Notes from a small island

Notes from a small island
A weblog by Jonathan Ali

Tuesday, November 29, 2005

Clive Bradley's genius lay in the fact that he knew exactly which soca or calypso melodies would sound best on pan (mostly, those of the late lamented Lord Kitchener), and he also knew exactly how to develop and elaborate them so that they could transcend pretty much every other Panorama arrangement. He had worked with Despers long enough to know exactly how to get the best effects out of the players and their instruments....

I don't think Bradley's work has ever been surpassed. It was never "surface" music, written for show and for easy impact; there was always meat in it too, always intelligence and substance, and at his best he could send shivers down anyone's spine. Clive Bradley showed everyone just what pan could be.

-- Jeremy Taylor pays tribute to pan arranger Clive Bradley, at the new Caribbean Beat blog.

posted by Jonathan | 8:17 AM 0 comments

Thursday, November 24, 2005

Two letters of interest in today's Business Guardian. (It's the Guardian, so no links.)

The first letter, under the headline "Rest in peace, IOB" is from a Dennise Demming, criticising the recent renaming of UWI's Institute of Business as the Arthur Lok Jack School of Business, following Mr Lok Jack's donation of $20 million to the school.

Ms Demming argues that the renaming will only serve to damage the IOB "brand" (to use a contemporary buzzword), and that "the name change reinforces the notion in our society that money can buy anything". She also notes that former parliamentarian and government minister, the late Gordon Draper, was instrumental in the setting up of the IOB and that he is yet to be recognised for this.

I don't know about Mr Draper, but as far as Mr Lok Jack goes, my question is, what has he achieved? Yes, he is a successful businessman, and yes, he's made a sizable donation to one of the country's top institutions of education and research. He's also shown in other ways that he has a real interest in the development of the nation, not something one can usually accuse our businessmen of having.

But with Mr Lok Jack still alive and hard at work among us, can we say what his real accomplishments are and how they should be rewarded? Such a decision takes time, reflection, and consensus--things we admittedly don't care much for round these parts. The naming of things is (or should be) a serious matter, yet we continue to trivialise and politicise such issues, quick to rename buildings and streets every time a beauty queen wins a contest or a sportsman breaks a record.

In a society where long term thinking is practically an offence, the penchant for instant reward is understandable. But we won't build a nation so.

And we won't build a nation if the second letter writer, Eugene A Reynald, has his way. He has some blunt advice for our bright youth: leave.

"The system we have had imposed on us is designed to exclude those who are honest, patriotic and talented. It also does not respond to logic and creates imbalance and frustration in the intelligent....

"Whatever the reason we who stay pay a price daily for the society that we have helped to create by our unwillingness to act. It is, however, unfair to expect our young and talented people--despite the fact that we desperately need them--to stay where they are not valued..."

Over and over again, we singing the same refrain....

posted by Jonathan | 11:44 AM 0 comments

Things, it seems, are happening.

Former works and transport minister and PNM party chairman Franklin Khan has been charged with corruptly accepting over $100,000, making it the first time in the country's history that a sitting member of parliament of the ruling party has been charged with corruption.

Despite the predictable noise from the opposition over the disparity in the length of time it took for Khan to be charged in relation to Basdeo Panday's charges over his undisclosed London bank accounts, the fact remains: a sitting member of parliament of the ruling party has been charged with corruption.

To his credit--if one can use the word--Khan resigned his ministerial post back in May when the matter first surfaced. He didn't have to (unless he was forced); energy minister Eric Williams certainly didn't, and still hasn't, though he remains under investigation. One hopes Khan will now go the extra step and also resign his post as party chairman, pending the outcome of his trial.

Other things are happening as well.

Jamaat al Muslimeen leader Yasin Abu Bakr has been charged with incitement, sedition, and promoting the commission of a terrorist act under the new anti-terrorism legislation. He has been refused bail.

Lenville Small, brother of jailed Jamaat al Muslimeen member Lance Small, is being held in custody over the recent series of bombings in and around Port of Spain.

And yesterday, a number of quarries in the Valencia area were raided, some allegedly controlled by the Jamaat and operating illegally, with a number of men being held by the police.

What does this all mean? Is it the start of true political accountability in this country? Is it the beginning of the end for the Jamaat? Is the government finally committed to asserting its authority and legitimacy and responsibility?

We shall see. But in the meantime, and for whatever reasons: things are happening.

posted by Jonathan | 9:00 AM 0 comments

Sunday, November 20, 2005

Went with a friend last evening to see Brown Cotton Theatre's production of Bent, Martin Sherman's play about the treatment of gays in Nazi Germany.

