TIME FOR A RETHINK OF MASH DAY

Feb 24, 2012 Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom

---

 

 

Over the past fifteen years, Mash Day celebrations have grown larger and larger. More money than ever before is now placed into the event. The number of revelers is growing each year. Crowds along the parade route are swelling with each passing year. But more importantly, people are having the time of their lives.
But in as much as we can praise the growing popularity of Mash Day events, there are worrying developments which need to be taken on board by those responsible for organizing the event.
For one, crowd control is now a major problem. The parade route which may have sufficed twenty-five years ago can no longer accommodate the hundreds of thousands that descend on the city to participate and watch the revelry.
Guyana needs to look at a different arrangement because the situation will not get better next year. The parade route needs to change so as to cater for the large crowds that gather each year to watch the event. This is where the organizers need to work with the government to put things in place to allow for a completely new route if one can be found in the city.
This year, the organizers promised that no vending and no standing would be allowed along the parade route. Well, the vending was restricted as much as it could but the crowds overflowed along the sides of the parade route, squeezing the revelers and slowing the pace of the bands at times to a halt.
There is need for a completely new route. Perhaps the organizers can travel next year to both Rio and Port of Spain to see how these cities organize their carnivals in the area of crowd control, which while not perfect, is a big improvement on what takes place in Guyana. We can learn from these countries that had the same problems as their carnivals grew. But they have both put measures in place to improve things and these measures are working, not perfectly but working far better than what we have here now. The other related problem is that this event is now a major commercial undertaking and those persons who pay large sums for rights to sell at certain spots are not going to be happy when vending is allowed in other areas where it ought not to be taking place. I know the organizers would like to ensure that as many persons get to sell, but there will come a time when the number of vendors will have to be restricted so as to maximize revenues earned and ensure that there is greater order in the sale of items.
This is an aspect in which there will have to be greater controls so as to also ensure better security. The use of bottled beverages will have to be banned completely because these bottles can be dangerous weapons if a brawl should break out as happens occasionally.
The system of organizing Mash will also have to be revolutionized if this event is going to be a tourist attraction. Already it is suffering because of its close proximity to the hosting of Trinidad’s and Brazil’s carnivals. Guyana’s Mash Day cannot compete with these carnivals and is a poor imitation of these events. This year, carnival in Trinidad was on Tuesday. Guyana’s Mash Day was two days later.
This seems to happen regularly and serious consideration needs to be given to moving Mash Day perhaps closer to Easter or even to August.  There will be a great deal of opposition to this suggestion but if we are to maximize the benefits to the economy of this annual celebration, there may not be many other options.
A well-organized and better scheduled Mash Day can bring more tourists and more money for the country while keeping February 23 as a public holiday.
The other real bother about Mash Day concerns the vulgarity on display. Each year it keeps getting worse. It is sad to see how some of our female folk who are already dressing very skimpy, wining in the most lewd manner. Very little is now left to the imagination and many families are expressing concern about taking their children to these events to witness what is at times a sex exhibition. What examples are they setting for the younger children who are looking on?
During yesterday, one of the little kids was pointing to a scantily dressed reveler who was wining her tail off. The young kid was trying to tell her parents that the reveler who was performing one of the sauciest “blackballing” acts imaginable was her teacher. What an example?
A few years ago, the religious community decided to insert itself into Mash Day events because they were concerned at the direction in which it was heading. Well they have failed to ensure a more wholesome event. The revelers are now more uninhibited and the crowds that line the route seem generally unperturbed by what is taking place.
These are things over which there has to be a more serious debate. Mash Day cannot continue as before because even though it is increasing in numbers each year, the standards, especially the moral and crowd control standards are not getting better. It is time for a rethink of the entire event.

---

---