Notes from a small island A weblog by Jonathan Ali

Wednesday, April 30, 2003   Rosemary Brown, the first black woman to serve in the Canadian parliament and a Jamaican by birth, has died at the age of 72. Brown was a major women's rights campaigner in her adopted country throughout her career. A fellow activist, recalling her memories of Brown, quotes her as once saying, "To be black and female in a society which is both racist and sexist is to be in the unique position of having nowhere to go but up!" (Coincidentally, Diane Abbot, the first woman of colour to serve in the British parliament, is also of Jamaican heritage.) posted by Jonathan | 9:41 AM 0 comments Tuesday, April 29, 2003   Today's Boondocks comic strip, featuring Huey and Caesar in one of their typically searing political debates: Huey: Well, the American way of life is coming to Iraq. And you know what that means.... [Pause] Caesar: "Iraqi Girls Gone Wild"? Huey: "Iraqi Girls Gone Wild." posted by Jonathan | 1:57 PM 0 comments   Patrick Manning's already bloated cabinet is set to get even bigger with his announcement yesterday that a new minister, the 26th, will soon be appointed to government. Not only that, but the new minister will be a woman. The prime minister made the announcement yesterday at a women's conference. Does he honestly believe such blatant politicking and tokenism will fool anyone, least of all women? Of course he does, and it probably will. The new minister is set to take up some useless portfolio within the finance ministry, which is of course Manning's ministry - he'll be able to keep his eye on her, and make sure she doesn't get up to mischief. Not that he'd need to; any would-be minister in any T&T government these days is carefully screened to make sure they will toe the party line, which is the most important (sometimes only) qualification one needs. Manning claims that women in T&T have access to the highest offices. Well of course they do, in the sense that gender discrimination is unconstitutional, and women have equal right to any office. But they certainly don't have equal opportunity. Manning knows this. And he is being disingenuous when he says women have equal access to political office as men. A woman has never held any of the really substantial/lucrative government portfolios in this country: finance, energy, public utilities or trade. It's always been women's affairs (naturally), culture, sport, and of course education - the ministry where the PM's wife just happens to be. But if Manning is being insincere when it comes to women and political office, he's just plain ignorant when it comes to the issue of abuse against women. "When women aspire and achieve some level of financial growth and independence, they become victims of physical and physiological abuses by insecure men," he said at yesterday's conference, repeating an assertion he made some time ago and for which he was taken to task by various commentators. He doesn't seemed to have listened. All the available data shows that by and large women who achieve levels of empowerment are able to get away from, or will not submit to, abusive relationships; it is the financially dependent woman who is more likely to remain in such a situation. Manning's actions and his ignorance are nothing new, not for him, or the majority of our politicians. He certainly isn't to bear the blame for the disparity in gender equality in this country, not that he's doing anything truly effective about it. What is worrying though, is that many women - MPs, government senators and social activists of a certain political persuasion - who should be leading the charge to effect real change, won't and will be happy to allow themselves and those they claim to represent to be patronised by the prime minister; simply because, to put it politely, he is "one of them". Anyone who doubts this should have a look at the offensive photograph, from yesterday's conference, on the op-ed page of today's Express: a smiling Manning with his hand on the chin of feminist Hazel Brown, with this telling caption by the Express writer: "Ah could have you eating out of meh hand, anytime." posted by Jonathan | 10:06 AM 0 comments Monday, April 28, 2003   Late last year I read a book - such as it was - titled Murphy Unmasked, by Gwyneth Shand. I say "such as it was" since it wasn't really a book at all but a very slim confessional, of Shand's months in hospital battling cancer. However you define it, Murphy Unmasked was by far the best bit of prose published in Trinidad last year that I read; a limpid, unsentimental account of Shand's experiences, written without any false reticence, detailing the trials she underwent during her confinement. Through it all Shand kept (a sometimes morbid) sense of humour, and an optimism buoyed by her religious faith - though this was by no means a preachy or self-righteous volume. (It was also, indirectly, a severe indictment of this country's appalling public health service.) Today I learned that Gwyneth Shand died last Saturday, of a stroke. She was 48. Though I only knew her through Murphy Unmasked, for certain reasons I felt as if I was better acquainted with her than that, even intimately, beyond those brief pages, those handfuls of words. So throughout what will be a typically rushed, busy Monday, I will try as much as I can to keep this remarkable woman in my thoughts; a woman I never knew, and will never forget. posted by Jonathan | 9:25 AM 0 comments Saturday, April 26, 2003   Last evening I got a depressing reminder of why I hardly go out in this place anymore. I went with my friends visiting from England to a pub, just off the top of the Queen's Park Savannah, at the northern end of Port of Spain. It's a pub I used to frequent years ago; I enjoyed it for its relatively cosmopolitan, easy-going atmosphere and come-as-you-are policy, refreshing in a town dominated by its cliques and cabals and their various exclusive hang-outs. We turned up to find the place had been taken over by Australians, strays from the just-concluded Test match who were yet to make their way to Barbados for the next game. They had draped two huge flags, their national flag, and a green and yellow one with a boxing-gloved kangaroo on it, over the front of the pub. In front of this display they were playing some sort of game. A chalk circle had been drawn on the ground, and loud, beery lads and lasses were tossing an Australian coin within it, mixed wads of Trinidadian one, five, ten and twenty dollar bills in their hands, betting on the probability of it coming up heads or tails. (I'd noticed the Antipodean penchant for gambling before, during the one day I went to the Test match - they were having flutters on practically everything happening on the field.) I was reliably informed that the spectacle I was watching - which could have very well been mistaken by someone from afar as a cockfight - was legal in Australia, and commonplace in its pubs. No one seemed to notice or care that unauthorised gambling is illegal in this country, least of all my fellow countrymen (including one of the pub's owners) and women who had joined the Australians in their game. They say everyone has their price. In Trinidad & Tobago, if you're foreign and white, that price is almost always next-to-nothing. We will sell you our land, our resources, our heritage, our bodies, our dignity for a song and a smile, minstrel style. Historically it's been largely to Americans; now it seems as if a rewording of the Mighty Sparrow's famous calypso, "Jean & Dinah" is order: "The Yankees gone and the Aussies take over now." posted by Jonathan | 2:35 PM 0 comments   "That a society should actually embody its own professed principles is a utopian standard, in the sense that moral principles contradict the way things really are - and always will be. How things really are - and always will be - is neither all-evil nor all-good but deficient, inconsistent, inferior. Principles invite us to do something about the morass of contradictions in which we function morally. Principles invite us to clean up our act; to become intolerant of moral laxity and compromise and cowardice and the turning away from what is upsetting: that secret gnawing of the heart that tells us that what we are doing is not right, and so counsels us that we'd be better off just not thinking about it." - From "The Power of Principle" a brilliant essay by Susan Sontag, in today's UK Guardian Review, and adapted from a speech Sontag gave just over a month ago, at the presentation of an award to the chairman of a group of Jewish soldiers, the Yesh Gvul, which refuses to serve beyond Israel's 1967 borders. This essay, better than most everything I've read on recent events, cogently and clinically sets out the arguments against the yet-to-be-concluded war in Iraq, as well as Israel's continued occupation of the Palestinian Territories. posted by Jonathan | 1:41 PM 0 comments Wednesday, April 23, 2003   Finally. posted by Jonathan | 1:12 PM 0 comments   Nicholas