully constructed this brew to lure and lasso the
dumb-witted natives whose senses have been so dulled by servings of rum on the
plantation pay line and all them chemical injected imported food that it drug
them into boasting of the foreign consumption habits, afforded at the expense
of the local farms and breweries that were mashed up to promote the monopolies
that gave the one percenters the powers to manipulation the powerless superstructures?
A cursory look at the story outline shows it all, I could
have written that script with my eyes closed: a segmented feature, each segment
showing ‘a tribe’ cooking and eating, yes – must have some eating though we not
really about that, just telling them so – so they could be prodded and baited to
bring out their beef about the other tribes and burp up some race talk that
could stir up some violence, ‘what about
skin colour’, ‘status in the power structure?’ The cameras move from the
streets and rivers to the high tower and then to the valley, all stereotyped in
their comfort zones, back down the hills and on the streets again:
Act I: The hapless youth trying ineffectively to define
basic elements of what she knows as culture, ‘liming’ and ‘wine-ing’;
Act II: Tribe I. The men in a happy break from work and
invisible and voiceless women who must still be somewhere in backyard mud kitchens;
Act III. Scene i: Tribe II: The high and hoity chest-thumping one
percent on a literal high, a little uneasy at the rumblings from the valley,
and down there;
Act III. Scene ii: Splice in a clueless, self-absorbed media
for some comic Bretless relief that the Bret threats blow over, as a marker of
the level of native intelligence.
Act IV. Scene i: Tribe III The descendants of slaves still pridefully
enjoying what used to be the hand-me-downs from the massa’s table transformed
into appetizing oildown and pigtale and souse awaiting the approval of the
Yankee massa as they regale him with tales of the glory days of their revolt.
Act IV Scene ii. Flashback: the days of the revolt and the
of roots in a violent stickfighting culture that boasts of ‘is me or dem’, another
one percent winner-takes-all (like the Westminster system).
Act V: Cool it down with a nice las lap illusion. They expect that bit
of opium or ganja washed down with some liquor, from that bottle again, and the
Calypso Queen of the Rose Bowl belting out lines in she most melodious voice so
they could ease back into the illusion of self - serene and tranquil touristic
Tobago.
From the stereotyping emerges the subtext - of a society that has
hardly inched from its colonial moorings, despite its boast of Independence and
progress and unity in diversity.
I could already hear the grumbling about the segments of the society
that deprived in this script so I had to rewrite it.
Feeling
duty-bound to apologise to my friend, the maestro panman Len ‘Boogsie’ Sharp, so I switched to
Boogsie’s ‘Breakdown’, which earned him third place in the Panorama Finals of
1990 – an outstanding year for pan music when any number could have played and
well we wanted him to win but who could argue too with the combined talents of Kitchener and Jit Samaroo
and Amoco Renegades taking home the crown with Iron Man?
In this
foreign media fiasco the artist extraordinaire Boogsie, too, is stereotypically overlooked and rendered
silent, though not invisible like in the massa days, in favour of the stereotypical psuedo
intellectual interpretation of his art.
‘Boogsie’
was one of the first steelbandsmen who befriended me when I was an embryonic journalist
when he played a compilation – East Meets West – fusing steelband music with a
variety of international and Eastern/Asian music forms in a performance to mark
the birthday of the Japanese Emperor Hirohito at the local Japanese Embassy, in
my salad days in journalism. From this occasion in the blend of local and
Japanese culture – in cuisine, performance, music and fashion, I wrote the
article, East Meets West/ A Night To Remember, which seems to have inspired those who read it because it led to a Fellowship to Japan with the Foreign Press Fellowship.
I was still only in my first trimester in journalism.
Boogsie is a prophet himself, because 1990, was the year when it all ‘Breakdown’.
Another 'share' of the viral video pop up on meh cell.
Gibran pop into the scene too, and hand me a page
from A Tear and A Smile, The Criminal. (See what it says, in the image, this page/below).
‘Eh eh, but ent that true?’ someone share and commented, and there is a
nodding chorus. ‘But is true. Just look around, high and low, in the Parliament
and in the lagoon.’ Who sets the tone for a society?
The ‘remainder’, the recipients, the hapless natives educated on
tourist brochures are bewildered at these unflattering, non-touristic images
floating on the silver screen, evoking ghosts of some skeletal truths that they
thought were neatly tucked away in dark closets, devour it wholesale, whisper,
‘Is true, this is we.’ With the bubble of who’s really in charge busted – ‘is
not we is them.’ Self-recognition leads to self-shame that turns into anger and
surfaces as the bile that has to be redirected somewhere else, ‘at them’ and
they crawl out of their tipis and start to pelt bois.
They still want to blame the Yankee, but he gone, and who
take over town to set the agenda, the tone, the race baiting, bile baiting that
has become the fodder of the Parliament to the media and through this, the
hapless masses to hurl stones at each other, that has earned the title of
‘governance’, and the now inspired cry, as on that hapless day in history, the end of one love, to this, the end of one people, one nation: July 1990 Form ‘Who's Your Leader’ to 'Who's in Charge'.
Musical Melting Pot in a Pelau Potpourri
I turn up
the music and begin to wine and hum to Kitchener’s: Tek Yuh Meat Out Meh Rice! Now ever cooking show bout these natives and their discordant disunity should have a song like that. Spicing it up with my own chutkaisocaparang twist, of course, readers can
singalong because after that exposition above I am sure you need the comic
relief, that is if you do not recognize the comic truths that could have been a
nice soundtrack as the background music for the show that would have heightened
the depths of absurdity into which it descended. Everybody joined the chorus:
TAKE YOUR MEAT OUT MIH RICE
(Adapted
from the Rendition by Lord Kitchener, 1967)
Bourdain, Aboud and some Trinidadians
dying for attention
The Bourdain say, "Look, Trini,
let we make a cook.
I put the rice, you going put the
meat
Then we going both have something to
eat."
But when the pot was nearly to done
The Bourdain decide to pull a fast
one.
He said, "Trini, I’m a born
Bourdainian, I don't like to fight
But when come to the occasion, man, I
stickfight fuh mih right
You put in a twelve-cents meat bone,
you worse than a lice
I going give you a word of advice,
"Take your meat out mih rice!"
Trini got in a big rage, "What
wrong with you, Bourdain?
I going tell you flat, Bourdain, I ain't
taking that!
When we were shopping we both agree
The food will be cook and share
equally
I put meh last penny in this meat and
I ain't moving until I eat."
Bourdain say, "Trini, I’m a born
Bourdainian, I don't like to fight
But when come to the occasion, man, I
die fuh mih right
You put in a ten-cents meat bone, you
think that is nice?
Well don't make me have to tell you
twice, "Take your meat out mih rice!"
The Bourdain then said to Trini,
"Man don't tell lies on me.
I never told you that all ah we is
one family, we going join and cook up in two.
What I mention, I can repeat, I said
to lend me a piece of meat."
Trini so vex, he begin to cry,
"Bourdain, in front mih eye you telling a lie?"
