It’s Carnival Friday in T&T and you know what that means…

Actually, I’m not entirely sure that most of us know what that means.

Every year, I become less certain that the majority of Trinis understand what the Carnival season actually represents and more certain that this lack of understanding is by design.

After all, when textbooks being taught in our nation’s classrooms openly claim that Carnival is a vector for disease, drunkenness, indecency and crime, while neglecting to mention that it began as a celebration of our ancestors’ emancipation and a representation of their spirit of resistance, what is one to think?

Anyhoo, in honour of our first Carnival since Covidageddon, I’ve decided to do my part to dispel some of the misinformation endlessly flying around about our biggest cultural festival. I don’t expect it to reach the ears of our nation’s children, but perhaps some of the adults might learn something new.

1. Carnival is so much more than bikinis, feathers and beads.

Yes, I know that’s what tends to get the most attention, but as we should’ve learned back when a certain Halloween costume made worldwide headlines, Trinbagonian Carnival is about much more than a string of fetes and two days on the road jamming strangers in the hot sun. Don’t get me wrong, that level of revelry and abandon is absolutely part of it (and with good reason), but if we’re claiming to love or hate Carnival and we don’t know what the Kambule resistance was or when our Carnival (not the one held by the French colonisers) was originally celebrated (and why it was moved), perhaps we don’t know enough about the festival to have an opinion either way.

2. Our crime problem doesn’t have anything to do with Carnival.

Given that last year’s murder rate exceeded 2018’s count despite the absence of Carnival, I feel like this much should be obvious. However, since our Ministry of National Security (MoNS) is dropping “Carnival Safety Tips” written exclusively for women that seem to suggest that we’re being stalked by unknown entities and, again, actual textbooks are saying the opposite, perhaps it bears repeating. Since they’re the ones responsible for tracking this kind of data, surely the MoNS knows that violent crime during Carnival was on a longstanding downward trajectory prior to the pandemic. They are well aware that our “bloodiest” weekends don’t involve Dimanche Gras. Just like they know precisely whom they should be addressing if they’re actually interested in keeping women safe during Carnival.

3. Wacky legislation is not a new phenomenon.

I’ll admit, this one fooled me too, because our media insists on reporting the same things every year without regards for context. However, it turns out that ridiculous legislation targeting behaviours that are directly tied to the Carnival celebration are older than those of us participating in it. Remember that resistance I mentioned in fact #1? Yeah, the coloniser was banning “obscene songs and dances“, along with drums and lighted torches, way back in the 1800s. So if the 2023 Carnival Regulations (which also ban “lewd or offensive” music, “behaviour or gestures which are immoral, lewd or offensive”, exposed flames “or any article of an offensive nature”), sound like something out of our colonial history, that’s because they absolutely are. They’ve been republished word-for-word for decades with the earliest version I could find online dating back to 1995.

One might wonder why our legislators would continue to do such a thing in 2023, particularly when two clauses prohibit wearing a mask in a vehicle, which is a thing many of us are still doing in an effort to avoid Covid. The answer is simple: because they can. They’ve been copy-pasting this particular bit of legislation for years without meaningful consequence. The media reports on it as if it’s the first time, we beat up for a bit and then beat our bodies on the road and forget about it. Rinse and repeat.

As we’re on the subject, it’s interesting that, while they’ve remembered to renew their allegiance to our colonial roots every year, they’ve never gotten around to making our largest national cultural festival a public holiday. Isn’t that strange? It’s our biggest cultural export and the nation essentially shuts down to celebrate it every year, and yet. Again, if you’re wondering why that might be, see the above. As I’ve mentioned before, we have to recognise the value of who we are and what we have if we want better for ourselves. If we don’t know by now that our leaders (incumbent and opposition) will do whatever they can get away with, then we haven’t been paying attention.

And on that note, have a safe and enjoyable Carnival, however you choose to celebrate it. If you’re into the scene, may all your fetes be hard and may you jump like you never jump. If not, may the ocean be warm and/or your Netflix binge be fruitful, for what it’s worth.