Las’ Lap for THE Trinidad Carnival?

Over the two days of our Carnival, I have read many interesting comments on the state and direction in which THE Trinidad Carnival is being taken.
I was intending to discuss much of this feedback from the children’s mas to the Dimache Gras to the Carnival days until I heard the NatSec-Comms-Junior Min in the OPM at today’s post-Cabinet media conference speaking in support of the proposal by the Commissioner of Police about cutting the hours of the Carnival. (I will make those other observations later on)
The Minister elaborated on the ‘plan to disrupt’ the Carnival which amounted to ‘certain criminal elements’ who went to Ariapita Avenue throwing bottles and started to rob people and pickpocket. The music was shut down by the CoP. No one was arrested, according to the Minister because it was too dark to identify the perpetrators.
This ‘disruption’ of the Carnival at a particular location in a single part of the country has been escalated into a suggestion by the CoP for “reasonable shut-off times for future Carnival celebrations” and now a proposal by the Minister for a ‘shortening of the Carnival Proclamation’.
The Minister’s argument is all about ‘national security’ which considers there is “no need to go all the way to midnight on a Carnival Tuesday”.
The Minister then proceeded to cite ‘the national security forces’ who claim that ‘in no other country in the world, including in Rio…across Europe, etc. do you have such an extended period of operations from Carnival Thursday…”.
So, what he and his national security forces are seeking is that the Carnival Proclamation should end the Carnival at 9;00 pm on a Tuesday from 2020.   
Well, before I examine this argument further, let me remind the Honourable Minister that according to the Pub­lic Fes­ti­vals (Car­ni­val) Or­der, 2019, Carnival 2019 Car­ni­val, 2019 com­menced at 4 am on Mon­day March 4th and ceased at mid­night on Tues­day March 5th. This is pretty much the same as it has been since the birth of THE Trinidad Carnival back in the colonial days following the Camboulay.
But, the Minister went to explain that, despite the Proclamation, the national security ‘locked down’ the arteries into Port of Spain and stopped and searched people while the sun was ‘already up’. So, the police delayed the start of Carnival and then ‘shut down’ the Carnival practically shortening the Carnival contrary to the law – the President’s Proclamation.
Now, they want to officially codify this action by cutting down the Carnival.
This sounds like the last lap for Las’ Lap, the last jump for mas players and participants in the Carnival to the hour of midnight on Carnival Tuesday.
I well remember my father and his friends, after playing mas in town (POS) enjoying coming back to Tunapuna for a hometown las’ lap jump up to end off the rule of the ‘merry monarch’. I also had the experience of playing pan ‘till the police stop we’ at midnight giving revellers the full extent of the Carnival enjoyment on the Eastern Main Road in Tunapuna.
If Messrs. Stuart and Griffith and the Cabinet have their way, this aspect, like so many that have already been gutted from THE Trinidad Carnival will also be a thing of the past.
After all the guntalk about not letting a small handful of criminal elements ‘run tings’ and not negotiating with terrorists, gang leaders etc; after all the ‘cockroach’ talk, are we now being asked to surrender another aspect of our greatest national festival and our culture and way of life to the miscreant minority of criminality?
The hours of THE Trinidad Carnival is not a matter of national security, nor are we to define our Trinidad Carnival by what they do in Rio or in Europe or as some radio-callers argued today, by when they does shutdown the Parkway in New York.
THE Trinidad Carnival, what we once called the Greatest Show on Earth, is our unique creation, our unique contribution to world culture about which we boast and which we declare has spawned Trinidad-style Carnivals e the world over.
Now, because of social decay, criminal activity and ‘national security’ considerations, are we, as a nation, to complete the emasculation of our Trinidad Carnival and turn it completely into just another carnival in Trinidad?
The people of this country have fought against ‘national security’ law and order directives to defend and preserve the right to beat drums and play pans in THE  Trinidad Carnival. From the Canboulay Riots in 1884 this Carnival has had to be defended by the People.
In 2019, it looks like if this Trinidad Carnival is to last beyond 2020, the people must resist this latest attempt to make this the las’ lap for THE Trinidad Carnival using ‘national security’ to denigrate our socio-cultural identifier as a nation.
J'Ouvert barre yeau par levez lamain asseux yeaux
 
Clyde Weatherhead
A Citizen Fighting Against
the Modern-day Captain Bakers
for the Camboulay
7 March 2019


J'Ouvert Barre Yeau
Performed by Roaring Lion / Lyrics by Raphael De Leon
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J'Ouvert barre yeau par levez lamain asseux yeaux
I'll tell you a story you do not know
It's about Carnival and Calypso
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J'Ouvert barre yeau par levez lamain asseux yeaux
It is the folksong and ballado
That beautiful island of Trinidad
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J'Ouvert barre yeau par levez lamain asseux yeaux
Every year there's Carnival don't forget
That is Trinidad national fete
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J'Ouvert barre yeau par levez lamain asseux yeaux
On Carnival morning six bell chime
And every one there would start to rhyme
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J'Ouvert barre yeau par levez lamain asseux yeaux
Jump your jump, dance your dance is bacchanal
Play Mas Monday morning Carnival
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J'Ouvert barre yeau par levez lamain asseux yeaux
Jump in the line and breakaway
Shake your hip, believe and faint away
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J'Ouvert barre yeau par levez lamain asseux yeaux
Jump in the line and smack your lips
Roll your eye, roll your head and shake your hips
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J'Ouvert barre yeau par levez lamain asseux yeaux
Monday morning on parade
Everybody mad playing masquerade
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J'Ouvert barre yeau par levez lamain asseux yeaux

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