Let's face reality, Part 2
by Winford James
February 08, 2004
Posted: February 11, 2004
It's been hard to write over the last few weeks. Not that there aren't topics to write on; there always are - like Manning's naïveté in the Repsol 'free' ride (and, no doubt, 'free lunch') matter, or his unnecessary self-damaging 'attack' on the media, or the 'upsurge' in school violence, or London's exasperation over his inability to get young Tobagonians to stay with paid state and private labour, or the West Indian enigmas in South Africa, or Sat Maharaj's deserved victory in the high court over discrimination in the allocation of radio licences, or... No, I have found myself with much more work to do and many more pressing deadlines - from the university, from the credit union movement, from the government, and from family. One of the casualties of all this busyness has been this column, which has been made to lose its rhythm and to stutter embarrassingly.
It is a crying shame, for the column is one of the institutions in my life which I use to create ideas, expand my mind, and keep reconstructing myself. Another is research into language as well as society, which less important but more pursued duties prevent me from doing enough of. I should, in Covey's sense, be putting first things first, but I find that the routine and the drab keep triumphing over the creative, the transformative, the really meaningful.
I consider my first offering on the Cro Cro controversy, published two Sundays ago, to be a good example of the creativity of which I speak. I should have followed up with a Part 2 the following Sunday, especially as I had not written a column for some four weeks previously, but, alas, the humdrum prevailed. Let's hope the run of dot balls ends...
Two Sundays ago, I offered the view that Cro Cro, is presenting political commentary in song just as Panday is presenting political commentary in speeches. Panday is calling for civil disobedience against the PNM government while Cro Cro is calling for violent action against the UNC for their rape of the treasury and selected damning effects on the country. Both men, each highly visible, audible, and presumably influential, have been predictably condemned by their political detractors. In particular, they have been condemned by the 'business community'.
The censure from businesspeople has essentially taken the form of both stout denials that they are involved in drug trafficking and other forms of corruption, and paranoid claims that Cro Cro is encouraging actual and potential bandits to kidnap them and steal and undermine their hard- and honestly-earned wealth. He should be stopped, they scream; he has gone too far.
Their reaction provides the clearest of evidence of their unfitness for social leadership, which is so automatically thrust upon them, or which they take to themselves as a right that goes without saying.
First of all, they seem to think that issuing denials of corruption and, in particular, supporting them with the argument that the police has never caught them in any such wrongdoing constitute sufficient proof of innocence and probity on their part. They do not seem to understand that large numbers of the public do not reason that way and cannot afford to. The marrish and the parish cannot know for sure how persons who are uncommonly rich became so, and will suspect that they did not by entirely honest means, especially in a country like Trinidad and Tobago, where, in the words of Lloyd Best, 'the gangster tradition has flourished' 'at the very top of society'. The marrish and the parish have healthy, non-naïve suspicions, which calypsonians like Cro Cro reflect.
Secondly, to think that Cro Cro's song will encourage kidnapping is to display either a deceitful ignorance of the recent history of kidnapping or a weak-minded understanding of message in calypso, or both. One clear historical fact is that serious spates of kidnapping preceded Cro Cro's song. Another is that quite a number of the kidnappings were executed by organised cartels. The basis used for saying that the song will encourage kidnapping is Cro Cro's punch line 'Kidnap dem!' But to use such a basis is to give a literal interpretation to an expression that clothes itself metaphorically in a work of art (yes, art!). The artist (and Cro Cro is undeniably one, despite the rawness of some of his lyrics) always and inescapably uses metaphor to make meaning, and one must go beyond the superficial and literal to the metaphoric if one is to properly understand.
I'm pretty sure that Cro Cro wouldn't mind in the least if Bas were to be literally kidnapped (I think he would throw a party!), but he would be satisfied if he (Bas) were to be jailed. The jailing would be a metaphorical extension of 'kidnap'. Another metaphorical extension would be the freezing or seizing of Bas' financial assets. When businesspeople interpret 'kidnap' only in literal terms, they are displaying an unfortunate limitation or stultification of intellect or, at the very least, of artistic sensibility. It is this inability to think beyond the literal when they hear a song like Cro Cro's that especially marks them as unfit for social leadership. They can make (or, more accurately, acquire) money, but they can't understand the deeper meanings of art.
As business leaders they should be taking the higher ground of seeing Cro Cro's song for what it is: an aggrieved attack on UNC and big business piracy and, consequently, a call for retributive justice. And, seeing it this way, they should be keeping their cool and their dignity instead of ranting and raving like ignorant, self-righteous fools.
In much the same way, Manning should have taken the high ground on the media, for how can he as prime minister, in such a constitutionally powerful office, make the marrish and the parish take sides with him against the media - watchdogs in their wishful metaphoric imagination? What does it matter that he is right in his charges?
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