Bourdain say, "Trini, I’m a born
Bourdainian, I don't like to fight
But when come to the occasion, man I
die fuh meh right.
Yuh put in a nine-cents meat bone,
good lord, you want half a slice?
If you don't want a Bourdain ice,
"Take your meat out mih rice!"
By this time the pot finish, Trini
pick up a dish
The Bourdain say, "No no, no,
never happen so!
If you wanted something to eat, man
take a fork and pick out your meat
But if you add one grain of rice, by
Christ, I squeeze yuh throat like a vice."
"Trini, I’m a born Bourdainian,
I don't like to fight
But when come to the occasion, man I
die fuh mih right
You put in a eight-cents meat bone,
you Trinidadian lice
Before I squeeze you like Christ,
"Take your meat out mih rice!"
Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZqWLwZIncec
Kitchener
released this song before I was born so it was part of my growing consciousness
of not just the humour but the social value of calypso music. It is one of the
pieces I use to stimulate students in both formal (UWI classrooms) and informal
(community spaces) in efforts to liberate literature from text into the arena
of lifelong learning from our diverse repertoire in the oral traditions. They
were challenged to identify the pivotal line on which was hinged the
diminishing value of the inputs in this partnership, and the core source of humour
of the piece. You could imagine most made the same grade of the bunch who thought Paul Keen’s
Douglas’ Las Lap wine was the kind imported in a bottle, and the post Carnival madness that possessed his protagonist made her a candidate for St Ann's Mental Asylum - then all ah we eating that pelau should be going St Ann's, fuh true.
As music is
so much a part of our culinary traditions, it was finding its way into my pelau party. I made a compilation of musicians
and musical accompaniments I wanted in my private pelau party play list at this exposition on
real Caribbean Cuisine that the whole country invite themselves into. (inbox me if you want the link, nah). The Mighty Trini – no pun intended on the ‘Mighty’ one
percentile because Trini is really from the remainder non-powerful - turn up knocking at my
window like Davindra Dookie before his suicide at the alter of frustrated artistry. He shouting, ‘Ah Have a Tabanca, Ha, Curry Tabanca’. It was then I realise why
there were no women at the river scene and all the men there singing Curry
Tabanca, because ‘she pack up all she curry and she gone away, Tabanca like
gobar/Burning like anchar/In deh ghar …curry tabanca ha ha'. Trini was still
singing.
I felt myself dozing off, so I had asked someone to ‘wake me up when it is over.’
Draupatie
was shaking me, jiggling she behind about some movement to unite the rhythms of
Africa and India, to come together in a perfect mixture but she laughing ‘ha ha, Hotta Than A Chulha’. I realised she had to be joking. One love
break up and this was insurrection and nearly thirty years later, David Rudder,
still pleading with me and 1990, please make a liar of me. (lyrics below)
Towers and Terrors: Memories of an
Insurrection
‘Like Beirut’. It is
not a term anyone would want to use to describe their city, at least not with
pride. That was the term that came to mind.
I had survived the five days of the coup, calling in reports
to the office, sourcing form near and far, un-monitored because I was not at any
of the hotspots, but near enough to the unfolding action at the television
station to give a virtual ‘ball by ball’ from the vantage point of my apartment
block that had been appropriated by soldiers.
The day of the night and the night of the day of the five
day ordeal was nearing its close.
It was the day of the release of the hostages. I scaled the
wall again whilethe soldiers' heads were averted, headed down Picton Street and across Marli towards Maraval Road,
just north of TTT, crouching between soldiers, guns pointed as the insurrectionists
came out one by one, little boys in a big man’s game, recounted in the entry
in my coup diary, Hostages in Our homes: “Freedom Came on Emancipation Day.”
As if I had not had enough, I left that scene following the
surrender, storm soaked and all and headed into Port of Spain happy to leave my
post, from where I had been covering the scene at the television station that
was under siege by insurrectionists.
The anticipated tropical storm system had
veered. I was taking in the city for the first time. Walking through the
streets on the eastern end -.the business and commercial hub of the city that
stretches further eastward into what is generally described as the city’s
ghettoes and slums.
It is a stereotype from which it has been trying to emerge,
but the brand remains.
To the west is the administrative side. Here is the
Parliament, the offices of the judiciary, and those institutions that define
itself among the power pillars. Further west are the high rises and the more
affluent communities. They do not try to escape that stigma. It’s good to say
one is from that side of town. It is also a good brand for property prices. It is
not what anyone would now describe as ‘like Beirut’, now.
But then, Port of Spain, soaked by the tail end of the
hurricane that accentuates the scents of the stink the fires, gunfire, and ash.
I am gingerly stepping over rubble of concrete, glass, protruding steel and
live wires, sparking, trying to breathe through the air still thick and heavy
with smoke. Not even torrents of rain could wash off the scent or the heaviness
of the air. The storm had veered but the skies were still heavy. I was grasping
for breath in the heavy air.
It is not Beirut. It is Port-of-Spain.
Like Beirut, I write, back at my desk. It is the central
phrase in an article of few words. The images say it all. A city razed to the
ground. Its trims and frills torn off. Its underbelly naked and exposed. The
raw anger, resentment, sense of disempowerment and frustration that is said to
have driven the insurrectionists to their crazed attempt at seizing power
sticking out like the looted buildings, their showcases shattered, leaving only
the rubble and the ash.
Like the Beirut of the television images, it was a scene of
devastation. There was little signifying the life as we knew it. The city has
been evacuated. Even the birds seem to have migrated, as had the stray dogs,
and the homeless who roamed the city streets, rummaging through its spoils,
like dogs. The scent of ash still hangs on my nostrils to this day, almost two
decades later.
Who win eh?
I am surveying my collection of writings and accumulated literature and
analyses and my own jottings of the effects on the social systems through my
beats in education, health, local government, culture and the arts, and with
the front seats to the unfolding action at the nearby Trinidad and Tobago
Television. This one, a coup diary of the unfolding action each day, as
soldiers occupied my building to monitor and pump barrage of bullets daytime
and nighttime at the building; these about surveying the damage in Port of
Spain, buildings burnt to the ground, raided and looted and the shocking
followups that the insurance would never compensate; this one of the hospitals
overflowing with dead and dying, including the Health Minister who had to be
whisked away for treatment because the oil rich economy didn’t spend what was
required for a hospital that could serve the first world needs, like the first
world tastes of people; this one, interviewing the family of the victims, like
Leo Des Vignes who lost his life; and this about the Hosay drums, gone silent,
too, like in David Rudder’s song, Hoosay.
Who win, eh?
When the sons and daughters of Laventille and Enterprise dying all around; and
businesses, now top heavy, tottering because they have stifled off the basic creative
cottage enterprises for monopolies that encourage conspicuous consumption
without trying to strengthen the base; so when the top fall, the bottom
collapse too, as in Bottom’s Dream that has no Bottom. Again that Puck phrase of my salad days
comes to mind. More mature now, I suppress it, with the other stuff that want to
pour out. Like why the drums of the
Ganges and the Nile gone silent? Why the priests silent? Why the courts silent? Why the business people and the politicians stone deaf as the commission of enquiry collected its dole and
file away Cabinets of documents.
