carifesta fiasco

The Caribbean Festival of Creative Arts (CARIFESTA) was originally launched by an appeal from regional artists who were at the time participating in a Writers and Artists Convention in Georgetown, Guyana in 1970 and also coincided with Guyana's Co-operative Republican Status.

However Culture is not POLITRICKS ...

The first Carifesta was staged in Guyana in 1972, it has since been staged on eight occasions across the region, in Barbados , St Kitts & Nevis, Suriname, Jamaica, Cuba and Trinidad & Tobago on two occasions (1992 & 1995)

The Theme for this year's staging in Trinidad & Tobago will be:

CELEBRATING OUR PEOPLE: CONTESTING THE WORLD STAGE .

But clearly according to rumbles reported in the press-this festival is in danger of being a POLITICAL FOOTBALL...

Further developments suggest that there are erroneous plans to have as a central focus: a command performance by American Rapper: fifty cents!!! Now what has that to do with indigenous Caribbean cultural artforms is anyone's guess...???

We have inherited a lively survivalist oral tradition in Ska, Rocksteady, home grown-Jazz, Reggae, Punta, Merengue, Samba, Salsa, Zouk, Soca, Ragga, Kaiso, Chutney, Robber Talk and RAPSO...

We have our own thinkers philosophers, poets, artists playwrights & writers...

Yet some promoter was " inspired" to advise the "powers that be" to foot the bill of having the leading face in that highly offensive movie "GET RICH AND DIE TRYING".

However to this moment-Only one famed local artist/poet was vocal in his opposition to this dim idea.

Do RE-member the outcry this movie invoked..consider the highly offensive foreign lyrics of gansta rap plus the links to gun crime!!!! Those affected communities do not manufacture that deadly hardware! There were such loud opposition by targeted audiences due to the orgy of violence and negative stereotypes projected... So why should this leading star be featured? Whose interest does this serve? The financers? The advertisers? the politicians? the audiences?

what a joke.... Not a funny one though...

If carifesta IX is to succeed careful planning and REorganisation should take place. There is no shame in a postponement! But surely embrassing, if it falls on its face! NO POLITICIAN should be allowed to railroad nor control this vibrant legacy! This should not be about ELECTIONS- at local or central government level!!!!

The crime rate (including GUN related) spirals out of hand across the region (ref. Amnesty International).. Political stability at risk... A smelter planned against the wishes of citizens ...

may the ancestors provide those with wisdom

to influence otherwise...

CARIBBEAN FESTIVAL OF CREATIVE ARTS

CARIFESTA in turmoil !!!!

RRR has been reliably informed that problems are brewing for the staging within weeks of CARIFESTA in Port of Spain, Trinidad & Tobago, Caribbean.

Manic and frantic preparations are currently fraught with resignations, mis-communications or none at all, lack of co-ordination and more than likely disorganized events .

may the ancestors ensure that the festival is safe from the politricks

ya;ya

CARIBBEAN SURVIVAL

ANCESTOR TIM HECTOR

Caribbean integrationist, Pan-Africanist,

activist for freedom of the press,

Opposition Leader,

challenger of corruption

born: 24th November 1942

CROSSED OVER 2002

"The only basis for the Caribbean to survive from the Bahamas to Surinam, is as a regional state of forty million people embracing all language groups in the Caribbean acrchipelago"

An Interview with Tim Hector

Sir SHIRDATH RAMPHAL

former commonwealth secretary General

Born:October 1928

"In the interests of the Caribbean People, can the region or any of its parts afford: to sit on the sidelines of 'STAR WARS' when it knows that a nuclear winter will eclipse the tropical sun..."

Sir S. Ramphal

Caribbean Alternatives

War Correspondent now an ancestor

NANA KWESI ABAKAH KUNTU

Brother Dale Jones

Writer/Musician/ orator/ Truthsayer/poet

19th May 1946 - 8th August 2006

"Her hair is as dark as the night and the brightness of her eyes beacon into my dreams while cutting through the illusions surrounding my existence. Her Ebony skin gleams like fertile Afrikan soil that delivered the natural essence of life into our being. Deep into her consciousness she has the mind of a queen and the body of a goddess. SHE IS AFRIKA'S DAUGHTER domiciled in the cold winter that is Amerikkka"

AFRIKA'S DAUGHTER

Del Jones W.C.

Copyright-1989

Del Jones Books 'n Music

MAY THE ANCESTORS BE PLEASED WITH HIS EFFORTS

Smelter as planned would destroy heritage site

RRR was reliably informed today that the planned conversion of the South Western region of the Caribbean island of Trinidad (Republic of Trinidad & Tobago) for the SMELTER projects will erase many community facilities and places of worship. It will also destroy a cherished historic former free slave settlement known affectionately as Bourg Congo.

With mass displacement of several thousand local residents planned, here again is further proof that not only Human's safety and Health is at risk, but even the Cultural Heritage would be affected.

Opposition to these plans is gaining momentum across the country. Readers will be kept informed of related developments.