Expectations of Carifesta X

Aug 23, 2008 Editorial

Carifesta X is underway. We wish all success to this festival which we believe has the potential of becoming perhaps the most important of all regional festivals.

The interest so far that Carifesta X has generated certainly adds to the promise that more than just an event is being held.

There is the latent hope that what Guyana may, at the completion of this festival, have engineered is a cultural renaissance within the region.

We certainly hope that this is the mood in which the festival commences, one filled with a great deal of promise that what has been started will reshape the thinking within the region as to our own identity.

There are, we expect, hundreds who will be arriving with similar expectations of being part of something really special.

We join with the entire nation in extending a warm welcome to the many individuals who are in Guyana for the tenth Caribbean Festival of Arts.

We hope that their stay here in Guyana will be enjoyable and through their participation in Carifesta X that they will help to redefine this important festival. Carifesta X is expected to provide great fun and entertainment.

However, the true significance of this festival will ultimately be measured by the extent to which it helps the people of the region to come closer together, not just for the sake of unity but because of the many things that make this common identification with each other possible and inescapable.

The people of the Caribbean share a common history of bondage and exploitation. They equally share the desire to overcome their circumstances and progress, both materially and culturally.

These are common aspirations which still bond the peoples of our region and which we hope will be on one of the statements that will be made at Carifesta X which, while primarily an artistic event, is capable of representing these dreams through song, dance, visual arts, cuisine and all the other activities that will be held over the next few days in Guyana. The people of the Caribbean also have emerged from different cultural backgrounds.

Most of our peoples were, through force or coercion, transplanted to these parts where they encountered the indigenous peoples, thus forging within the region a pantomime of different cultures.

At the same time, we must acknowledge the strong pressures exerted on the region through cultural penetration from the West, as is best manifested today by the popularity of dress and music amongst our young people.

There is in all of this we believe a strong, inner desire of the people of the region to locate that which we can truly call our own, regardless of whether it was influenced by other cultures or whether it was forged over time within the region.

This discussion as to what constitutes the culture of the Caribbean is something we hope will occupy the attention of the intellectual and cultural icons over the next few days.

By identifying that which is truly ours, we can move beyond the simple notion of pride in things Caribbean, to identifying how we define ourselves.

This is what we believe is the true challenge of Carifesta X: to move beyond what has been an intermittent and colourful festival of music and arts to something that will fortify the bridges that unite our peoples, to strengthen a regional identity while helping us to understand where we came from, where we are and where we are going.