MY TAKE ON THE 'MOTHER COUNT' AFFAIR

I share my response to another comment which asked 'Where is the Line Drawn"
I ask "WHEN DO WE DRAW THE LINE?"
My comment -
“Your question posed may better be put as "When is the Line Drawn"?
There is such a thing even in the realm of poetic licence as good taste.
"Massive" Gosein has struck several raw nerves...nerves more raw than the smuttiest of kaiso lyrics we can quote.
Intentionally or not, this artiste has hit on a festering sore in our society which is not of his making, but the spores of which none can avoid.
Gosein's song's title is as distasteful as the songs about Chambers Dun See, if our particular bias is about suddenly "respecting the office" of the PM.
It is as distasteful as Paul's imaginary Yuh Mudder Come released in the sanctimony of the Christmas season by Crazy. Crazy' s song was no more about any person's mother than Rowley's Mudder Count for those who suddenly discovered "respecting" the mother of the PM or anyone else.
It is even as distasteful as the Meters' "Hey Pock Away" which our fete-loving back-in-times partygoers have taken delight in slightly amending at the top of their bellowing voices by changing the middle word with delight. Just imagine what an equally boisterous crowd at any Carnival occasion with liquor and other intoxicants aplenty would be doing with Gosein's Count.
The point is that if this crude almost puerile play on a phrase is all that the artiste can offer by way of criticism of the Head of Government, it is indeed a reflection of both his lack of creativity as much as it is a reflection of the shallowness and emptiness of what passes for "politics" and "political commentary" in the fields of political and cultural activity as we approach the end of the second decade of the 21st Century.
Gosein is no better or worse than such "heroes" of the culture as Watchman' Bullseye on Robbie's Back, or Cro Cro and Aloes' several "celebrated" political commentary offerings which denigrated PMs, ethnic groups, women, toute bagai.
Gosein is no better or worse than that 'master' of kaiso - Chalkie with his 'crowned' mathematical impossibility of last season which was nothing but a very thinly disguised jook at East Indians and Hindus in particular.
For too long, the old smut and double entendre of the quaint ole days have given way to the racial and religious and sexist bigotry expounded by our bards and promoted for a variety of rewards including money and the satisfaction of sewing hate and division by others, not just the owners of the tents or organisers of the competitions.
Beyond the words of "Massive's" Chutney song were his attempt at justifying his provocation aimed at a predominantly suddenly-indignant African cohort denouncing this Indian for daring to malign the PM, no matter that countless other artistes not of his ethnicity had done so for decades against PMs of "either side of the divide".
He could not defend his provocation any more than Cro Cro or Aloes or others who do the same with varying degrees of crudeness.
Hurling insults across the racial divide from either direction is of no value to our society and the building of our nation.
It is only inflamming already incendiary and dangerous passions and it is wrong whoever does it.
The hypocrisy of those who have revelled in the nonsense when it was directed against "them" and suddenly have discovered 'respect for office' and 'don't drag politicians’ family into this' is possibly even more distasteful than "Massive's" or Cro Cro or any others' divisive and derogatory slurs aimed only at fuelling the already nasty divisions sown by the very politicians that some now claim to be defending.
Oh what a tangled web they weave, when first they set out to deceive."
 
Clyde Weatherhead
A Citizen Fighting for Democratic Renewal
Of Our Society