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Shut up and get real, T&T
Posted: Tuesday, May 7, 2002

By Peter Ray Blood

Following my article in last Tuesday's newspaper about Bunji Garlin's patriotic stand at the recent Togetherness concert at the Queen's Park Savannah, my e-mail inbox has been bursting at the seams with responses from across the Caribbean and further afield.

Today, I reproduce an excerpt of just one, from a Jamaican national, a senior citizen named Sandra Barnes who has lived in Trinidad for over 20 years. It is simply to give another perspective to this sensitive issue of insularity within Caricom.

The letter reads: "I had a good belly-laugh this morning when I read your headline 'Pan Shocker'. Serves you right Trinidad! All yu run de Yankees an let Sparrow take over, an look wh'appen now! Now there's another 'first' for Trinidad, Michael Anthony! In the next 10 years, nobody will even remember you invented it!

"Every time I read about Pan Trinbago moaning and groaning for more and more m-o-n-e-y, I am reminded of the National Dance Theatre Co of Jamaica.

"While the NDTC has moved from an amateur to a professional company, which has taken Caribbean dance to the world with its own choir and orchestra; has produced an illustrated documented history; built a training school for young dancers; owns an apartment building in which members can purchase or rent apartments; and its founder and principal dancer is now a professor and the Vice-Chancellor of the University of the West Indies, Pan Trinbagonians still chewin' chewin'-up desself and catchin' water at stan pipe!

"And every time I think of the NDTC, I am reminded of Beryl McBurnie. For it was Beryl who had come to Jamaica with her troupe to celebrate our tercentenary and lit us afire with the bright red flames of her original Caribbean dance style. And what have you done for her?

"You let her die in sickness and poverty while you went down de road to play you mas!. All you could manage, now that she ded and gorn, is a half-baked 'tribute' at uwee, while it hasn't even occurred to any of her former dancers to produce an illustrated book to document her extraordinary achievement for future generations.

(Editor's note: In fact former Little Carib dancer Molly Ahye did exactly that.)

"The real tribute to Beryl McBurnie is not to be found in Trinidad ­ it is in the Jamaica - in the NDTC!

"Now, four decades after her visit, and the developments in pan, Trinidad has money and talent to 'stone dawg wit!' but you prefer allyu robber talk. Then you could stop listening to CNN's relentless coverage of war and terror in the Middle East, and stop worrying about the fluctuations in oil prices!

"This is the New World, and we are privileged to live in it. And what are we all doing with this 'newness' that Columbus handed to us on a heliconia leaf? Turning it into the 'same ole khaki pants' as if, with all our financial resources and talented people, we can't think of anything more original and creative to do with it.

"You sit complacently on your galleries, chatting the same ole robber talk day after day, and allow a handful of people to tief yu oil-money, live in posh houses, drive Mercedes-Benz an' sen dem pickney to school in London, livin' in Kensington beside Vicontesses, while you still catching water at stan' pipe! It serve allyu right, oui!

"Born in Jamaica, I have lived in this country for over two decades and I am proud to claim Trinidad as my own, just as I do Jamaica and the rest of the Caribbean. But right now Trinidad, you are making me sick!

"You have the resources to make this country lead the entire Caribbean, but you choose to go down de road to play allyu mas; talking you stupid robber talk and not looking 'bout allyu business. So de Yankee gorn down de road and tek allyu pan wid dem! Shut up and get real Trinidad!"

I published this particular letter because it may come as a surprise to many Trinis that Jamaicans, at least those I know, are quite passionate about us. Depending on who you speak to in Kingston or Mandeville or Clarendon, you will realise that Jamaicans actually regard us as brothers and sisters.

While I will reiterate that, as it is in many a family, there are those who will not like a particular sibling for the most silly and infantile of reasons, there are some Jamaicans, and indeed others in other Caricom states who can't stand the best bone in a Trini's body, and vice versa. While Jamaicans may laugh at us for trying to outJamaicanise them, by and large, the one love spirit flows backward and forward through the Caribbean Sea.

I remember going to Jamaica in 1989 and from the moment I landed found myself at the receiving end of sordid allegations and abuse from well-meaning Jamaicans over T&T's loss to the USA on the Road to Italy. Jamaicans were as shattered and disappointed as we were when we threw away that golden opportunity to be the first team from the English-speaking Caribbean to make it to a World Cup final.

When Brian Lara was on his way to his record-breaking 375 runs score in Antigua, Jamaican and Barbadian friends alike continually called, making remarks like, "We boy going and do it today."

It is that same one love spirit that led my very good friend Dolores Robinson, who worked at the Jamaican High Commission, to include me in celebrations for coach Simoes, Capt Brown and the Reggae Boyz before they left to represent the Caribbean in the France World Cup of '98.

Bottom line, as Black Stalin sang:

"Is one race - the Caribbean Man
From the same place - the Caribbean Man
That make the same trip - Caribbean Man
On the same ship - The Caribbean Man."



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