by By Rubadiri Victor
posted with expressed permission of the author
Last week Wednesday the Artists Coalition of Trinidad and Tobago (ACTT) launched The Guild of Masters under the patronage of President Prof George Maxwell Richards with the unveiling of a 30-foot Cedros hosay tadjah at OWTU on Henry Street. The guild is an institution created to rescue disappearing traditional local skill in a period where we're experiencing the death of our Golden Age generation.
We've lost more than 18,000 of 20,000 genius elders in the last 10 years. Because our political leadership hasn't seen it fit to document, collect, curate, and transmit T&T's legacy, dozens of traditions disappeared in the last decade.
ACTT estimates there are 144 traditions in danger of disappearing. These include skills like the engineering behind the best carnival King and Queen costumes pre-1985. There're about four artisans who have that knowledge left. A casual glance at the quality of our current king and queens is evidence of the collapse — not only in imagination but artisan skill. This is a direct result from our nation's refusal to institutionalise Legacy.
The 30-foot tadjah is the first artifact to be re-created. Our idea of the guild is: master elder artisans working with master apprentices re-creating masterworks whilst the entire process is recorded and codified.
Each part of that equation is important. It must be a 'master artisan'- holder of local classical skill. It must be 'master apprentices' — practitioners already versed in the craft or parallel skills — beginners cannot absorb, replicate, or be trusted to sustain age-old practices. It must be 'recreated masterpieces' because these contain remarkable coded processes and subtleties. The nation also benefits by acquiring phenomenal artifacts for contemplation and for exploitation as heritage. The last part is critical: the entire process must be recorded and codified faithfully. ACTT now has in its possession a university course worth of information about the construction of Cedros-style 30-foot tadjahs.
ACTT won the guild in the first two People's Partnership budgets. It wasn't implemented. In that period numerous prospective Guild leaders — and their multi-million dollar projects- died: Geraldine Connor; JaJah Onilu; Sullivan Walker; Bertie Marshall; Aldwyn Chow Lin On; Ralph Mac Donald; Wayne Berkley; Geraldo Vierra; and others. The cost of not passing on skill will be massive. In five years this country will witness the collapse and disappearance of many pillars of our collective identity...
These budget initiatives vanished in Budget 2012 — replaced by the unilateral shadowy creation of a Creative Industries Company (CIC) formed by the wrapping up of the Trinidad and Tobago Film Company, T&T Entertainment Company, the National Theatre Company, and the Fashion board. I revealed two weeks ago the board members' names: chairman Derek Chin of MovieTowne; Joe Pires of Caribbean Chemicals; Donna Chin Lee of the Normandie; and others. Only one person with knowledge of the sector is on the board — Christopher Laird of Banyan. Since making noise I've been offered a position...
The CIC is the wrong institutional model for this stage of our development. T&T requires more specialist agencies — not generalist ones. We require sector specialists in charge of boards, as CEOs, and in line-staff. Does Government appoint Black Stalin to head oil/gas boards? Then why appoint businessmen to creative boards?
The concept of a CIC was roundly rejected for Budget 2011 by the expert panel. It was the item which Pat Bishop gave her life fighting against. What this sector needs is the implementation of the 129 line-items from budgets 2010 and 2011. These were arrived at through consultation and provide the enablers to launch our sector into the modern age. This is based on a three-point programme: consolidation of heritage; incubation of artist and products; enabling entrepreneurial expansion.
We don't need a company clustering disparate things together — like dance and film — under the guise of entrepreneurship! That makes no sense! We need an agency to coordinate the entire span of processes- from heritage, incubation, to entrepreneurship — that understands how these pieces work together to fit into an industrial and spiritual whole.
We need boards that understand creativity as an organic personal act, as a collective communal one, and as a manifestation of national soul. And understands how individuals, communities, and nations have converted these impulses into economised product — with integrity. What this nation needs is not a CIC — but an Arts Council.
