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Page 67
Drum: INSIGHT 67
the creative in the fantastic tradition of mas
making and mas playing. Just think of the
wonderful variety of themes, and styles, and
functions of mas – makin’ mas, and, playin’
mas. (Because mas is not simply about
making masquerades; it is also and essentially
about playing mas – using the body in its freespiritedness to make a mas live, to give
expression to the mas and to the spirit of the
people playing the mas.) There is much to talk
about in all that.
But now, the thing that I really want us to
note is that Carnival in the Caribbean, in
Trinidad and Tobago say, with all its critical
free-spiritedness, involves and engages the
whole, the entire society. In the UK, the
‘mother country’, we talk sometimes like
Carnival is the same thing as in the islands,
but that ain’t true. It is true that, here,
Caribbeans play the spirit of Carnival – but the
whole society does not get involved and
engaged with the vital meaning of Carnival.
And it is true that Carnival get big big big in
England, with millions of people gathering to
watch but most of them know nothing of the
real reason for makin’ and playin’ mas. In other
words, we have it all to do. We can’t take it
for granted that the society is behind the
carnival, behind our carnival – in spite of the
millions who are attracted to it.
enforcement with self-stewarding; safety
problems – making Carnival family friendly;
spatial and logistical problems – maintaining
critical mass while improving the flow.
But arguably more challenging than the
‘problem’ face of the Carnival is the changed
social and political context within which it
operates today. In its vigorous infancy, from
the 1960s to the 1980s, the carnival rode on
the back of a militant street vibe generated by
the insurgent anti-racist politics of the wider
black community. That was then. Today the
Carnival is no longer seen as the cutting edge
solution to the race relations-cum-multicultural
problems/challenges faced by the authorities in
London and the wider UK. This is to say that
black people, Caribbean black people, no longer
define the frontline of challenges to discrimination
and injustice, and demands for cultural change
in today’s UK. Blackness and sections of black
youth bring other kinds of social challenge
today! Of course the old racism survives – but
we appear to be accommodating ourselves to
that, in a sense. And now we have to contend
as well with what Sivanandan has called a
new ‘xeno-racism’ abroad – aimed at people
who often have white skins. And, interestingly,
we Caribbeans and Caribbean descended Brits
are not particularly active in the new resistance
campaigns against the new racism – the racism
against new migrants, asylum seekers and
refugees.
“Where we at”
So, to what I want to say about ‘where we are
at’ with carnival in the UK. And here I want to
focus for a moment on just the big, London
Notting Hill scene. A loose, summary statement
of the situation would say – the Carnival is
now a huge thing, so huge that it has thrown
up a pile of ‘problems’ (even if it might be
better to see them as challenges) – money
problems – too little being pumped in, too
much haemorrhaging; internal management
problems – matching confidence with
competence; policing problems – mixing law
What all this means is that when we look at
the wider, shifting cultural and political agendas
of the authorities and the establishment – the
agendas that the arts and culture establishmen