In the slum ghetto parts near the city, the inhabitants eat
the refuse off the then, and now, master table – the pigtail that they have
made into a delicious souse. Above the Central plains at the River’s source, it
is curry and doubles and the boys lime where women are invisible. In the
affluent west, the most powerful sit in their towers on high, looking down on
the city below, Beirut.
Stereotyping. Media stereotyping and its damaging effects
unleashes on the unsuspecting masses and everyone is bewilderingly wondered
what have they just witnessed. Truth? Half Truths? Innuendoes?
When the smoke clear they realise they are central to the
pantomime: the protagonists, the performers and the spectators, and it is not
the outsider, but themselves selfies, self-inflicting, suicidal injury to the
body politic to the point now at which, all things fall apart – the judiciary
tearing at itself and its self image to shreds; as a bewildered political system
hurling the worst kinds of racist and other stereotypical insults across the
floor, setting a tone for the national discourse that unleashes on social
media. The national selfie taking advantage of the age of selfie. What a self
image! Through my tears and sighs, that’s the nature of The Criminal, I find Gibran’s analogy in A Tear and a Smile, same
in Beirut as in Port-of-Spain:
THE CRIMINAL: from A Tear & A Smile by Kahlil Gibran
A young man of
strong body, weakened by hunger, sat on the walker's portion of the street
stretching his hand toward all who passed, begging and repeating his hand
toward all who passed, begging and repeating the sad song of his defeat in
life, while suffering from hunger and from humiliation. When night came, his
lips and tongue were parched, while his hand was still as empty as his stomach.
He gathered himself and went out from the city, where he sat under a tree and
wept bitterly. Then he lifted his puzzled eyes to heaven while hunger was
eating his inside, and he said, "Oh Lord, I went to the rich man and asked
for employment, but he turned me away because of my shabbiness; I knocked at
the school door, but was forbidden solace because I was empty−handed; I sought any occupation that would give
me bread, but all to no avail. In desperation I asked alms, but They
worshipers saw me and said "He is strong and lazy, and he should not
beg." "Oh Lord, it is Thy will that my mother gave birth unto me, and
now the earth offers me back to You before the Ending." His expression
then changed. He arose and his eyes now glittered in determination. He
fashioned a thick and heavy stick from the branch of the tree, and pointed it
toward the city, shouting, "I asked for bread with all the strength of my
voice, and was refused. Not I shall obtain it by the strength of my muscles! I
asked for bread in the name of mercy and love, but humanity did not heed. I
shall take it now in the name of evil!"
The passing years
rendered the youth a robber, killer and destroyer of souls; he crushed all who
opposed him; he amassed fabulous wealth with which he won himself over to those
in power. He was admired by colleagues, envied by other thieves, and feared by
the multitudes. His riches and false position prevailed upon the Emir to
appoint him deputy in that city−−the sad process pursued by unwise governors.
Thefts were then legalized; oppression was supported by authority; crushing of
the weak became commonplace; the throngs curried and praised.
Thus does the
first touch of humanity's selfishness make criminals of the humble, and make
killers of the sons of peace; thus does the early greed of humanity grow and
strike back at humanity a thousand fold!
Winner Take
All at WestMinister, the Abbey with the Most Powerful In Charge
From
Perestroika to Glasnost, Paris to Pennsylvannia, Bogota to Brussels and Beirut
to a Port of Spain like-Beirut. Who wins? The city settles back into amnesia,
and I retreat back to my lagoon, like Trinidad Rio, Ah Going Back To Basics, as
we all should, so we could emerge from the amnesia.
Back to basics, too, I return to Gibran, to restore my
original illusion of the Beirut of which he had written almost a century
earlier. He commiserated with me in passages he had written a century before my
own close up experiences of the terror and violence in the hearts and minds of
men and women to break my wings, and my heart. I am struck by how easily I could
apply to any other nation, even to easily substitute the name of the country,
You Have Your Trinidad and Tobago and I have Mine It’s the piece, You Have Your Lebanon and I have My Lebanon
(see image/below)
You have your Lebanon
and I have my Lebanon by Kahlil Gibran
You have your Lebanon and its dilemma. I have my Lebanon
and its beauty. Your Lebanon is an arena for men from the West and men from the
East.
My Lebanon is a flock of birds fluttering in the early
morning as shepherds lead their sheep into the meadow and rising in the evening
as farmers return from their fields and vineyards.
You have your Lebanon and its people. I have my Lebanon and
its people.
Yours are those whose souls were born in the hospitals of
the West; they are as ship without rudder or sail upon a raging sea.... They
are strong and eloquent among themselves but weak and dumb among Europeans.
They are brave, the liberators and the reformers, but only
in their own area. But they are cowards, always led backwards by the Europeans.
They are those who croak like frogs boasting that they have rid themselves of
their ancient, tyrannical enemy, but the truth of the matter is that this
tyrannical enemy still hides within their own souls. They are the slaves for
whom time had exchanged rusty chains for shiny ones so that they thought
themselves free. These are the children of your Lebanon. Is there anyone among
them who represents the strength of the towering rocks of Lebanon, the purity
of its water or the fragrance of its air? Who among them vouchsafes to say,
"When I die I leave my country little better than when I was born"?
Who among them dare to say, "My life was a drop of
blood in the veins of Lebanon, a tear in her eyes or a smile upon her
lips"?
Those are the children of your Lebanon. They are, in your
estimation, great; but insignificant in my estimation.
Let me tell you who are the children of my Lebanon.
They are farmers who would turn the fallow field into
garden and grove.
They are the shepherds who lead their flocks through the valleys
to be fattened for your table meat and your woolens.
They are the vine-pressers who press the grape to wine and
boil it to syrup.
They are the parents who tend the nurseries, the mothers
who spin the silken yarn.
They are the husbands who harvest the wheat and the wives
who gather the sheaves.
They are the builders, the potters, the weavers and the
bell-casters.
They are the poets who pour their souls in new cups.
They are those who migrate with nothing but courage in
their hearts and strength in their arms but who return with wealth in their
hands and a wreath of glory upon their heads.
They are the victorious wherever they go and loved and
respected wherever they settle.
They are the ones born in huts but who died in palaces of
learning.
These are the children of Lebanon; they are lamps that
cannot be snuffed by the wind & salt which remains unspoiled through the
ages.
They are the ones who are steadily moving toward
perfection, beauty, and truth.
What will remain of your Lebanon after a century? Tell me!
Except bragging, lying and stupidity? Do you expect the ages to keep in its
memory the traces of deceit and cheating and hypocrisy? Do you think the
atmosphere will preserve in its pockets the shadows of death and the stench of
graves?
Do you believe life will accept a patched garment for a
dress? Verily, I say to you that an olive plant in the hills of Lebanon will
outlast all of your deeds and your works; that the wooden plow pulled by the
oxen in the crannies of Lebanon is nobler than your dreams and aspirations.