beat me to the punch this morning in wishing dear Mr. Will Shakespeare a happy (439th?) birthday, and he stole the sonnet I was going to quote, to boot! Anyway, today is generally held to be Shakespeare's DOB. It is also generally held to be the day he died in 1616, along with Miguel de Cervantes, though some say he died on April 22 (Spain was using the Gregorian calendar at the time and England, the Julian, hence the possible discrepancy). Of course there is the theory (not widely held, but still utterly fascinating) that Shakespeare and Cervantes were one and the same person, namely Francis Bacon. Francis Carr of the Shakespeare Authorship Information Centre offers the following compelling evidence: "Over and over again in Don Quixote -- 33 times in fact -- we are told that the real author is an Arab historian, Cid Hamet Benengeli. There is no such person. Cid is a Spanish title, a lord; it is a word of high esteem. Hamet is one letter short of Hamlet; Ben is Hebrew for son, Engeli could mean of England. I will not take you into the complicated world of cipher, but the simplest of all ciphers is the numerical one, in which A is 1, B is 2, C is 3 - and so on. If you turn BACON into a number, using this cipher, it would be 2,1,3,14,13, which, added up, makes 33. Why repeat 33 times in a single novel that the real author is a non-existent historian with a strange name?" Why, indeed? Anyway, whatever the speculation, considering Shakespeare and Cervantes are generally held to have died on this day, and also possibly because Wordsworth also shuffled off his mortal coil on April 23, today was declared by UNESCO World Book Day. posted by Jonathan | 9:38 AM 0 comments   I'm surprised Nicholas is yet to blog about this: Jamaica's third annual Calabash Literary Festival is set to come off, from May 23-25. Here's the NY Times' entry on the festival. Derek Walcott will headline the festival. Also set to appear are 2001 Village Voice "Writer on the Verge" Nelly Rosario of the Dominican Republic (Is she still on the verge after two years? And speaking of Dominican writers on the verge, whatever happened to Junot Diaz?), Nalo Hopkinson and Adziko Simba, who happens to be a friend of mine. And making her debut as a "spoken word" poet will be the First Lady of Dancehall, Marion Hall, aka Lady Saw. posted by Jonathan | 1:50 AM 0 comments   Another post about a post about a post Back to Damien's comments about the post by Edward and reply from Seldo on being expatriates. This time it's Damien's take on marketing Trinidadian culture, especially its music. To begin with, I'm not much of a fan of most indigenous music. I like good calypso, but there isn't much of that these days. Soca has taken over, and I can't stand soca. I don't care much for steelpan either. But I do recognise their relative importance; well, the importance of steelpan at any rate: the social function of the steel band, and the pan yard, cannot be underestimated in this society. This isn't to say that I'm averse to changing the "people's culture". People can do what they want with soca; it's vapid nonsense with lyrics (if one could call them that) that one can't decipher most of the time anyway. (Good luck trying to market that.) As for pan, well, when comparing it with American folk music, which Damien quotes another blogger as saying is "heavy on the fiddle, heavy on the harmonies, and light on the rehearsal time" he is very much mistaken. Any pan composer or arranger can tell you the months of work that goes into preparation of a steel band and its musical composition for the annual Panorama competition; of the intricate arrangement of the different pans - tenor, double tenor, guitar, cello, bass, percussion, not unlike arranging instruments in an orchestra. (The fact that the end result sounds like noise to me is another matter entirely). How exactly pan can be marketed, made more accessible, when, like classical music, it isn't exactly a "popular" form of music to begin with, is beyond me. But the question of making calypso, as distinct from soca, more professional, is another matter entirely. What so many people - supposed cultural and calypso "experts" included, fail to grasp is that the essential nature of calypso defies any real sort of professionalisation. Again, this is not a matter of resisting change to the "people's culture". Though I don't agree entirely with what he says, VS Naipaul's take on calypso in The Middle Passage pretty much sums up the issue: "It is only in the calypso that the Trinidadian touches reality. The calypso is a purely local form. No song composed outside Trinidad is a calypso. The calypso deals with local incidents, local attitudes, and it does so in a local language. The pure calypso, the best calypso, is incomprehensible to the outsider. Wit and verbal conceits are fundamental; without them no song, no matter how good the music, however well sung, can be judged a calypso." "You can't necessarily grow and stay as you are," says Damien, and I agree. But we have to realise where we can realistically expect growth, and where we shouldn't. For the most part, I don't think our music is such a place. posted by Jonathan | 1:00 AM 0 comments Tuesday, April 22, 2003   A post about a post about a post Damien over at Indiawest responds (no direct link to the post, my permalinks are still on the lam) to a post from Edward at Free Trinidad, and a reply by Seldo, on being expatriates. The economist that he is, Damien focuses on Edward's and Seldo's comments about the economic opportunities afforded them abroad, unavailable here in Trinidad. Yet quite apart from the brain drain issue is a cultural issue, one that Seldo touches on but that Damien doesn't, though I'm sure he agrees with it: "The other more general cultural factor is the insular nature of Trinidadian society. Now, this is not Trinidad's fault. All nations, no matter what size, regard matters within their own country as being of disproportionate importance to those outside. However, this effect is magnified by the size of Trinidad's population. In Trinidad, I would never be judged solely on my merits: I would always be the son of X, nephew of Y who had an outside child with Z. I can never meet a stranger in Trinidad -- they will always know someone who knows me, or my parents, or my brothers. There's no escaping it, and no cure. It's claustrophobic, and I don't want to live like that." As much as I deplore the lack of truly fulfilling professional outlets for creativity in this country, what frustrates me, on a personal level, more than anything else is the fact that no matter where you go, it's the same people, incestuously doing the same things (and with the same people), over and over and over. One quickly exhausts (and is exhausted by) the social and cultural circles. As Seldo says, this is not Trinidad's fault. Yet I can't but think of those years spent as a student in London, when one could (and so often did) just pick up one's self and take the bus, the Tube, and go. There'd always be something new waiting to be explored, people to meet, experiences to be had. And while there's much of Trinidad I'm yet to see, no matter where I go here, there is always something to remind me of this island's limitations, of its limiting nature. Again, this is no one's fault, and I'm not making a complaint against anything or anyone (except perhaps myself, but that's another matter entirely). Many of the limiting factors, such as size, are of course permanent, but there are things that can change. Therein lies the challenge, for those of us who are here: to accept the things we cannot change, and, as Sisyphean a task as it might seem, to do something about the things we can. posted by Jonathan | 1:32 PM 0 comments   From our listening: Mary Jo, sitting alone Drinking tea, she just got home She wants - I don't know what you want Mary Jo, living alone Drinking gin with the telly on She wants The night to follow day and back again She doesn't want to sleep Well who could blame her if she wants The night to follow day and back again She doesn't want to sleep Well who could blame her, if she sleeps Well who could blame her, if she sleeps Well who could blame her, if she's sleeping Mary Jo, back with yourself For company, keep telling yourself you're young It'll happen soon Mary Jo, no one can see What you've been through Now you've got love to burn It's someone else's turn to go through hell Now you can see them come from fifty yards Yeah you can tell It's someone else's turn to take a fall And now you are the one who's strong enough to help them The one who's strong enough to help them The one who's strong enough to help them all Mary Jo, you're looking thin You're reading a book, 'The State I Am In' But oh, it doesn't help at all What you want is a cigarette And a thespian with a caravanette in Hull Your life is never dull in your dreams A pity that it never seems to work the way you see it Life is never dull in your dreams A sorry tale of action and the men you left for