CARIFESTA and Caribbean Freedom

guyana chronicle editorial

A LARGE contingent of Guyanese cultural workers is currently in Haiti to participate in this year’s CARIFESTA. Since its debut in Guyana in 1972, it has remained the premier cultural festival in the CARICOM Region. Said to be the brainchild of former Guyanese leader Forbes Burnham, it was conceived at a time when our Region was flushed with a sense of pride. To understand the significance of CARIFESTA, one has to appreciate Caribbean history in all its breadth and depth. Further, one has to understand how the function of that history in shaping the CARIFESTA spirit that took root in 1972 and has survived the challenges of the next four decades. CARIFESTA was and is Caribbean in nature and essence. It could not be otherwise; our history had, in the words of calypsonian Black Stalin, made us one “Caribbean (Wo) man.” By the turn of the mid 1970s, we had just gained our independence after more than three centuries of subjugation that included the worst form of inhumanity perpetrated against human beings. Independence, therefore, was in part about the restoration of human dignity. It was no accident that culture and cultural production were at the top of the Independence agenda. Locked away on the slave plantations, the barrack yards, the nigger-yards and the jungles, our peoples had developed a new culture of survival and liberation that had propelled them to overcome oppression. By the 1970s, our Caribbean had created the calypso, the reggae and the steel-pan. We had turned the master’s language of subjugation into a language of freedom; we had created our own Caribbean English. And the game of cricket, which was meant to be a form of mimic, had become a unifying, liberative force for our peoples. Soon, we would control the cricketing spaces around the world with a West Indian authority that stunned even our former self-proclaimed masters. From Martin Carter and George Lamming to Garfield Sobers and George Headley, to Beryl Mc Bernie and Don Quarry, to Rohan Kanhai and Bob Marley, to the Mighty Sparrow and Calypso Rose, our Caribbean had by 1972 signalled to the world that we possessed the equal qualities of a free people. We were defining who we were and on our own terms. CARIFESTA, therefore, was no accident; it arose out of the convergence of multiple cultural impulses. It was born as a festival of Caribbean Freedom. It is significant that this year’s festival is being held in Haiti—the first Caribbean space of freedom from enslavement. In holding the festival there this year, we are in effect saying thanks to Haiti and Haitians who have endured so much for daring to be the freedom pioneers of our Caribbean. We have not always recognised the worth of Haiti and the debt we owe to her. As David Rudder reminds, “Haiti, I am sorry/We misunderstood you/ One day we will turn our heads/ And restore your glory. This CARIFESTA is hopefully a down payment on that debt we owe to Haiti. And in the process, we hope that our cultural workers reflect on the original meaning and promise of the festival. For therein lies the key to our continued survival as a free people.