I say to you, while the conscience of time listened to me,
that the songs of a maiden collecting herbs in the valleys of Lebanon will
outlast all the uttering of the most exalted prattler among you. I say to you
that you are achieving nothing. If you knew that you are accomplishing nothing,
I would feel sorry for you, but you know it not.
Not recreate. Not imitate. We thought we could remake the
image, the self image, and rescue the spiral: Hold up a different new, self
made self with Independent thought and the hold melting pot of creators,
directing their own show. As with the Arab Spring, then, as now, the Ganges and
the Nile and the other, even invisible people were united in a desire for freedom
and justice and equality – the East inspired by the West and the belief that
democracy is to be defended and the desire for a more fundamental changes to
the development deficit that would guard against the rising tides of
fundamentalism with the backlash of dictatorial authoritarianism - bitterness
expressed in violence, and the curbing of freedoms, and greater militarism.
But that was Bottom’s Dream, that had no Bottom, left
sitting under the television table, tongue hanging out and dribbling, unable to
wait for the alien arrival, falling over each other to get in on the action,
bottle and spoon and all; then growing resentful even before it is aired to
hear that it might not be the pretty mas, but the other kind of social humour –
the kind that make we shame because is we killing we; and then the uproar that
it wouldn’t be aired because the cable network didn’t buy the rights and then –
well the classic Grecian tragic Pandora’s Box of ills that it released when social media grab hold of
it and let all its little imps out to all and sundry, making the American news
network that supposed to air it regret that it didn’t think of that and just
let the local cable people just air it for free because, well because It’s
About the Ratings, Stupid! The number of views it get on social media – more
than 100 times what its other shows got - would have shot the network’s ratings
through the glass ceiling that the show didn’t break with the especially invisible
women from the river lime.
But bad judgement could come from anywhere and anytime, even
from among the self-acclaimed most powerful news network in the world or the
world’s most powerful hostile and recalcitrant minorities, or the most powerful
race, class, and colour resentments that social media gives ear and air to, or
powerful community leaders, Member of Parliament and Cabinet
appointees, dis-appointees, mis-appointees, re-appointees and unappointees to head social development of community leaders – same swamp, different lagoon.
PR gone wrong all around, inspired by brainwave or intoxicated
and seduced by pelvic gyrations, wining and dining, like in the sexy tourist
brochures. Some heads in the advertising world must be lolling from too much
beer soaked bad advice about Bret and which chest thumping soundbite should complement
the chain of coffee shops being marketed to lure the travel and tourism market to
let them know we are stars with big bucks too.
Lord, What Fools We Mortal Be! To think that any local
production could do that for we people and we culture and we tourism and show
we cuisine in the cultural milieu, through pelau as a musical melting pot and a
potpourri of people from the East and West.
Much like Columbus, in a climate where even the calmest
winds could portend a storm with bad Brets, it is venturing with no
reservations into parts unknown in a Cross Country LiTTour through Sonny Ladoo’s scorpion infested lagoons of the North
and the South, inflicting No Pain Like This Body politic – crawling with criminals,
violence and class and ethnic tensions, showing off the dark, and brown and
white underbelly of the nation churning with the diversity of doubles,
dhalpuri and dhal belly, gyros, pigtale and souse, shark and bake, and other belly
types of nationhood nurtured on curried cascadura that Sam made and captured in
LiTTscapes: (see image, this page
and Al Creighton’s Review, LiTTscapes
Showreel)
Those who eat the Cascadura will,
The native legend says,
Wheresoever
they may wander
End
in Trinidad their days.
(Johnson
and the Cascadura, in Ways of Sunlight, Samuel Selvon, 1957).
But then we have invested less in cultivating nationhood
than what might have been vested in the show, that wouldn’t have even been
shown here, if it wasn’t rescued from ignominy by social media and a chorus of
power deprived citizens outraged at the revelations of the stratification of
power, when they must have at some time or the other held on closely to their
illusions to power. If anything, it provides a nice case study on how
anticipated bang for your bucks can become bang bang. It’s about the ratings, Stupid!
To Create, not recreate. Change, not exchange. Not unlike his attempt to present
the Lebanon of his heart, with LiTTscapes
and its satellite LiTTribute activities across Europe, the Caribbean and the
Americas – LiTTurgy to the Mainland, Guyana; LiTTribute to the Republic –
Trinidad and Tobago; LiTTribute to the Antilles, LiTTribute to LondonTTown … trying
to represent the collective vision of our poets, playwrights, philosophers,
singers, songwriters, artistes, visionaries whose love penetrate the good, bad
and ugly, for truth beyond narrow small island boundaries with their lace in the
expansive universe. To show the possibilties of a different reality, drawn from our own imagination. An exploration of literature is an exploration of self as
it is of nationhood, and our universal selfhood, epitomized in the final pages
of LiTTscapes as “Global Movements”
show how writers’ representations transmuted to the experiences of others to
influence other societies and to shape the consciousness of educators and
learners and policy makers for knowledge as thought, not just taught, from Port
of Spain, to Beirut and beyond to discourse with other world literatures and
UNESCO and the world.
To learn from experience, even the vicarious experiences of
one society speaking to another across the oceans; of one artist, communicating
with another across time and space, revitalizing the ashes of reality of a city
that renders love futile and promotes only its haters into a virtual world of
limitless possibilities, reawakened from its amnesia, like Gibran:
What do you seek, my countrymen?
Do you desire that I build for
You gorgeous palaces, decorated
With words of empty meaning, or
Temples roofed with dreams? Or
Do you command me to destroy what
The liars and tyrants have built?
Shall I uproot with my fingers
What the hypocrites and the wicked
Have implanted? Speak your insane
Wish!
What is it you would have me do,
My countrymen? Shall I purr like
The kitten to satisfy you, or roar
Like the lion to please myself? I
Have sung for you, but you did not
Dance;
I have wept before you, but
You did not cry. Shall I sing and
Weep at the same time?
Your souls are suffering the pangs
Of hunger, and yet the fruit of
Knowledge is more plentiful than
The stones of the valleys.
Your hearts are withering from
Thirst, and yet the springs of
Life are streaming about your
Homes. Why do you not drink?
The sea has its ebb and flow,
The moon has its fullness and
Crescents, and the ages have
Their winter and summer, and all
Things vary like the shadow of
An unborn god moving between
Earth and sun, but truth cannot
Be changed, nor will it pass away;
Why, then, do you endeavour to
Disfigure its countenance?
I have called you in the silence
Of the night to point out the
Glory of the moon and the dignity
Of the stars, but you startled
From your slumber and clutched
Your swords in fear, crying,
"Where is the enemy? We must
kill
Him (Her) first!" At
morningtide, when
The enemy came, I called to you
Again, but now you did not wake
From your slumber, for you were
Locked in fear, wrestling with
The processions of spectres in
Your dreams.