Women, and the men you left for Intrigue, and the men you left for dead. - "Mary Jo" by Belle & Sebastian, from the 1996 album, Tigermilk. posted by Jonathan | 9:17 AM 0 comments Monday, April 21, 2003   One issue I don't think I've ever blogged about, at least not from a personal point of view, is race. Today I witnessed an incident that gives some anecdotal insight into an issue that affects us all, but one that we're often loath to openly talk about. I was with a friend, who happens to be white, a fellow from my secondary school days, who lives in London and is home for a few weeks' holiday. We were riding in a boat, travelling, in local parlance, "down the islands", heading to one of the little islets just off Trinidad's north-west peninsula, between the island and Venezuela, in a strait known as the Dragon's Mouth - Boca del Dragon, Columbus had named it. We were heading to a little weekend holiday house owned by my friend's grandparents. With us were my friend's mother and his English (and white) girlfriend. Just after lunchtime. The sun overhead in an almost cloudless sky. The sea a deep turquoise, equal parts dark green and blue; it sprayed up into the speeding pleasure craft. As we approached the islet we noticed another boat, off the jetty that belonged to my friend's grandparents. It appeared as if it was attempting to pull up onto the little, pebbly man-made beach to the right of the jetty. It also appeared as if its occupants were, to a person, not white: black, Indian, mixed. "What are they doing?" my friend's mother said. "Looks as if they want to land on the beach," my friend said. "They can't do that," his mother said. As we pulled up to the jetty the other boat was pulling away, heading out into the open water. It was then that my friend's mother noticed one of the men on board as being connected to the holiday house, the caretaker perhaps. With him, and all the others in the boat was a little white girl, my friend's mother's niece, her brother's daughter. We moored the boat and got out. A large, newish-looking plastic sign posted on the jetty read: "PRIVATE PROPERTY. KEEP OUT. BEWARE OF DOGS." My friend's uncle, who was staying with his family at the house for the long Easter weekend, came down to greet us, and we followed him from the jetty, up the hill that led to the house, tucked away behind a screen of trees. We sat in the verandah, me, my friend, his mother, his girlfriend, my friend's uncle, the uncle's wife. After pleasantries were exchanged and drinks passed around, my friend's mother lapsed into dialect and began animatedly to relate what had just happened. She ended the story: "And then I see Julia in the boat with a set of Creole!" Instantly her hand went to her mouth, and she turned quickly towards me, an expression of shock on her face. Her brother, a loud, robust man, perhaps not even noticing the gaffe, went right on to talk about his little daughter, of her independent and impudent spirit, in effect declaring that he had no problem whatsoever with her going for a boat ride "with a set of Creole." Well, neither did I, nor did I see the need for my friend's mother to be embarrassed by what she'd said. I found it slightly amusing and ironic that she would be, though, and not just because she felt I might be offended by her use of the word Creole, a word with an almost infinite number of meanings (none of them offensive), a word that could be used to describe even her. I was amused because what I'd just seen was behaviour not exclusive to white people in Trinidad, though I could understand why whites would not want to be seen engaging in such talk. But really, change the race of the people having the discussion, the circumstances of the story, the epithet, and you could be describing a characteristic of every racial group in Trinidad. Have I not myself, when in the company of my own family, heard talk about "the white people" or "the Syrian and them" or "them Negroes" or "the Chinee people"? And I have no doubt the same sort of talk goes on in other places where people of one race or another are gathered, and "the Indians" then become the subject of conversation. To write with such casualness is not to condone such behaviour. Nor is it to condemn it. It is simply to acknowledge a particular national trait, birthed in our colonial past. It is a phenomenon at once both simple and complex, one that still holds strong, even in this anodyne, politically correct age. In essence it has to do with the harsh colonial mentality of not allowing anyone else dignity, of seeing everyone as being in the same leaky boat as yourself. Since no one was exempt from being lampooned - not even the white masters - the result was that, in the main, and once you weren't being genuinely offensive, no one's pride was damaged. In any case, there was no such thing as racial pride to be damaged. No solid notion of racial consciousness had as yet been formed. Of course, now we're up to our ears in racial pride - almost exclusively African and Indian - which has more to do with politics than it does with any genuine concern for ancestral heritage. But peel away that flimsy layer and beneath is the true Trinidadian, who, regardless of his race, and whether he wishes to admit it, or even if he doesn't realise it, is the same as everyone else: a Creole. posted by Jonathan | 1:45 AM 0 comments Sunday, April 20, 2003   Lord, who created man in wealth and store, Though foolish he lost the same, Decaying more and more, Till he became Most poore: With Thee O let me rise As larks, harmoniously, And sing this day thy victories: Then shall fall further the flight in me. My tender age in sorrow did beginne: And still with sicknesses and shame Thou didst so punish sinne That I became Most thinne. With thee let me combine And feel this day thy victorie: For if I imp my wing on thine, Affliction shall advance the flight in me. - My Easter morning offering, "Easter-wings" by George Herbert. (The lines were originally typed centred and printed vertically to represent wings on the page.) posted by Jonathan | 9:37 AM 0 comments Saturday, April 19, 2003   "...does it really make any difference to faith whether the resurrection was physical or not? "I'd say the language about it in the New Testament is neither scientific nor philosophical, but religious - a poetic narrative about the hardiness and indestructibility of Christ's self-giving love." ----------------------- "If it was just his spirit that lived on beyond the grave, we'd be able to reduce Christianity just to saving souls for Heaven. There's an inextricable link between the physical resurrection and social justice. The bodily resurrection shows God's commitment to the material world as well as the spiritual - both have a place in his purposes." - From an email exchange between Canon Brian Mountford, Vicar of St Mary the Virgin, Oxford, and Rt Revd James Jones, Bishop of Liverpool in today's UK Guardian. posted by Jonathan | 2:27 PM 0 comments Friday, April 18, 2003   I read with interest the trenchant analysis of the Iraq war at Free Trinidad between Seldo and his friend Ben, which Nicholas (whose permalinks I can't seem to access - I suspect it's a problem inherent to my blog, as people can't seem to access mine) thought to be more intelligent than anything in the local media on the issue. Seldo argues that the invasion of Iraq was justified, not because of any supposed terror threat, or non-existent WMD, or not even because of a desire to free the Iraqi people. No, Seldo believes the war was justified because of the real reason it was waged: American self-interest. If nothing else, I admire his forthrightness in calling a cruise missile a cruise missile. And to a large extent I can see his point. Many of America's interests aren't inherently in opposition to Iraq's or the world's interests. The war has removed Saddam Hussein and his tyrannical regime; with American interets taken into account, if a democratic government that fosters and protects basic human rights and individual freedoms can follow, and if the installation of such a government can also foster a better climate for peace and stability in the Middle East and across the globe, then I will say, as much as I opposed the war, it has brought much good. The problem is that neither Seldo nor anyone else can tell me with any real conviction that all these things are in store. If nothing else, history has shown us that unilateral, self-serving actions such as this one create more problems than they solve. For thousands of years the Middle East has been a staging ground for wars of conquest and domination; today, the region is as unstable and volatile as at any period in its history. Even if you argue (which Seldo doesn't) that this was a war of liberation, not conquest or domination, to millions of Arabs and Muslims worldwide, it's all the same: Us against Them. With so many forces and divisions at play, divisions that even at this early juncture are showing themselves, how does the US realistically intend