In the Nassau Guardian newspaper edition of October 1st there is a statement in the Business Section by Minister Khaalis Rolle stating “BAIC must invest in ‘business side’ of Junkanoo” – well blow me down! I had resolved not to write anything else on the Junkanoo/carnival issue but I can’t let this pass without comment.
Government is investing $9.5 mil. in Bahamas Carnival for an admitted shortfall in 2015 and an anticipated speculative profit in 2016, and the Commission has assisted interested parties in forming companies which have produced carnival costumes to market and sell to interested participants for a parade that is taking place in May 2015. Reports have it that the government will also be financing an extensive PR campaign to market the event throughout the US.
The publicity footage from the carnival companies’ roll out last weekend made me hold my head, as examples of feathered, skimpily-clad women littered the event to ‘sell’ the product. Where are we leading our country, people? We are prostituting our culture and our souls for the almighty dollar. Is this the way we wish to present ourselves, and is this the way we want the world to view us? Where are the voices from the junkanoo community, from the religious leaders, from the disenfranchised junkanoo groups?
On the one hand, government is placing big money behind rolling us out as a Trinidad copycat, and on the other hand Minister Rolle has just now come to the realization, at this late stage and way after the fact, that they need to ‘invest in junkanoo’….and not only that, but he has the gall to suggest that it be done through a government corporation (BAIC) that already has questionable success in running the areas they are mandated to oversee, junkanoo not being one of them!!
Talk about a next total set of confusion – they can’t be serious! But then again, and sadly, they are and really do not know any better! Just like the BAMSI money should have been better spent, so too this carnival money should have been invested in Junkanoo from the first beginning!
The saga continues, the mind boggles and confusion reigns…I can but shake my head in frustration and despair!
Pam Burnside
Read Confusion Reigns 1