And I said unto you, "Let us
climb
To the mountain top and view the
Beauty of the world." And you
Answered me, saying, "In the
depths
Of this valley our fathers lived,
And in its shadows they died, and in
Its caves they were buried. How can
We depart this place for one which
They failed to honour?"
And I said unto you, "Let us go
to
The plain that gives its bounty to
The sea." And you spoke timidly
to
Me, saying, "The uproar of the
abyss
Will frighten our spirits, and the
Terror of the depths will deaden
Our bodies."
I have loved you, my countrymen, but
My love for you is painful to me
And useless to you…
--
Excerpt, My Countrymen, Kahlil Gibran
Not unlike Gibran, and this list of writers and advocates for social justice who faced initial rejection by his
people, these works - well received and respected
abroad, moving poets and philosophers to tears, planners and policy makers to
re-think and redirect, because they say, it mirrors their souls and aspirations
for their people - are yet to find fertile ground in education systems or
institutions here. Instead, we exalt a hollow history that goes little deeper
than the recent colonial past rather than the fertile terrain of our
multiculturalism and so the next generations will be inheritors of a barren
earth: ‘The drums were silent, it was the
night of the day that they say the matyrs died,’ choked from recognizing
and acknowledging and emerging from its own biases and prejudices.
My twelve points of why we need to restore conscious
creative independent thought for sustainable development: see text below/image
this page:
Text Thought & Teaching for Sustainable Development
12 Facts on Why Fiction Matters
Bridges
Today’s virtual world and virtual reality
Minimizes
the sense of divorce from reality
Expands
Humanism
Promotes
Critical Thinking
Promotes
Empathy
Promotes
Tolerance
Enhances
Intercultural Dialogue
Fosters
Appreciation for Others
Fosters
Respect of and for Difference
Embraces
Variety and Diversity of Thoughts & Ideas
Promotes
Social, Economic & Political Stability
Advances
a Culture of Peace
Next: Then, as Now, 1990 Revisited and Play List of
Alternative Truths on How to Emerge from the Mess
Lyrics: David Rudder: 1990
Lyrics: David Rudder Hoosay
"Wear something
red," was the popular cry
And like the pavements and streets, they were filled with envy
Because by morning light, they were covered with our blood
I tell you not one soul there escaped the frenzy
You know, sometimes you gamble in king and wild is the joker
And sometimes the sight of the moon just riles up the lost, the hungry, the mad
These are the troubled times that we have down in Trinidad.
Because under the crescent moon and above the bloody asphalt
Strange dogs were barking deep in the night
Under the crescent moon, I say the drums were silent
But somehow the rhythm continued, oh what a sight!
On the night of the day, it was the night of the day,
Oh, the night when they say that the martyrs died.
Fame, yes, we're famous as hell
Why don't you know we're a star
At long last we have made it
A star, like that star in the moon shining over the tomb
Dance the moon, Come on dance Brother, Dance
But death is your drummer, oh
Dance, sister, prance, the future's at stake
And jump high, jump low, but this Hoosay will take the cake.
Because under the crescent moon and above the bloody asphalt
Strange dogs were barking deep in the night
Under the crescent moon, I say the drums were silent
But somehow the rhythm continued, oh what a sight!
On the night of the day, it was the night of the day,
Oh, the night when they say that the martyrs died.
The power and the glory is so close at hand
But the beast he was lurking
For he too sits in the wings, in the wings
So when we searched for the moon all we saw were the vultures
But then a chosen people never worry 'bout these things
So the roll of the tassa began to sound like the rhythm of bullets
And the thundering boom bass well, that was a bomb, was a bomb
In ah this Muslim time when the Hoosay is number one.
I say under the crescent moon and above the bloody asphalt.
Brother man, strange dogs were barking deep in the night
Under the crescent moon, I say the drums were silent
But somehow the rhythm continued, oh what a sight!
On the night of the day, it was the night of the day,
Oh, the night when they say that the martyrs died.
Not in this house, not in this garden of Eden
Oh, how we danced to the beat of this lovely lie, lovely lie
Until a man opened a door and showed us our other side
And our Mecca-ed illusions walked right on by
Now Trini know what is Oozy diplomacy
Now Trini know what is SLR love
In ah these troubled times under the stars above.
I say under the crescent moon and above the bloody asphalt.
Brother man strange dogs were barking deep in the night,
Under the crescent moon. I say the drums were silent,
But somehow the drumming continued. Oh what a sight!
On the night of the day it was the night of the day,
Oh, the night when they say that the martyrs died.
Under the crescent moon and above the bloody asphalt
Strange dogs were barking deep in the night
Under the crescent moon, I say the drums were silent.
But somehow the rhythm continued, oh what a sight!
On the night of the day, it was the night of the day
Oh, the night when they say that the magic died.
So "wear something red," was the popular cry
And like the pavements and streets, they were filled, were filled with envy
Because by morning light they were covered with our blood
I tell you not one soul there escaped the frenzy
You know, sometimes you gamble in king but you pull the court jester
And sometimes the sight of the moon.
Exploring a World Through MultiCultural Lenses
https://kris-rampersad.blogspot.com/2017/07/dr-kris-rampersad-exploring-world.html
Exploring a World Through MultiCultural Lenses
https://kris-rampersad.blogspot.com/2017/07/dr-kris-rampersad-exploring-world.html
And like the pavements and streets, they were filled with envy
Because by morning light, they were covered with our blood
I tell you not one soul there escaped the frenzy
You know, sometimes you gamble in king and wild is the joker
And sometimes the sight of the moon just riles up the lost, the hungry, the mad
These are the troubled times that we have down in Trinidad.
Because under the crescent moon and above the bloody asphalt
Strange dogs were barking deep in the night
Under the crescent moon, I say the drums were silent
But somehow the rhythm continued, oh what a sight!
On the night of the day, it was the night of the day,
Oh, the night when they say that the martyrs died.
Fame, yes, we're famous as hell
Why don't you know we're a star
At long last we have made it
A star, like that star in the moon shining over the tomb
Dance the moon, Come on dance Brother, Dance
But death is your drummer, oh
Dance, sister, prance, the future's at stake
And jump high, jump low, but this Hoosay will take the cake.
Because under the crescent moon and above the bloody asphalt
Strange dogs were barking deep in the night
Under the crescent moon, I say the drums were silent
But somehow the rhythm continued, oh what a sight!
On the night of the day, it was the night of the day,
Oh, the night when they say that the martyrs died.
The power and the glory is so close at hand
But the beast he was lurking
For he too sits in the wings, in the wings
So when we searched for the moon all we saw were the vultures
But then a chosen people never worry 'bout these things
So the roll of the tassa began to sound like the rhythm of bullets
And the thundering boom bass well, that was a bomb, was a bomb
In ah this Muslim time when the Hoosay is number one.
I say under the crescent moon and above the bloody asphalt.
Brother man, strange dogs were barking deep in the night
Under the crescent moon, I say the drums were silent
But somehow the rhythm continued, oh what a sight!
On the night of the day, it was the night of the day,
Oh, the night when they say that the martyrs died.