to implement democracy in Iraq? Saddam decided that totalitarian rule was the only way to keep Kurds, Shias and Sunnis all in check, with the Sunnis disproportionately enjoying the benefits of the country's resources. These divisions didn't crop up yesterday, which American democracy, relatively speaking, did. Though I don't discount the inherent advantages of a democratic system of government - as Winston Churchill said, democracy is the worst form of government, apart from everything else - it's going to take a lot more than a healthy serving of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness to cure what ails Iraq, the Middle East, and indeed much of the rest of the world. But more than this, what I opposed about the invasion of Iraq, quite apart from whether it was the right thing to do, was America's hypocrisy and deceit. I can take high-handedness and cocky swagger if at least you're being honest about your motives, though an honest man wouldn't normally need to resort to such tactics. But when you outright lie, as America has done, and continues to do, then your ends are secondary, and they cannot justify the means. This is not simply a point of ethics, though the question of morality is key. There's a much more pragmatic reason for wanting America to speak the truth, one that Seldo and anyone else who backs America on this discount at their peril: backlash. If America doesn't start being completely above board in its dealings and motives with other nations, then the terror threat that exists at present will turn into palpable, bloody reality. The peace that America seems so bent on establishing may paradoxically bring more war. "We find ourselves at the mercy of an imperialistic state, unmatched economically and militarily, with a clearly corrupt government elected under suspicious circumstances. That sucks," says Seldo. It not only sucks, but it pisses a hell of a lot of people off. Yes, America rules the world. I'm enough of a pragmatist to accept this, and enough of a lover of much of what culturally and materialistically it has to offer to not really be bothered by that fact. My sister resides in America, is married to an American. In terms of education, employment opportunities and standard of living (not just economic) the US has given her much more than T&T ever could have. Had I not gone to study in the UK my sister's route could easily have been mine. So I really have no problem with the fact that America's in charge. But millions upon millions of people worldwide do have a problem with that fact. This cannot be denied. It is true, as Seldo says, that the current American empire will fall as it has risen, that and the age of neo-colonialism that seems to be upon us will inevitably end. But the bloody damage to the gossamer-like fabric of global relations that seems quite likely to take place in the interim will count deeply against this empire, no matter how "nice" it is. posted by Jonathan | 11:56 PM 0 comments   I spent this Good Friday with my family. Not my immediate family - neither my father nor my sister lives in Trinidad - but my mother's family, my mother's siblings and their children, and my grandparents, at my grandparents' home up in the hills of St. Ann's. The significance of religious holidays is nil for me, though I do continue to abstain from eating meat on Good Fridays, probably the only religious practice (such as it is) that I maintain. It's not simply tradition, nor is it out of any residual anathema to the idea of partaking of animal flesh on the day that Christ was supposedly crucified. I guess one could call it an identity marker, a recognition of the fact that, though I no longer hold to its tenets, or take part in its observances or rituals, I was baptised and confirmed into the Christian faith. For although I have long given up any form of religious or spiritual belief, and all traces of resulting guilt have been bled away, the idea of religious identity still holds some sway over me, despite my current agnosticism. There's no rational reason for it, just a tenuous if absurd feeling of taking part in something bigger and older than myself, which, along with simple tradition (and fear) is the reason most believers believe, anyway. Therein of course lies the paradoxical problem with religion. Yes, it gives hope and comfort to billions in a world hard-pressed to offer better alternatives. But inherent in the comfort that religion offers is the belief that God is on your side, as Kevin Baldeosingh noted in yesterday's Express. We know all too well what such thinking leads to, has lead to, throughout history. Wars continue to be fought because of it, on battlefields, in classrooms, courtrooms, parliaments, and most serious of all, in minds. In Trinidad & Tobago we continue to be burdened by religious thinking, thinking that is not only often regressive, but outright dangerous, and that leads to the most absurd of actions. Our apathy and complaisance continue to encourage the doctrinaire effects of religious dogma, at all levels of society, in so many ways. How we engage this problem, taking all sides of the religious question into account is a question that, as I bite into one of my grandmother's hot cross buns, will remain before us for some time to come. posted by Jonathan | 9:40 PM 0 comments Wednesday, April 16, 2003   Scream & shout An update on my cover songs/remixes rant: I just heard a remix of the Beatles' "Twist & Shout". (I pause for the shock and disbelief to register.) "Twist & Shout" is a particular favourite of mine - I love Lennon's raspy vocal take - and this act of vandalism really makes me seethe. Whose idea was this? What in heaven's name was their intention? And most of all, who gave the okay for it to happen? The words "Beatles" and "remix" should never even appear in the same sentence, except to condemn any idea of meddling with the genius of the greatest pop band ever. Not that remixes aren't pointless, there are good ones out there (Fatboy Slim's remix of Cornershop's "Brimful of Asha" gave a healthy shot of groove to what was a rather torpid tune). But the Beatles? Whatever happened to the sound philosophy of not fixing broken things? To everyone complicit in this nefarious deed, apart from wishing you all a long, toasty repose in one the inner circles of hell, I pose the question Lennon himself once asked, in song, of roughly the same issue: How do you sleep? posted by Jonathan | 4:22 PM 0 comments Tuesday, April 15, 2003   The White Stripes, the Detroit rock duo I can't stop blogging about (because they're just so damned good) will be the musical guests on Late Night With Conan O'Brien on the NBC network next week. All of next week. That's right, from April 22-25, Jack and Meg White will be kicking out the jams every night on Late Night, which airs at 12:35 a.m. EST (with a re-broadcast at 7:30 p.m. EST on Comedy Central). "It's exciting to have a band as creative and relevant as The White Stripes at Late Night for a whole week," said O'Brien on what is an historic event not just for his show, but American network television as well. "In fact, they're staying at my apartment." All well and good, yet one can't help but wonder. Does this sudden, colossal stride into the mainstream herald a new revolution in pop music? Or, remembering how the last pop revolution ended, is this the beginning of the end for the Stripes as we know them? posted by Jonathan | 8:51 PM 0 comments   I have just discovered, via Nicholas, a blog called Free Trinidad, by Edward Parillon in New York. That makes at least five Trinidadians in the Blogosphere; all of whom, if I may be so bold to say, have a real interest in engaging the issues that confront us in T&T and the Caribbean (yes, even you Jessie). As Lloyd Best reminded us last evening in the Chatroom on TV6, discourse is the first step to reconstituting the society, the key to initiating change. Without ascribing any grand aims to the practice, I'd like to think that blogging could form a viable element of that discourse. Let's see what happens. posted by Jonathan | 12:40 AM 0 comments Monday, April 14, 2003   For those of you who have been waiting with bated breath, it's finally here: the Guardian's feature on blogging (link good for one day only) which quotes from interviews with Nicholas Laughlin, Damien Smith and myself. posted by Jonathan | 1:57 AM 0 comments Sunday, April 13, 2003   Nicholas, who after a period of relative inactivity did a volcanic spurt of blogging today, disagrees with my contention that Georgetown, Guyana is the most beautiful of Caribbean capitals. He says St. George's, Grenada is. I have visted both cities, and the last time we broached the subject of Caribbean travel, I believe Nicholas had not been to either. But he may have since, and as my one and only visit to Georgetown was many years ago, it could well be that St. George's (which is a wonderful place) has surpassed Georgetown in aesthetic appeal; or as I suspect is more the case, that Georgetown has, sadly, moved