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A Carnival of blood
Posted: Saturday, February 16, 2002
BELIEVE it or not, I missed Carnival. Voluntarily. I did Panorama on the track, and a sweet Jouvert with Phase Two and Invaders, then hopped a plane to Grenada. I did it for family reasons; but from what I've heard, it was a wise move. Carnival seems to have been pretty gruesome this year: three or four corpses, Bloody Monday in Sando, drive-by shootings in Laventille, hospital battle in Mayaro, and enough weapons seized by the police to start an export business. What's going on here?
Maybe my memory mis-serves me; but I don’t recall any Carnival in recent years featuring this much gore. In fact, I've been feeling pretty safe on the streets, even in the proletarian crush of Jouvert. But now, it seems we’re moving back to square one, and I don’t mean that musically. The big question: is this renewed surge of violence merely an unfortunate coincidence–three poor souls in the wrong place at the wrong time; or does it reflect a deeper, and even more unpleasant reality?
Pessimist that I generally am, I fear it's the latter. Maybe I’m blowing things out of proportion–it’s only three dead people, after all, out of the many thousands who jumped and wined. But the last few months have illustrated nothing if not the fact that in T&T, human life is becoming increasingly inconsequential.
The ambitious murderer is no longer content with just one victim: he's dispatching them three at a time, these days. The Cascade bloodbath, back in December, found its echo in the Debe carnage a week ago, when a couple was chopped to death even as they fled; and–as a lagniappe –their teenage son burnt to a crisp.
In neither of these cases was there any hint that the perpetrators felt the slightest twinge of pity, the faintest spark of compassion, for their hapless victims; nor, indeed, that they were even capable of such. And they are not the only ones: I'm sure that if I tried, I could come up with even more ghastly examples: mothers killing children , fathers killing mothers, children getting ready to take out their rage on all and sundry. What manner of citizens are we producing, in this “rainbow paradise” of ours?
One answer to that question can be found in the secondary schools, where Knifing 101 is apparently an obligatory course on the curriculum. Someone after your boyfriend? Stab her. Teacher being a pain? Stab him. Need to establish your “rank”? Stab somebody; that will get the message across. Meanwhile, our politicians– past, present and probably future–babble about more prayers in the schools, or more security guards, as if either of these will solve anything. It’s enough to make the rational citizen tear his hair out in frustration.
Listen. Let's face a few unpleasant facts. We are living in–we have created–a violent, ugly little society that has managed to acquire the worst aspects of many possible worlds, while discarding (or not yet attaining) the best. T&T in the past was a small, under-developed territory which, like many fitting this description, coped with the vicissitudes of life through a sense of humour, a spirit of camaraderie, a philosophical attitude that allowed people to help each other out without too much ado. True, a lot was lacking; but there was also a richness of relationships that many a bigger society might have envied. We were pretty much all in the soup together, and it lent a certain strength, a sense of community.
This is not a paean to primitivism: as Shadow once sang, poverty is hell, and I would never wish us back to the days of subjugation. But even as much has been gained in our mad rush to play catch-up with the developed world, much has also been lost; and I’m not convinced that we have necessarily come out ahead.
Yes, we (or some of us) have lots of money and extravagant cars, big jobs and bigger houses; yes, we have modern telecommunications and a fancy new airport. But much of this has come about by very questionable means: along with the trappings of First World-ism, we do not seem to have acquired the companion values, the checks and balances, the systems of enforcement, the sense of honour.
What we have achieved is more religiosity than religion, plus a shameful clique of well-heeled and power-hungry smartmen whose only true concern is themselves. For a classic example, we need look no further than Mr Manning’s holier-than-thou Cabinet, where, we are told, the most pressing item of business has been the ordering of tax-free luxury cars by arriviste Ministers.
Meanwhile, the vast majority of the population consists of permanently dispossessed “sufferers” who have been allowed few options besides bitterness and resentment. Is it any wonder that our young people can slash and burn with such utter inhumanity? Who is teaching them to be any better? Surely not the judges who jail the poor while generously allowing the more privileged classes to walk free on charges ranging from theft to poaching to manslaughter. What can our youth learn from a society which uses the exact same phrase (“put down a wuk”) to describe a legitimate job, sexual activity, and contract murder?
Let us face more facts. Neither prayers nor security systems will solve the problems in our schools; neither jails nor hangmen will stop the violence on our streets. Until we, the people, insist on a new and uncompromising public morality (as opposed to the glib “moral and spiritual values” that everyone is spouting these days)–until we demand accountability from our officials, honour from our businessmen, integrity from our professionals–we can expect nothing but anger and violence from our disadvantaged.
Carnival, with its exuberant beauty, is one form of salvation, yes. But it is ephemeral, fleeting. It’s what we do the rest of the year that will determine whether or not the national festival survives in triumph, or ends up being submerged in blood.
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