Not in this house, not in this garden of Eden
Oh, how we danced to the beat of this lovely lie, lovely lie
Until a man opened a door and showed us our other side
And our Mecca-ed illusions walked right on by
Now Trini know what is Oozy diplomacy
Now Trini know what is SLR love
In ah these troubled times under the stars above.
I say under the crescent moon and above the bloody asphalt.
Brother man strange dogs were barking deep in the night,
Under the crescent moon. I say the drums were silent,
But somehow the drumming continued. Oh what a sight!
On the night of the day it was the night of the day,
Oh, the night when they say that the martyrs died.
Under the crescent moon and above the bloody asphalt
Strange dogs were barking deep in the night
Under the crescent moon, I say the drums were silent.
But somehow the rhythm continued, oh what a sight!
On the night of the day, it was the night of the day
Oh, the night when they say that the magic died.
So "wear something red," was the popular cry
And like the pavements and streets, they were filled, were filled with envy
Because by morning light they were covered with our blood
I tell you not one soul there escaped the frenzy
You know, sometimes you gamble in king but you pull the court jester
And sometimes the sight of the moon.
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Oct 20, 2013 Choosing the Emperor's New Troops. The dilemma of choice. Voting is supposed to be an exercise in thoughtful, studied choice. Local government is the foundation for good governance so even if one wants to reform the ... http://kris-rampersad.blogspot.com/
Old Casked Rum: The Emperor's New Tools#1 - Demokrissy - Blogger
Apr 07, 2013 Old Casked Rum: The Emperor's New Tools#1 - Towards Constitutional Reform in T&T. So we've had the rounds of consultations on Constitutional Reform? Are we any wiser? Do we have a sense of direction that will drive ...http://kris-rampersad.blogspot.com/
Demokrissy: Valuing Carnival The Emperor's New Tools#2
Apr 30, 2013 Valuing Carnival The Emperor's New Tools#2....http://kris-rampersad.blogspot.com/
See Also:
Demokrissy: Winds of Political Change - Dawn of T&T's Arab Spring
Jul 30, 2013 Wherever these breezes have passed, they have left in their wake wide ranging social and political changes: one the one hand toppling long time leaders with rising decibels from previously suppressed peoples demanding a ...http://kris-rampersad.blogspot.com/
Demokrissy: Reform, Conform, Perform or None of the Above cross ...
Oct 25, 2013 Some 50 percent did not vote. The local government elections results lends further proof of the discussion began in Clash of Political Cultures: Cultural Diversity and Minority Politics in Trinidad and Tobago in Through The ...http://kris-rampersad.blogspot.com/
Demokrissy: Sounds of a party - a political party
Oct 14, 2013 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. http://kris-rampersad.blogspot.com/
Demokrissy: T&T Constitution the culprit | The Trinidad Guardian
Jun 15, 2010 T&T Constitution the culprit | The Trinidad Guardian · T&T Constitution the culprit | The Trinidad Guardian. Posted by Kris Rampersad at 8:20 AM · Email ThisBlogThis!Share to TwitterShare to Facebook ...http://kris-rampersad.blogspot.com/
Related:
Demokrissy: To vote, just how we party … Towards culturally ...
Apr 30, 2010 'How we vote is not how we party.' At 'all inclusive' fetes and other forums, we nod in inebriated wisdom to calypsonian David Rudder's elucidation of the paradoxical political vs. social realities of Trinidad and Tobago. http://kris-rampersad.blogspot.com/
Demokrissy: DEADLOCK: Sign of things to come
Oct 29, 2013 An indication that unless we devise innovative ways to address representation of our diversity, we will find ourselves in various forms of deadlock at the polls that throw us into a spiral of political tug of war albeit with not just ...http://kris-rampersad.blogspot.com/
Demokrissy: The human face of constitutional reform
Oct 16, 2013 Sheilah was clearly and sharply articulating the deficiencies in governmesaw her: a tinymite elderly woman, gracefully wrinkled, deeply over with concerns about political and institutional stagnation but brimming over with ... http://kris-rampersad.blogspot.com/
Demokrissy: Trini politics is d best
Oct 21, 2013 Ain't Trini politics d BEST! Nobody fighting because they lose. All parties claiming victory, all voting citizens won! That's what make we Carnival d best street party in the world. Everyone are winners because we all like ...http://kris-rampersad.blogspot.com/
New Media, New Civil Society, and Politics in a New Age - Demokrissy
Jan 09, 2012 New Media, New Civil Society, and Politics in a New Age | The Communication Initiative Network. New Media, New Civil Society, and Politics in a New Age | The Communication Initiative Network. Posted by Kris Rampersad ...http://kris-rampersad.blogspot.com/
Demokrissy: T&T politics: A new direction? - Caribbean360 Oct 01, 2010 http://kris-rampersad.blogspot.com/
Oct 20, 2013 Choosing the Emperor's New Troops. The dilemma of choice. Voting is supposed to be an exercise in thoughtful, studied choice. Local government is the foundation for good governance so even if one wants to reform the ... http://kris-rampersad.blogspot.com/
Old Casked Rum: The Emperor's New Tools#1 - Demokrissy - Blogger
Apr 07, 2013 Old Casked Rum: The Emperor's New Tools#1 - Towards Constitutional Reform in T&T. So we've had the rounds of consultations on Constitutional Reform? Are we any wiser? Do we have a sense of direction that will drive ...http://kris-rampersad.blogspot.com/
Demokrissy: Valuing Carnival The Emperor's New Tools#2
Apr 30, 2013 Valuing Carnival The Emperor's New Tools#2....http://kris-rampersad.blogspot.com/
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Demokrissy: Winds of Political Change - Dawn of T&T's Arab Spring
Jul 30, 2013 Wherever these breezes have passed, they have left in their wake wide ranging social and political changes: one the one hand toppling long time leaders with rising decibels from previously suppressed peoples demanding a ...http://kris-rampersad.blogspot.com/
Demokrissy: Reform, Conform, Perform or None of the Above cross ...
Oct 25, 2013 Some 50 percent did not vote. The local government elections results lends further proof of the discussion began in Clash of Political Cultures: Cultural Diversity and Minority Politics in Trinidad and Tobago in Through The ...http://kris-rampersad.blogspot.com/
Demokrissy: Sounds of a party - a political party
Oct 14, 2013 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. http://kris-rampersad.blogspot.com/
Demokrissy: T&T Constitution the culprit | The Trinidad Guardian
Jun 15, 2010 T&T Constitution the culprit | The Trinidad Guardian · T&T Constitution the culprit | The Trinidad Guardian. Posted by Kris Rampersad at 8:20 AM · Email ThisBlogThis!Share to TwitterShare to Facebook ...http://kris-rampersad.blogspot.com/
Related:
Demokrissy: To vote, just how we party … Towards culturally ...