down the list. One thing I do agree with Nicholas on is the recent spate of events in Cuba. Caribbean commentators and politicians continue to turn a blind eye to Fidel Castro's evil deeds. I'm sorry to have to disagree with my Castro-loving colleagues and friends, but the man is no less than a tyrant, a despot who tolerates no dissent, no matter the form or intent. Not to recognise this, or to blindly and stupidly praise Castro for his anti-American stance - whatever America's admitted faults in the matter may be - is at least disingeneous, at worst to side with tyranny. posted by Jonathan | 11:54 PM 0 comments   Today is Palm Sunday, the day on which Christians believe Jesus Christ rode into Jerusalem on an ass, the roadway strewn with palm leaves by his followers to mark his triumphant entry into the city. Christ had come promising freedom for the Israelites; in a matter of days he would be dead. Last week another would-be liberator triumphantly rode into another city in the Middle East. But unlike Christ, whose promise of freedom was not physical, but spiritual - a distinction the Israelites did not understand - this new liberator proclaims tangible freedom. True democracy. Peace. Stability. Prosperity. The images out of Baghdad over the past week have been as contrasting as they have been stark. One the one hand, joy and celebration, on the other, pain and chaos. The liberation of Baghdad. It certainly wasn't the liberation of Paris. No winsome madamoiselles tossing flowers to green-helmeted Joes riding on tanks. Nor crowds in their tens, hundreds of thousands lining the streets in a unified acknowledgment of gratitude. Just a few rag tag mobs pulling down statues, some sporadic dancing in the dusty streets. And of course, the looting. The looting, and in the hospitals, the dead and dying. Every war has its civilian casualties, innocents caught in the undiscriminating teeth of the machine. But not every war has worldwide media coverage 24-7. For every Iraqi child lying in a hospital bed with his limbs blown off, there are hundreds more like him in other conflicts around the world that no cameras are covering, that no one cares one jot about. For all the casualties, for all the anarchy and chaos that has rushed into the void created by Saddam's removal, the Iraqi people, according to one philosophy, are now free. The question is though: free to do what? Freedom is not a desirable end in and of itself. With freedom comes responsibility. Do Iraqis possess the responsibility to make good use of their freedom? Do they understand the burdens that freedom, the transition to democracy that is meant to take place, entail? (Do many of the so-called democratic nations even understand this?) They will learn, it will be said. They will learn, we (whoever "we" is is yet to be determined, and will be a contentious issue) will help them. And then, like dominoes, the other non-democratic regimes in the Arab world will fall, and those nations will also embrace democracy - perhaps (as it seems to be in the case of at least Syria), with a little help. But there is the other side. The other side that sees democracy, when uttered by Western tongues, as just another word for white American Christian Zionist imperialism. The other side that remembers this war started off as one to disarm Saddam. Then morphed into a charge to get Saddam. And only just recently, with, it seems, no WMD found, and perhaps never to be found, and with Saddam missing, he too perhaps never to be found, only now is it seen as a war of liberation. The other side that remembers history, and America's chequered involvement with it; that believes (with good reason) that this could be the start of a new age of imperialism. The other side that, one suspects, even if the United Nations had approved military action, would still have been opposed to, or at least been mightily uneasy about, an American-led force of Western nations occupying a major Arab (even if not Islamic) state. Yes, even though Iraq is not an Islamic state, though Saddam Hussein was no great upholder of Islam - in fact, quite the opposite, having murdered tens, hundreds of thousands of his own people, Muslim people, more than the invading coalition could have ever killed - despite that fact, many millions continue to see this, rightly or wrongly, as a war against Islam. These millions don't see the issue here as one of democracy. Or freedom. Or the end of tyranny. As much as that might mystify or enrage those who (genuinely) want to liberate those millions, that is the fact. To the millions, it is a case of Us against Them. East against West. Islam against Christian Zionism. Freedom? That's subjective. Tyranny? Yes, it exists, but it's our problem to deal with, or not. No, things aren't perfect, but we are an old and proud people and we have been dealing with these issues for hundreds, thousands of years. Leave us be. Get Israel to stop persecuting the Palestinians. Then we'll talk. Or not. The problem is this is the 21st century. Patience isn't the virtue it once was. Oil is now a major element of the equation. And of course there is 9/11, which no American has forgotten, and no Muslim will be allowed to forget. As I said in an earlier post, this war is over, or almost. This war. There's much more to follow. Christ was aware of that, even as the palm leaves were being laid down before him. We'd do well to recognise the same. posted by Jonathan | 1:10 PM 0 comments Saturday, April 12, 2003   It's not often that I spend a whole day more or less doing nothing, but after the hellish week at work I had, I felt I'd earned a day of indolence a la Keats. So I lounged in bed most of the time, reading some, but in the main watching the third day's coverage of the first Test against Australia taking place in gorgeous Georgetown. (Despite all of Guyana's problems, it continues to boast the most beautiful capital city in the English-speaking Caribbean, without a doubt.) It was an enjoyable day of cricket. The West Indies managed to bat through a whole day, posting an impressive 381 runs for the loss of just five wickets, keeping the redoubtable tandem of Jason Gillespie and Brett Lee at bay and recovering some honour after the poor first innings showing of 237. Captain Lara and his compatriot Daren Ganga each posted centuries, Lara's taking him to 19 Test tons in all and 2,000 Test runs against the mighty Antipodes. In the end he left the crease the only way Lara can when he's on song - by outing himself, hit wicket. Much has been made of the racial tensions and internecine violence in Guyana, and while things have eased up some recently, the situation remains an uneasy one. So it was good to see the crowd, Indian and African alike, enjoying the match, side by side, even if not exactly brothers and sisters in arms. Now I certainly don't have any illusions about cricket being the panacea for all that ails us in the Caribbean. But as I've written before, the game has done more than anything else to foster some sort of integration. Certainly it is, and will continue to be, a key component in the thrust for the forging of a Caribbean nation. I don't think anyone, even the non-cricket enthusiasts among us (you know who you are) will deny that. Right now, though, what's most important is that the West Indies go on to post a considerable lead and take this match to an exciting end on Monday. posted by Jonathan | 10:35 PM 0 comments   "I have a hunch that only a society such as ours in the Caribbean, transplanted from all corners of the continents, stands a chance of coping with diversity and dissent essentially without tears and entirely without the aid of jingoistic ideology or religion. Our great weakness lies of course in our history of not enjoying any ruling class in permanent settlement, dedicated to converting a mere locus of production and exploitation into a hearth and a home. Though we do have privileged and validating elites, the gangster state still predominates and anything goes. "We're still to form anything like a responsible officer corps capable even ensuring law and order or of conducting our cricket with competence and dignity let alone managing the more significant and sensitive portfolios. This is a proletarian society wholly bereft of founding ideas, indeed it has no ideas at all. "The noblest and therefore the most promising thing about us is therefore our almost innate catholicity, our open-mindedness to all promise." - Lloyd Best holding on to the dream, in today's Express posted by Jonathan | 6:53 PM 0 comments Friday, April 11, 2003   Run from cover I haven't had a good rant in ages. I haven't had many, actually, and anyway recently it's the war in Iraq that I've been blogging about (although Raymond Ramcharitar in today's Express thinks that us Iraq commentators should just shut the hell up. More on that later, perhaps). Anyway, I've been moved to vent today because of the recent onslaught of, not kidnappings, not gang-murders, but horrible cover songs on the