I'd seen the film adaptation, with Ian McKellen (who had the lead role in the play's 1979 London premiere), Mick Jagger (deliciously cast as an aging drag queen) and the as yet unknown Clive Owen and Jude Law a few years ago, but as good as it was, for some odd reason it didn't really resonate. This production, though by no means perfect, was solid and serviceable.

What I like about Bent is that the lead character, Max, is not obviously sympathetic. He's an opportunistic, self-loathing, coke-snorting party boy, living from one sexual encounter to another. Even after the infamous "Night of Long Knives", when Hitler has all the known gay officers of his army exterminated and gays begin to be persecuted and rounded up to be taken to the camps, Max continues to be in denial of who he is, and of what is happening to him. Eventually, after a series of harrowing experiences and in the most unlikely of places, he comes to truly understand and embrace love.

Putting on Bent is a brave undertaking any way you look at it, but Brown Cotton should be specially commended for staging the play here. Incidentally, I'm a little surprised that the daily papers haven't reviewed it--alright, I'm surprised that the Guardian hasn't; the Express and Newsday make no pretences about providing any serious arts and literature coverage. But the theatre and literature critic for the Guardian, my friend Lisa Allen-Agostini usually reviews plays worth reviewing, and Bent is certainly worthy of a professional critique.

posted by Jonathan | 7:33 PM 0 comments

In the wake of our country qualifying for its first ever football World Cup, BC Pires interviews Jack Warner, CONCACAF president, FIFA vice-president, and all-round T&T football jefe.

I'm no Jack Warner fan, and his high-handed, dictatorial approach to the running of football here (not to mention his political affiliations) has been part of the reason why I've found it somewhat difficult to really get behind our footballers in what admittedly is a monumental achievement. (The continuing, slow miasmal descent of our society into oblivion is another, and I'm very sceptical that our qualifying for the World Cup will do anything real to arrest that descent.)

Still and again, it is a monumental achievement, and I even think Jack Warner's idea of a CD of football-themed songs is a good one. As long as any such CD contains jointpop's brilliant, Rudderesque anthem "Little Giants".

posted by Jonathan | 10:23 AM 0 comments

Monday, November 14, 2005

So what's a poor boy to do now? He can start a blog, perhaps.

posted by Jonathan | 8:15 AM 0 comments

Friday, November 04, 2005

Further to yesterday's post about the middle class, here's an article by Mark Lawson on the dearth of films about the middle class in British cinema, from the UK Guardian Film & Music Weekly.

It also happens that I've just started Zadie Smith's new novel On Beauty, an homage to EM Forster and set in the middle class world of American east coast academia.

Expect some major pronouncement from me on what it means to be middle class soon.

posted by Jonathan | 9:21 AM 0 comments

Thursday, November 03, 2005

The first public criticisms I've seen of the recently-opened Hooters restaurant and bar have appeared today, in a letter to the Guardian by Rain Newel Lewis, daughter of the late architect and artist John Newel Lewis (whose seminal book, Ajoupa, I'm currently reading).

The letter (which I won't link to, as it's not a permalink and I'm yet to work out the new and apparently confusing permalink system at the Guardian website) takes the predictable line, attacking Hooters, and those who've brought it here, for objectifying women. Newel Lewis also critcises what she sees as racism at Hooters in the hiring of mainly light-skinned women as waitresses.

I'm hardly about to disagree, but what has been more of interest to me is the way Hooters is being marketed here. In the US, Hooters is essentially a working class--one might even say white trash--establishment. Here, however, it has been branded as middle class, and is located in an upscale area with, one assumes, prices to match.

What this says about our middle class or classes nicely illustrates Lloyd Best's assertion that Trinidad is a classless society, and that the only real difference between the classes here is money. The other aspects of class--behaviour, lifestyle, pastimes and so on, are quite often no different.

This question of our middle classes is one that I've been thinking about for a while, as has been Nicholas, who says that there is nothing wrong with being middle class. He cites Albert Gomes and Arthur Cipriani, among others, as men of the middle class who had the interests of the people at heart, but that was many decades ago; where are the Gomeses and Ciprianis of today? (One could cite the coming of Independence and the rise of nationalism and tribalism and so on, but that's another post.)

Perhaps there isn't anything wrong with being middle class, but before I pass judgement, I think I'd like a workable definition of what a middle class is and should be, and then apply it to our own middle classes of today and see how they stack up.

posted by Jonathan | 8:48 AM 0 comments

Tuesday, November 01, 2005

Thanks to Bina for this link, to a fine blog out of New Delhi by Jai Arjun, a freelance journalist.

posted by Jonathan | 3:00 PM 0 comments