Apr 30, 2010 'How we vote is not how we party.' At 'all inclusive' fetes and other forums, we nod in inebriated wisdom to calypsonian David Rudder's elucidation of the paradoxical political vs. social realities of Trinidad and Tobago. http://kris-rampersad.blogspot.com/
Demokrissy: DEADLOCK: Sign of things to come
Oct 29, 2013 An indication that unless we devise innovative ways to address representation of our diversity, we will find ourselves in various forms of deadlock at the polls that throw us into a spiral of political tug of war albeit with not just ...http://kris-rampersad.blogspot.com/
Demokrissy: The human face of constitutional reform
Oct 16, 2013 Sheilah was clearly and sharply articulating the deficiencies in governmesaw her: a tinymite elderly woman, gracefully wrinkled, deeply over with concerns about political and institutional stagnation but brimming over with ... http://kris-rampersad.blogspot.com/
Demokrissy: Trini politics is d best
Oct 21, 2013 Ain't Trini politics d BEST! Nobody fighting because they lose. All parties claiming victory, all voting citizens won! That's what make we Carnival d best street party in the world. Everyone are winners because we all like ...http://kris-rampersad.blogspot.com/
New Media, New Civil Society, and Politics in a New Age - Demokrissy
Jan 09, 2012 New Media, New Civil Society, and Politics in a New Age | The Communication Initiative Network. New Media, New Civil Society, and Politics in a New Age | The Communication Initiative Network. Posted by Kris Rampersad ...http://kris-rampersad.blogspot.com/
Demokrissy: T&T politics: A new direction? - Caribbean360 Oct 01, 2010 http://kris-rampersad.blogspot.com/
Others: Demokrissy: Old Casked Rum: The Emperor's New Tools#1 ...
Apr 07, 2013
Old Casked Rum: The Emperor's New Tools#1 - Towards Constitutional Reform in T&T. So we've had the rounds of consultations on Constitutional Reform? Are we any wiser? Do we have a sense of direction that will drive ...
http://kris-rampersad.blogspot.com/
Demokrissy: Valuing Carnival The Emperor's New Tools#2
Apr 30, 2013
Valuing Carnival The Emperor's New Tools#2.
http://kris-rampersad.blogspot.com/
Wave a flag for a party rag...Choosing the Emperor's New ...
Oct 20, 2013
Choosing the Emperor's New Troops. The dilemma of choice. Voting is supposed to be an ... Old Casked Rum: The Emperor's New Tools#1 - Towards Constitutional Reform in T&T. Posted by Kris Rampersad at 10:36 AM ...
http://kris-rampersad.blogspot.com/
Demokrissy: Carnivalising the Constitution People Power ...
Feb 26, 2014
This Demokrissy series, The Emperor's New Tools, continues and builds on the analysis of evolution in our governance, begun in the introduction to my book, Through the Political Glass Ceiling (2010): The Clash of Political ...
http://kris-rampersad.blogspot.com/
Envisioning outside-the-island-box ... - Demokrissy - Blogger
Feb 10, 2014
This Demokrissy series, The Emperor's New Tools, continues and builds on the analysis of evolution in our governance, begun in the introduction to my book, Through the Political Glass Ceiling (2010): The Clash of Political ...
http://kris-rampersad.blogspot.com/
Demokrissy: Futuring the Post-2015 UNESCO Agenda
Apr 22, 2014
It is placing increasing pressure for erasure of barriers of geography, age, ethnicity, gender, cultures and other sectoral interests, and in utilising the tools placed at our disposal to access our accumulate knowledge and technologies towards eroding these superficial barriers. In this context, we believe that the work of UNESCO remains significant and relevant and that UNESCO is indeed the institution best positioned to consolidate the ..... The Emperor's New Tools ...
http://kris-rampersad.blogspot.com/
Demokrissy: Cutting edge journalism
Jun 15, 2010
The Emperor's New Tools. Loading... AddThis. Bookmark and Share. Loading... Follow by Email. About Me. My Photo · Kris Rampersad. Media, Cultural and Literary Consultant, Facilitator, Educator and Practitioner. View my ...
http://kris-rampersad.blogspot.com/
Creating Centres of Peace in Trinidad and Tobago
The Price of Independence:#DanaSeetahalAssassination
Conceive. Achieve. Believe
Demokrissy: Wave a flag for a party rag...Choosing the Emperor's ...
Oct 20, 2013 Choosing the Emperor's New Troops. The dilemma of choice. Voting is supposed to be an exercise in thoughtful, studied choice. Local government is the foundation for good governance so even if one wants to reform the ... http://kris-rampersad.blogspot.com/
Old Casked Rum: The Emperor's New Tools#1 - Demokrissy - Blogger
Apr 07, 2013 Old Casked Rum: The Emperor's New Tools#1 - Towards Constitutional Reform in T&T. So we've had the rounds of consultations on Constitutional Reform? Are we any wiser? Do we have a sense of direction that will drive ...http://kris-rampersad.blogspot.com/
Demokrissy: Valuing Carnival The Emperor's New Tools#2
Apr 30, 2013 Valuing Carnival The Emperor's New Tools#2....http://kris-rampersad.blogspot.com/
See Also:
Demokrissy: Winds of Political Change - Dawn of T&T's Arab Spring
Jul 30, 2013 Wherever these breezes have passed, they have left in their wake wide ranging social and political changes: one the one hand toppling long time leaders with rising decibels from previously suppressed peoples demanding a ...http://kris-rampersad.blogspot.com/
Demokrissy: Reform, Conform, Perform or None of the Above cross ...
Oct 25, 2013 Some 50 percent did not vote. The local government elections results lends further proof of the discussion began in Clash of Political Cultures: Cultural Diversity and Minority Politics in Trinidad and Tobago in Through The ...http://kris-rampersad.blogspot.com/
Demokrissy: Sounds of a party - a political party
Oct 14, 2013 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. http://kris-rampersad.blogspot.com/
Demokrissy: T&T Constitution the culprit | The Trinidad Guardian
Jun 15, 2010 T&T Constitution the culprit | The Trinidad Guardian · T&T Constitution the culprit | The Trinidad Guardian. Posted by Kris Rampersad at 8:20 AM · Email ThisBlogThis!Share to TwitterShare to Facebook ...http://kris-rampersad.blogspot.com/
Related:
Demokrissy: To vote, just how we party … Towards culturally ...