radio. (Sorry, Raymond.) To begin with, I'm not much of a radio person. Unless I get a hankering for some good old-time calypso (and even that's hard to find) my stereo is always in CD mode. But I listen to the radio at the office, and while I'm inured to most of the effluence that pours out of the speakers, the increasing number of dire cover songs and pointless remixes is getting to be a bother. It's not that I'm against covers per se. In fact, I think one of the hallmarks of a good pop song, like a good play, is its interpretability. And some of the best-known versions of pop songs are covers: Aretha Franklin's definitive rendition of Wilson Pickett's "Respect" and Jimi Hendrix's amazing reworking of Bob Dylan's "All Along The Watchower", for example, are undisputed classics. And recently, Johnny Cash's bare, elegaic interpretation of Nine Inch Nails' hard-rocking "Hurt" (not to mention the haunting video that goes with it) is a reminder of how a good song, in the hands of a great artist, can be made even better. Would that I could say the same for most of the covers that get released, or rather, escape. Right now there are covers of the Doors' "Light My Fire" and German new-wave one-hit wonders Nena's "99 Luft Balloons", both done in an excruciating faux-reggae (reggae!) style that does nothing for either song; in fact, quite the opposite. Then there's those Texas Christian popsters Sixpence None the Richer with their bloodless versions of Crowded House's "Don't Dream It's Over", and even worse, the Las' "There She Goes", originally an ode to the dubious pleasures of heroin abuse, remade as a treacly, saccharine love ballad. At least Sixpence..., which has a female singer, didn't change the song to "There He Goes" to make it palatable to heterosexist tastes. What was Alanis Morrissette thinking when she changed the Police's "King Of Pain" to "Queen Of Pain"? And (speaking of the Police) whoever it was that decided that "Every Little Thing He Does Is Magic"? What was the point? Another tragedy is the fact that most people, never having heard the original versions of many of these songs, will assume the covers are the originals, or just not care either way - like people who see the movie but couldn't be bothered to read the book. Ultimately, though, if they couldn't care less, who am I? Let the sheep follow the shepherd that is the mainstream media to graze in the fields of pop culture blandness, as Rob Gordon down at Championship Vinyl might say. Radio is a sound salvation Radio is cleaning up the nation They say you'd better listen to the voice of reason But they don't give you any choice 'Cause they think that it's treason So you had better do what you were told You'd better listen to the radio... - Elvis Costello, "Radio, Radio" posted by Jonathan | 4:53 PM 0 comments Thursday, April 10, 2003   So. The coalition has taken Baghdad. Apart from pockets of resistance, they're in control throughout the country. Saddam Hussein's reign is ended. This war is over. The BBC's Rageh Omaar opined that we shouldn't overestimate the significance of the last 24 hours. Perhaps he was seeking to justify his own less-than-journalistic exuberance from before, when he was caught up with Baghdadis and American soldiers who were joyously pulling down a statue of Iraq's erstwile ruler. Or maybe he is right. And not just because 25 years of (one brand of) authoritarianism have come to an end. Maybe that image, of gum-chewing American soldiers draping the Stars and Stripes over the head of the statue of Saddam Hussein, an image that the world, East and West, North and South, saw live, will be looked back upon someday, and maybe someday soon, as a portent. But of what? If the past three weeks have taught us anything - and by "us" I mean those who were, in the main, against this war, but for the removal of Saddam Hussein - surely it's that things are greyer, more ambiguous, more uncertain than ever. Saddam Hussein is gone. Many Iraqis are happy. Some are indignant. Many - most, perhaps - are neither. Relieved, maybe even glad, that Saddam is no more; but finding it hard to accept that forces from America and Britain - who was once Iraq's colonial mistress - now in effect rule their nation. And perhaps this too is the sentiment throughout most of the Arab world; the feeling that yes, Saddam was a bastard, but he was our bastard, for us to deal with (or not, as was the case most of the time). Perhaps the governments in other non-democratic Arab states (ie all of them) are now fearing what they will call the white/Western/Christian/Israeli-influenced Americanisation, and what America will simply (and simplistically) call the democratisation, of the entire Arab/Muslim world. Perhaps this is the beginning of a new age. Again, what of, I've no clue. Or perhaps history will repeat itself, and America will hang around for a couple of years, and prop up a puppet regime; then perhaps there'll be a revolution, or they'll lose interest, and they'll pull out, as happened in Cuba, and in Haiti, and wherever else the US has left its mark. In the coming weeks and months, writers, journalists, commentators, academics, "experts" and politicians will be making grand pronouncements as to what lies ahead for Iraq, the Arab world and the human race. Civil war. World War III, Clash of Civilisations, New World Order, etc. They will end on a note of cautious optimism, or bleak realism, or else just state that what will happen "remains to be seen". (Well of course it "remains" to be seen. It hasn't happened yet.) As for your humble blogger, I'm with Elvis Costello on this one: Each time I feel like this inside There's one thing I want to know What's so funny 'bout peace, love and understanding? posted by Jonathan | 12:30 AM 0 comments Sunday, April 06, 2003   It's been hard to decipher truth from fiction in the Iraq invasion, on both sides. But when you see something for yourself, even if it is through a lens - a blood-smeared one at that - there's no denying, as cliché as it may be, the awful, brutal truth that no number of supposedly realistic war movies could prepare you for: that war is a terrible, terrible thing. And so there I sat, transfixed, at the report from BBC World Affairs Editor, John Simpson, reporting from the north of Iraq with the Kurdish and American forces, as "friendly fire" (such an innocuous, anodyne term) from an American jet hit the battalion Simpson was following. The camera man was injured; drops of his bright red blood spattered the camera and were messily wiped by unsteady fingers, smudging the lens. He was groaning, making an indescribably heart-sickening sound, as the camera tilted this way and that. Small explosions were going off all around him; soldiers were screaming, shouting, and John Simpson himself could be heard incoherently mumbling, as he and the camera man tried to get across to where their interpreter lay, a piece of shrapnel imbedded in his leg. (He was not to survive.) It was madness, sheer madness. There's no other word for it, nothing that could truly explain what happens in such a moment, and what it does to the minds (not to mention the bodies) of those who experience it. Forget, if you can, the attendant issues - the politics, the protests, generals in an air conditioned room giving a press conference - and try to focus on that moment: soldiers, a bomb, an explosion, smoke, metal piercing flesh, blood, screams. Somehow I don't think we really can, safe in our cozy, well-fed lives. At school, when they wanted to impress upon you the horrors of war, they taught you Owen's "Dulce et decorum est". And you were moved, and felt you knew what it was like to experience such horror. Yet after what I saw today, I don't know if the poet's words - or the filmmaker's pictures, or the singer's lyrics - could ever resonate the same way again. posted by Jonathan | 11:23 PM 0 comments Saturday, April 05, 2003   I haven't said anything much lately on the political situation. There hasn't been much to say. It's been, depressingly, politics as usual. But the following has just slipped into my inbox (thanks, Rhoda). For my non T&T readers, don't worry if you don't get it; neither do we. Why did the chicken cross the road? Prime Minister PATRICK MANNING It is a policy of my Government to allow chickens who have been historically alienated from the other side of the road to now have access to that side. I am presently in discussion with community leaders in the area to ensure that the chicken is able to cross safely. So the question just does not arise. In fact, ladies and gentlemen, if you observe carefully you can actually see pep in its step. National Security Minister HOWARD CHIN LEE It is a result of a holistic plan to allow chickens from everywhere to cross the road safely without fear of being kidnapped. I have instructed the police and army to ensure a safe crossing. We need to make the roads safe to cross again. If we were not so vigilant, the chicken may not have come this far. Opposition Leader BASDEO PANDAY Brothers