The Tribune

By TANEKA THOMPSON

Tribune News Editor

tmthompson@tribunemedia.net

IF there is one thing that is predictable about Bahamians, it is our love for complaining and tearing our own down.

Case in point: the unbridled furore surrounding the inaugural Junkanoo Carnival. It seems we have grown tired of the more pressing matters that demand our collective concern, such as the wanton disregard for law and order our citizens display every day, the crippling effects of poverty, the breakdown of the family and general social decay brought on by a lack of education.

No, it seems the most important thing in this country is stopping Carnival, which according to the most severe critics, would open a Pandora’s Box of social ills including, perish the thought, sex outside marriage and lust.

Let’s not forget, it will kill also our country’s premier festival, the supremely moral and chaste Junkanoo parade.

As is usually the case when something new is proposed in this country, we Bahamians tend to turn over the glossy proposal looking for the tarnish, quick to point out all that will go wrong, eager to see someone’s idea crash and burn, even if it is at everyone’s expense.

For the record, I have no affiliation with Carnival or any of the groups. I am simply a young Bahamian excited for a new festival that, if organised and promoted properly, can be an avenue for economic growth, jobs, generate excitement in an otherwise dull town and give our talented artists and musicians a proper stage to showcase their talent.

Christian Council is out of touch

As usual the country’s ‘moral arbiter’, the Bahamas Christian Council is out of touch.

In spite of all of our complex social issues – poverty, violent crime, and high unemployment – the head of the religious body felt compelled last week to speak out against the revealing costumes showcased for the female participants of Junkanoo Carnival.

Rev Dr Ranford Patterson implied that “immodestly” dressed women cavorting through the streets will unleash fire and brimstone in The Bahamas, causing “fornication, promiscuity, rape incest” and other “sins of the flesh”.

The idea that women who dress provocatively invite sexual attacks from men who cannot control their lust is a damaging fallacy that fosters victim blaming. It is this very same reasoning that gives perpetrators of these heinous crimes a free pass from personal responsibility. That woman sexually harassed on the job was “asking for it” because she wears mini skirts or tight tops. The drunk girl gang-raped at a party invited her attackers because she wasn’t smart enough to stay sober. The underage girl who was groomed by an older man for sex wanted it because she was precocious, or to put it in Bahamian terms, too “hot”.

It is this kind of sexist, patriarchal thinking that has derailed the proposed constitutional referendum on gender equality and is also the reason why the marital rape ban, put forth by the last Ingraham administration, was shelved in the House of Assembly.

This logic also blatantly ignores the harsh facts about rape, sexual harassment and incest. These acts are routinely not about the sex act itself, but about exerting power and dominance over others, which is why so many victims are attacked when not doing anything sexually provocative at all.

As a woman, and I am sure others of my gender can attest to this, I have been the subject of unwanted sexual harassment and lewd commentary from complete strangers while I was conservatively dressed more so than when I may have been wearing “skimpy” outfits.

The sexual aggression from some men in this country is symptomatic of a deeper issue and the blame cannot be placed on a woman’s choice of outfit.

Those who are concerned that the skimpy Carnival costumes and the event’s sexually suggestive dancing will erode our moral fabric must not live in the same Bahamas as I do.

They do not live in the Bahamas that, at last report by the Department of Statistics, had a 62 per cent birth rate to unwed mothers. Those figures, released by the department in 2012, show that births to unwed mothers nearly doubled since 1970 to 2009 and continue to account for “the largest annual natural increase to the Bahamian population”.

Clearly we are already a country that loves sex, inside and outside marriage, with a decaying family structure.

Leslie Miller

Last week, Tall Pines MP Leslie Miller put his foot in his mouth again when he called Carnival “garbage”. He suggested that the event could further damage the country’s youth.

“I have my own grave reservations as to whether this is in the best interest of our own country, realising that young people in this country are totally out of line morally,” Mr Miller told a Nassau Guardian reporter.

“When I look at those things and I look at it if you want to import garbage to my country, I take exception to it, to be honest with you, as a Member of Parliament and as a Bahamian.

“I say garbage because I was there one time as the minister of trade and industry, in Trinidad when they had the thing, and it didn’t impress me. I saw a lot of vulgarity, people were, I don’t want to say hitting on each other but almost a sexual situation in broad daylight. So I don’t really have an appetite for it.”