The Arts Council was approved in the first two Budgets as the vehicle for the roll-out of the 129 line-items to convert our annual 1.9 Billion dollar earning sector into a $6 billion earner in four short years. Thousands of citizens will migrate from the lower to middle class; many will become millionaires. There'll not be the obscene pre-meditated concentration of wealth, property, and control in the hands of a few — as many see as the CIC plan.
ACTT is calling on the Prime Minister to abort the CIC: put the diversification agenda of the nation back on-track with the roll-out of the Arts Council and Budget 2010 and 2011 proposals. Let's put the travesty of the CIC behind us, and get back to what matters. rubadiri@yahoo.com
* Rubadiri Victor is a
cultural activist and president of ACTT
Replies
Greetings: I have a beautiuful Tadjah on the cover of one of my books "why dem Mosquitoes Bite Meh So." As a kid I used to go from Point to Fullerton and Cedros to see Hosay and loved it then and I still do. Guidance Dr. Lance Seunarine
Thank you Victor very well stated, as a citizen of T&T living abroad and coming home yearly to share and stay connected to my source, roots, family etc. I find it increasingly difficult to find the collaboration I am productively contributing towards, which is incidentally what my soul is hungry to establish.
I am bombarded by my fellow countrymen with the other attitude, I call it, the one that's given up on all efforts to strengthen our homeland with the knowledge we left home seeking in the first place. The attitude that keeps us rivals, fighting over positions, that is ego based, which leads to nothing constructive or beneficial to anyone other than those who really don't give a flying *#!# about legacy, country, respect, love or honor for anything but themselves and what they perceive to be their successful business.( Mind you I don't know of any success that didn't both include or benefit others)
While I detest this selfish reasoning, I am gradually becoming numb myself and understand why others regrettably take this position. Ignorance or corruption seem to be the culprits in not realizing our potential and opportunities.
Globally we see the private sector in other countries benefitting from intellectual property, products and expertise without our direct involvement. T&T, would be better served if those products, services and expertise originated from and as a natural export of T&T.
The late Sir Ellis Clarke, in an interview with me before he died, urged me to acquire local investors and Government sponsorship for a viable business opportunity which will bring rewards to our shores in several ways, especially to the weakened spirit of our people who have generously given so much and are frustrated by the returns, however the red tape involved in just garnering a meeting with the correct audience is disheartening, a system set in place to prevent business rather than encourage it.
I am encouraged however by your letter, knowing your efforts, naturally you have my complete support since I have already started compiling the historical evidence that is our culture, since 2000. e.g. my 'Moments in Time' documentaries which feature our geniuses in their own words on film, look at Alwin Chow Lin On's, Maestro Junior Pouchet, here on WST.
Unfortunately a wealth of information is already gone with the dead, and we can and should capture the living elders while time allows. In a nutshell, save our culture if not for ourselves, for our children's sake in the very near future.
As I write this I am watching the clock tick away on opportunities that will benefit us as a nation both intellectually and financially; while waiting for grant applications that are already approved by the T&T government to continue their long path to fruition, I am contemplating offering the venture to the very private sector partners from other countries mentioned previously to ensure completion... as the saying goes "anytime is Trinidad time" however that beloved old saying is responsible for the loss of billions of dollars in lost revenue as we are traditionally not once, but twice late to the party.
Respectfully
Emile Borde
Contact info: steeldrum@earthlink.net
Our roots are from Charlie Combs who gave us Bats, Ken Morris the copper man, Cito Valasquez wire bender, the men that gave us all that Robber talk and Indian talk.
We have seen the Steelband driven out of carnival and is now just a side show, history will show that it's the PAN we gave to the world not Mas.
Mas men of today don't care about how it was done before, they are in it for the Dollars, every year it the same thing. I am afraid that 20 years from now Carnival will be only nude women goin down the road drunk and deaf from years of winin behind the DJ big truck.
We need to have a record of what our "Genius Elders' contributed to our culture.
THanks Mr. Rubadiri Victor,
Your education was well taken, will contact your E mail.
Sincerely,
Ian Franklin