and sisters, for so long the chicken has toiled in the vineyards of the other side of the road. It is the result of years of struggle against discrimination that the chicken can now cross the road. Opposition M.P. KELVIN RAMNATH If the chicken is crossing in central Trinidad, its safety cannot be guaranteed. Government M.P. KEITH ROWLEY The chicken is free to go anywhere. The other side of the road does not belong to you!!! Health Minister COLM IMBERT The chicken cannot cross the road. It is dead! Trade & Industry Minister KEN VALLEY It could run, but it can't hide!!! Team Unity Leader RAMESH MAHARAJ We would have to file for an injunction to prevent more chickens from crossing....otherwise there is the option of judicial review. House Speaker BARRY SINANAN It is not a matter of urgent public importance. Agriculture Minister JOHN RAHAEL The chicken has recognised the need for a restructured road and this action is clearly an indication by the chicken to voluntarily separate itself from one side to the other. Former President of the Republic A.N.R ROBINSON The chicken is clearly acting within the confines of the rule of law and the Constitution. I have no doubt that the decision to cross the road is based on moral and spiritual values. Opposition M.P. ADESH NANAN The chicken is showing that there is now a shift in the "pardigm". Education Minister HAZEL MANNING To join other chickens having their "breakfases". Government M.P. EDDIE HART To voter pad! Columnist KEVIN BALDEOSINGH This whole question is deviod of any factual substance, yet the ignorant masses continue to ponder on this abstract concept from age to age. If we are to analyse this issue logically, according to scientific thought, chickens cannot distinguish one side of the road from the other and hence, cannot determine on which side it is on in the first place. In his Theory of Relativity, the reknowned German physicist, Albert Einstein theorises that the chicken is already on the other side, depending on your (the observer’s) position. Hence the debate will automatically follow that the chicken is constantly crossing the road. This is clearly an argument to foster the illusive and baseless concepts of omnipotence and omnipresence. The logical conclusion is therefore: there is no chicken. posted by Jonathan | 6:34 AM 0 comments Friday, April 04, 2003   My friend Marc Lee Seyon, who hosts this blog's personal page, has just launched his latest online venture, Play Yuhself. Play Yuhself is a website dedicated to showcasing the sights of Trinidad's Carnival. It features over 200 photographs, all taken by Marc with his ultra-fancy digicam, of masqueraders in some of the largest Carnival bands from this year's celebrations. You may also contact Marc for high quality prints of the photographs on the site. (Speaking of which, Marc, how about tossing me a few for this plug?) posted by Jonathan | 1:25 PM 0 comments   "The bare, unpalatable truth remains inescapable: in the only sphere in which they were truly independent, and even though it goes against the grain of their wider political history, the West Indies have brought in a foreign white man to tell them what to do. "Theoretically, that ought to sting sharply. In the last few years, though, as they have watched their cricket go from bad to Bangladesh-being-a-worry, West Indians have become as pragmatic as they once were idealistic. Caribbean cricket is not yet out of trouble and it will escape that much sooner if it takes the best advice. The WICB is persuaded that such best advice is to be had from the place that has just produced the best cricket team of all time." - BC Pires seeing it my way in today's Guardian. posted by Jonathan | 7:48 AM 0 comments Thursday, April 03, 2003   Yesterday a group of 50 or so people marched through Port of Spain, protesting the lack of local music and television programming on local media, and demanding 50% local content on the radio and TV stations, as the Express reports. I'd really love to be more sympathetic to their plight. I'd love to see local art - literature, music, TV shows, theatre, what have you - gain more prominence, be embraced by more people. We need for it to happen. But when so much of what's on offer is piss poor, I can't in good conscience support this sort of affirmative action. As I've said before, it's not the what of your art as much as the how. I don't care if it's "local"; if it's crap - and goodness knows we're neck deep in the stuff - then it deserves the boot, not to be coddled and encouraged. As BC Pires wrote in the Guardian some weeks ago, the war against mediocrity is one of the greatest battles facing us culturally. Before we think of waging war on the airwaves, let's win that battle first. posted by Jonathan | 3:14 PM 0 comments   Tony Fraser in today's Guardian is up in arms over the decision to appoint Australian Bennett King as the new West Indies coach. (King hasn't officially been offered the job, but it seems to be merely a matter of time.) Fraser thinks the decision signals a reversion to the colonial era: "Having determined the West Indian condition to be colonial, dependent, steeped in the belief, despite persuasive evidence to the contrary, that foreign, preferably white foreign, is superior to anything we have produced here in these islands, [WICB president Wes] Hall and his board felt comfortable to heap the final indignity on West Indian cricket and civilisation. That is how Bennett King’s appointment must be viewed. "Fortunately, there is now to be an interval before the Australian is imposed. West Indians everywhere in the Diaspora must use the opportunity to escape that wretched condition of forever believing themselves, their creations and capability to be inferior. "Not to force Hall and his board to reverse their decision would be to accept that after 75 years as a Test playing nation the West Indies remains a colonial dependency." Now some would argue that we still are a colonial dependency, only the master nowadays is the US, not Britain. And yet others argue that things were better off under colonial rule, and that we've made a right hash of independence. Well those are two other matters entirely - and I really am not in the mood to explore them - but as to this Australian coach, I say congrats and good luck. I don't doubt much of what Fraser says isn't true. Our capacity for self-contempt in the Caribbean is astounding. But let's be honest here: West Indies cricket has been ailing for quite some time. Only within the last year have we showed signs of turning that much talked about corner, but there's still a long way to go. If it is thought that King is the man best suited to head the daunting task ahead of us, why should it really matter that he's Australian, or white? Fraser talks about the abundance of regional coaching talent. Well, I haven't seen it, and though it is quite possible that there are people here able to do the job, it doesn't seem as if they're willing. As for the invincibility of the West Indies in the 80s under Lloyds and Richards, it was the staggering, fortuituous abundance of talent during that time, more than anything else, that fed our domination of the cricket world. Yes, as Brian Lara noted, the question of instilling character - or passion, as I said in my last cricket post - is important, but that is an intangible quality that has to be nurtured by us as a people. Hiring a foreign/white coach does not preclude that from happening. I hope the players recognise this, and don't bring a foolish "Massa day done" attitude to the situation. Bennett King will undoubtedly give of his best; if our players give of theirs, it can only be to the benefit of West Indies cricket. posted by Jonathan | 2:06 PM 0 comments   Yesterday's UK Guardian carries an essay by Arundhati Roy on the war in Iraq. She slams the Bush/Blair coalition ("the coalition of the bullied and bought" she labels it), western neo-imperialism, US hegemony, arrogance and hypocrisy, etc. It's all passionately and persuasively argued, and I agree with almost everything she says. But. But in almost 4,000 words she can barely find 50 to criticise Saddam Hussein and all the other tyrannical dictators plaguing this world. "Dictators like Saddam Hussein, and all the other despots in the Middle East, in the central Asian republics, in Africa and Latin America... are a menace to their own people," she says on the matter, and nothing more. I've said it before: I'm against this war. But I'm equally against Saddam Hussein, Robert Mugabe and all the other tyrants who have destroyed their countries and people (yes, often with tacit western approval). We must be fair in our distribution of blame and criticism, see the whole, not be clouded by prejudice and shallow ideology. It may seem quixotic, but it's the only way forward. posted by Jonathan | 8:16 AM 0 comments Wednesday, April 02, 2003   Last evening I watched the second epside of TV6's new current affairs programme, Chatroom, hosted by lawyer/actress/all-round uber-woman Maxine