This is the same Leslie Miller who last year “joked” about beating a former girlfriend so hard his hand hurt.

This is the same Leslie Miller who said he did not support the Constitutional Amendment Bills, meant to bring about gender quality.

On both previous counts, Mr Miller came back and apologised, saying his earlier proclamations were ignorant.

He was apologising again on Friday for his “ignorance.” He said he did not realise, as pointed out by Prime Minister Perry Christie on Thursday, that his daughters were actively involved in Carnival.

He said he has since been assured that Junkanoo Carnival will not be an exact replica of the Trinidad festival and will be something all Bahamians can be proud of.

Support

Amidst the sea of ardent detractors, there are some who are vying for Carnival’s success.

Chester Robards, co-ordinator for Carnival group Eden, believes a lot of the push back to the upcoming festival is unwarranted.

“Obviously everyone is only harping on the negative, which I don’t see as negative. They talk about women in skimpy clothing and the dancing but really that’s a small part of what I experienced when I went to Carnival (in Trinidad). Most of the women (there) had on stockings that go on under their bikini bottoms, so there is no flesh exposed there so only from the stomach up is there any skin exposed.

“The dancing is nothing that we don’t see on a night out to a club or what we can see on the Internet - we don’t have to pretend like these things don’t happen. People want a reason to downplay the benefits Carnival can have to the country because of this whole Junkanoo war - which is silly, Junkanoo isn’t going anywhere.”

He added: “I don’t think our country has invested more in Junkanoo than in the past seven years and where has that gotten us? I don’t see more tourists coming, Junkanoo was not sellable on a global market ... some people want to enjoy it but they are not running over here to see it. Carnival is so successful because it is something you can participate in.

“You can just get a costume and participate. If you want to join Junkanoo, you have to be here for five months, learn a choreographed dance and immerse yourself in that group.

“Junkanoo is a clique, Junkanoo is a competition - Carnival is not like that.”

Mr Robards, who also works in the hotel industry, said the assertion that local organisers are “copying” the culture of other countries is a “silly” notion.

“It’s a franchise model that we are adopting,” he argued. “Couldn’t we say ‘lets all get rid of Wendy’s restaurants and just keep Bamboo Shack because that’s authentically Bahamian’? No; there are no new ideas, there are different expressions of ideas.”

George Smith, former Progressive Liberal Party (PLP) Cabinet minister, said in principle Junkanoo Carnival is a good idea. But he thinks some of the costumes are too influenced by similar events in Brazil, Trinidad and New Orleans. He hopes organisers are able to fine-tune the inaugural event to satisfy calls to make it uniquely Bahamian.

“You look at those costumes, when I see them I see Trinidad, I don’t see the Bahamas,” he told The Tribune. “We are very good at the costumes we put on Bay Street twice a year, but I think that those people who are organising (Carnival) it were overly influenced with Rio and Port-of-Spain and Mardi Gras in New Orleans.”

“I heard a song on a radio, one of the songs they say is in the winning category of the song competition - if I didn’t know I was driving down West Bay Street, I would think I was in Trinidad because I kept hearing the word Bacchanal.

“The organisers of that have not decided to make it a (completely) Bahamian thing, hence we have alieninated too many of our people who are the artists.

“It’s a very good idea, we need to put our people who write songs on great display, our artisans on display, our dancers on display but in a tasteful way.

“I think the prime minister, whose brainchild it is, needs to decide, to designate some people to put it right. To appreciate what he wanted to do with it, it is still salvageable but in a way that impresses Bahamians and allows them to see themselves as the focal point of it.”

Whether Junkanoo Carnival will be successful remains to be seen. However the event is already on slate, has been promoted extensively, both at home and abroad.

According to Carnival Commission Chairman Paul Major, only $1.5m of the $9m budget has been spent so far.

I never agreed with the $9m price tag, but if organisers can bring the festival under budget and ensure a lucrative return on our investment, then that is something I can get behind.

Unlike some, I do not want this event to fail and I hope our government and festival organisers can keep this thing on the rails and justify our expenditure.

And I am sure once this festival is over with, and the fury surrounding it has died down, Bahamians will find a new issue to complain about.

• What do you think? Email comments to tmthompson@tribunemedia.net