Apr 30, 2010 'How we vote is not how we party.' At 'all inclusive' fetes and other forums, we nod in inebriated wisdom to calypsonian David Rudder's elucidation of the paradoxical political vs. social realities of Trinidad and Tobago. http://kris-rampersad.blogspot.com/
Demokrissy: DEADLOCK: Sign of things to come
Oct 29, 2013 An indication that unless we devise innovative ways to address representation of our diversity, we will find ourselves in various forms of deadlock at the polls that throw us into a spiral of political tug of war albeit with not just ...http://kris-rampersad.blogspot.com/
Demokrissy: The human face of constitutional reform
Oct 16, 2013 Sheilah was clearly and sharply articulating the deficiencies in governmesaw her: a tinymite elderly woman, gracefully wrinkled, deeply over with concerns about political and institutional stagnation but brimming over with ... http://kris-rampersad.blogspot.com/
Demokrissy: Trini politics is d best
Oct 21, 2013 Ain't Trini politics d BEST! Nobody fighting because they lose. All parties claiming victory, all voting citizens won! That's what make we Carnival d best street party in the world. Everyone are winners because we all like ...http://kris-rampersad.blogspot.com/
New Media, New Civil Society, and Politics in a New Age - Demokrissy
Jan 09, 2012 New Media, New Civil Society, and Politics in a New Age | The Communication Initiative Network. New Media, New Civil Society, and Politics in a New Age | The Communication Initiative Network. Posted by Kris Rampersad ...http://kris-rampersad.blogspot.com/
Demokrissy: T&T politics: A new direction? - Caribbean360 Oct 01, 2010 http://kris-rampersad.blogspot.com/
Oct 20, 2013 Choosing the Emperor's New Troops. The dilemma of choice. Voting is supposed to be an exercise in thoughtful, studied choice. Local government is the foundation for good governance so even if one wants to reform the ... http://kris-rampersad.blogspot.com/
Old Casked Rum: The Emperor's New Tools#1 - Demokrissy - Blogger
Apr 07, 2013 Old Casked Rum: The Emperor's New Tools#1 - Towards Constitutional Reform in T&T. So we've had the rounds of consultations on Constitutional Reform? Are we any wiser? Do we have a sense of direction that will drive ...http://kris-rampersad.blogspot.com/
Demokrissy: Valuing Carnival The Emperor's New Tools#2
Apr 30, 2013 Valuing Carnival The Emperor's New Tools#2....http://kris-rampersad.blogspot.com/
See Also:
Demokrissy: Winds of Political Change - Dawn of T&T's Arab Spring
Jul 30, 2013 Wherever these breezes have passed, they have left in their wake wide ranging social and political changes: one the one hand toppling long time leaders with rising decibels from previously suppressed peoples demanding a ...http://kris-rampersad.blogspot.com/
Demokrissy: Reform, Conform, Perform or None of the Above cross ...
Oct 25, 2013 Some 50 percent did not vote. The local government elections results lends further proof of the discussion began in Clash of Political Cultures: Cultural Diversity and Minority Politics in Trinidad and Tobago in Through The ...http://kris-rampersad.blogspot.com/
Demokrissy: Sounds of a party - a political party
Oct 14, 2013 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. http://kris-rampersad.blogspot.com/
Demokrissy: T&T Constitution the culprit | The Trinidad Guardian
Jun 15, 2010 T&T Constitution the culprit | The Trinidad Guardian · T&T Constitution the culprit | The Trinidad Guardian. Posted by Kris Rampersad at 8:20 AM · Email ThisBlogThis!Share to TwitterShare to Facebook ...http://kris-rampersad.blogspot.com/
Related:
Demokrissy: To vote, just how we party … Towards culturally ...
Apr 30, 2010 'How we vote is not how we party.' At 'all inclusive' fetes and other forums, we nod in inebriated wisdom to calypsonian David Rudder's elucidation of the paradoxical political vs. social realities of Trinidad and Tobago. http://kris-rampersad.blogspot.com/
Demokrissy: DEADLOCK: Sign of things to come
Oct 29, 2013 An indication that unless we devise innovative ways to address representation of our diversity, we will find ourselves in various forms of deadlock at the polls that throw us into a spiral of political tug of war albeit with not just ...http://kris-rampersad.blogspot.com/
Demokrissy: The human face of constitutional reform
Oct 16, 2013 Sheilah was clearly and sharply articulating the deficiencies in governmesaw her: a tinymite elderly woman, gracefully wrinkled, deeply over with concerns about political and institutional stagnation but brimming over with ... http://kris-rampersad.blogspot.com/
Demokrissy: Trini politics is d best
Oct 21, 2013 Ain't Trini politics d BEST! Nobody fighting because they lose. All parties claiming victory, all voting citizens won! That's what make we Carnival d best street party in the world. Everyone are winners because we all like ...http://kris-rampersad.blogspot.com/
New Media, New Civil Society, and Politics in a New Age - Demokrissy
Jan 09, 2012 New Media, New Civil Society, and Politics in a New Age | The Communication Initiative Network. New Media, New Civil Society, and Politics in a New Age | The Communication Initiative Network. Posted by Kris Rampersad ...http://kris-rampersad.blogspot.com/
Demokrissy: T&T politics: A new direction? - Caribbean360 Oct 01, 2010 http://kris-rampersad.blogspot.com/
Others: Demokrissy: Old Casked Rum: The Emperor's New Tools#1 ...
Apr 07, 2013
Old Casked Rum: The Emperor's New Tools#1 - Towards Constitutional Reform in T&T. So we've had the rounds of consultations on Constitutional Reform? Are we any wiser? Do we have a sense of direction that will drive ...
http://kris-rampersad.blogspot.com/
Demokrissy: Valuing Carnival The Emperor's New Tools#2
Apr 30, 2013
Valuing Carnival The Emperor's New Tools#2.
http://kris-rampersad.blogspot.com/
Wave a flag for a party rag...Choosing the Emperor's New ...
Oct 20, 2013
Choosing the Emperor's New Troops. The dilemma of choice. Voting is supposed to be an ... Old Casked Rum: The Emperor's New Tools#1 - Towards Constitutional Reform in T&T. Posted by Kris Rampersad at 10:36 AM ...
http://kris-rampersad.blogspot.com/
Demokrissy: Carnivalising the Constitution People Power ...
Feb 26, 2014
This Demokrissy series, The Emperor's New Tools, continues and builds on the analysis of evolution in our governance, begun in the introduction to my book, Through the Political Glass Ceiling (2010): The Clash of Political ...
http://kris-rampersad.blogspot.com/
Envisioning outside-the-island-box ... - Demokrissy - Blogger
Feb 10, 2014
This Demokrissy series, The Emperor's New Tools, continues and builds on the analysis of evolution in our governance, begun in the introduction to my book, Through the Political Glass Ceiling (2010): The Clash of Political ...
http://kris-rampersad.blogspot.com/
Demokrissy: Futuring the Post-2015 UNESCO Agenda
Apr 22, 2014
It is placing increasing pressure for erasure of barriers of geography, age, ethnicity, gender, cultures and other sectoral interests, and in utilising the tools placed at our disposal to access our accumulate knowledge and technologies towards eroding these superficial barriers. In this context, we believe that the work of UNESCO remains significant and relevant and that UNESCO is indeed the institution best positioned to consolidate the ..... The Emperor's New Tools ...
http://kris-rampersad.blogspot.com/
Demokrissy: Cutting edge journalism
Jun 15, 2010
The Emperor's New Tools. Loading... AddThis. Bookmark and Share. Loading... Follow by Email. About Me. My Photo · Kris Rampersad. Media, Cultural and Literary Consultant, Facilitator, Educator and Practitioner. View my ...
http://kris-rampersad.blogspot.com/
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