Williams. This week's discussion was on that hot potato, abortion. The guests were a Roman Catholic priest and a member of ASPIRE, an NGO that advocates, among other things, the decriminalisation of abortion in T&T. Both parties had fair arguments (up to a point), and Williams asked searching and pointed questions of both sides, though I got the impression that she herself is pro-choice. (Having seen her star in the Vagina Monologues, it was hard not get that impression.) While both parties were able to agree that something needs to be done to halt the thousands of unsafe backstreet abortions that take place in this country every year, no one made mention of one glaring fact: that for the women who can afford it, abortion in essence is legal in T&T. It is patently unfair that this double-standard should be allowed to exist. If one set of women can access safe abortions in comfort and anonymity, then all women should have that right. Anyway, if last evening was any indication, Chatroom could go on to be a solid forum for intelligent debate in this country. Goodness knows we need it. Couple of suggestions: (1) a parallel online discussion and (2) Maxine, I don't know you, but it's quite clear you have a naturally bubbly personality. Nothing wrong with that, but you might want to think of toning it down just a tad. More Jeremy Paxman, a little less Oprah. You don't want the politicians - and they will come - thinking they can walk all over you, like they walk all over Errol Pilgrim and Sunil Ramdeen. posted by Jonathan | 3:46 PM 0 comments Tuesday, April 01, 2003   The big sports story of the past couple of days has been the re-appointment of Brian Lara as West Indies cricket captain. I have no opinion on the matter either way, really. I wish Lara the best in what at the best of times is a tough job; I hope his batting doesn't suffer as a result of his new responsibilities. (How could it get any worse, I hear some of you say.) What has interested me however is the appointment of the 22 year old Guyanese batsman Ramnaresh Sarwan as vice-captain. For the first time ever, I believe, the West Indies have made an official vice-captaincy appointment: a clear signal that Sarwan has been earmarked for the captaincy in a few years' time. Sarwan's playing abilities have never been in doubt. He is a prodigiously, precociously talented cricketer; he has also shown the mental discipline needed to shape his talents in order to succeed at cricket's top level. Whether he has the leadership skills to be a good captain remains to be seen, but what it seems he does have, in abundance, is the one thing that no amount of skill and talent (which are of course necessary) can replace: passion. The clearest example of this passion - and which, I believe, would have tipped the selectors' hand in favour of Sarwan's appointment - came in the recent World Cup when he was hit by the ball on his head while batting against Sri Lanka and knocked down, maybe even momentarily knocked unconscious. He was taken for a brain scan, which showed no damage, and returned to the match, coming out to bat not with a helmet on, but a cap. Victory was almost salvaged from what seemed a hopeless situation; in the end the West Indies lost by six runs, Sarwan not out on 47 from 44 balls. I'd like to think that Sarwan's actions that day reflected not simply his passion for the game of cricket, or his sense of duty, but something greater, something that feeds my love for this colonial pastime of wooden sticks and a leather ball and men running about a field more than anything else. And that is the idea of a single Caribbean nation. Cricket in the Caribbean has of course always gone beyond a boundary. With our colonial past, where (as Naipaul wrote) there were never any heroes and no one was accorded dignity, the cricketer was more than a man, cricket more than a game, and the West Indies more than a sports team. In many ways that hasn't changed, and neither has the dream of a united Caribbean, which I genuinely believe is more than simply desirable, but necessary. The West Indies cricket team, the most successful example of our generally shoddy attempts at Caribbean integration can be key to this unity, if only we would drop the petty rivalries and insularities and squabbling. Our cricketers can help lead where our politicians and so-called elites have failed us. I don't know if any of this is in the mind of Ramnaresh Sarwan. Or even if he accords the game the same importance that I give it. I hope he does, though. Whatever happens, I wish him the best in his future. For now, I wish him the best in the upcoming series against Australia; a century or two or three against Steve Waugh's men would do just nicely. posted by Jonathan | 11:09 PM 0 comments   Everybody's just loving the White Stripes. It's hard not to. They really are the best band I've heard in ages. The NME review of their new album, Elephant, gets carried away a bit, but it does well in exploring the slippery brilliance of Jack White, and his music: "Here are devious confusions between romantic and maternal love, a neurotic approach to the wiles of women, numerology, infantilism and, not least, some of the most obliteratingly brilliant rock'n'roll of our time.... "Musically honest - as in untainted by those hussies, computers - it may be. But Jack's definitions are slippery.... Confusion remains his most effective security blanket. The brother and sister legend still diverts attention from when he really exposes himself, and it's now augmented by a recurring smudge between sexual and motherly love.... "Is this Jack White at his most truthful? As a man unnerved and bewildered by women, who yearns for the certainties of childhood? He'd certainly like us to think so... 'Elephant' is full of songs that sound like their subject is sex and read like it's actually inadequacy. " 'Hypnotize' sees Jack trying desperately to control a woman, before he collapses into meek chivalry and pleads, "I want to hold your little hand if I can be so bold." On 'I Want To Be The Boy', all his attempts at courtly dating rituals end in failure. "It feels like everything I say is a lie," he mopes, pointedly. "If only girls behaved the way he wanted them to. 'There's No Home For You Here' finds him so frustrated with yet another volatile woman that the trivia of their affair becomes despicable. At times, this stereotyping of women becomes faintly unsavoury. But it smells like fiction... perhaps all those apparent flaws of fickleness and duplicity lie in the minds of men, not women. "Within his valve-driven little universe, Jack White is an extravagant drama queen... a fabulist and a showman. But he can also voice sweetness and torment with an intensity that most conventionally emotional songwriters would kill for. Critically, he can make you believe in his songs, at the same time as you don't believe a word of them. This, perhaps, is what great songwriters do. "And always, there's the implication that he can do more. Right now, the eloquence, barbarism, tenderness and sweat-drenched vitality of 'Elephant' make it the most fully-realised White Stripes album yet." When I get it, I'll let you know if I agree. posted by Jonathan | 4:05 PM 0 comments   Yeah, right. posted by Jonathan | 3:25 PM 0 comments   Raymond Ramcharitar reviews An Echo in the Bone, the play I wrote about a couple of days ago, in today's Express. I must say that I agree with Ramcharitar that the play isn't bad; it was the production that was a mess and made the play itself seem awful, too. Ramcharitar also laments, for the umpteenth time, the dire state of the arts in this country. But this time he's prepared to do something about it: "The problem is not as simple as inadequacy or incompetence; neither, I'm beginning to realise, is it dishonesty. It is more likely that these inadequacies are built in to, not only the system, but the institution - this isn't necessarily anyone's 'fault', but that doesn't absolve anyone of responsibility. "So in the all-too-likely event that no one, or too few, or the wrong people understand this, and the right people misunderstand it, I have a solution: gentlemen/women in charge of the CCFA [Centre for Creative & Festival Arts], I want to put my money where my mouth is. "I offer myself as a director of a play using the actors and physical resources of the CCFA. Clearly these reviews are serving no purpose but hurting feelings, which is not the intention. The intention is to educate and, in the spirit of that, I'm willing to try something new." Considering Ramcharitar's multiple run-ins with the CCFA in the past, I don't hold much hope of them taking up the gauntlet. Neither does Ramcharitar, I'm sure. But the challenge has been made, and it'll be interesting to see if anything is made of it. posted by Jonathan | 8:53 AM 0 comments		archives links Bina Shah Nicholas Laughlin Caribbean Free Radio Antilles StudioFilmClub Global Voices Jessie Girl Club Soda and Salt Caribbean Cricket Seldo Titilayo Jai Arjun Singh email me