St Lucia as a girl - so young and full of promise. Now she's obese and diabetic, unskilled and dependent. |
If St Lucia
was a 35-year-old person, she would be
broke, just a few steps from financial ruin, underworked, underpaid, uncreative
and scamming her foreign boyfriends out of an ever-decreasing amount of money.
When we got
Independence in 1979, the first thing we should have done was form some kind of
Federation with other small islands. But having not done that, we needed food
security. We didn’t do that and our cash crop carried us through an entire
decade before the Berlin Wall fell directly on top of the Windward Island
banana industry.
It was tragic and hilarious at the same time.
In the
20-sum years since then, we have done absolutely nothing about food security,
though, to our credit, we have talked about it an awful lot.
Mighty Banana. What a dick. Banana may be the most perfect food...
But everybody knows
That man shall not live by fig alone
For all the
speeches you heard this weekend, replaying on NTN ad naseum for the benefit of
those who deserve it, St Lucia is still, essentially, the same animal it was in
1979 before the British flag came down and the Tricolor Triangle went up. The computer
has not been reprogrammed to be self-administrating. The creature has not been retrained
to survive in the wild. Left on its own it will die.
And this
horrible thing will remain true until such time as this island becomes a net
contributor to the food and energy security of the world. This country is a
drag. Apart from the artists, intellectuals, artists and agriculturists it has
given the world, it is just one big liability.
The ancestors are ashamed.
The ancestors are ashamed.
(Phew. I’m
so glad I finally got that off my chest. And now, for something completely
different:)
THINGS &
PEOPLE TO BE PROUD OF
As bad as things are and have always been, it's not so bad to be born on a tropical island. And when it comes to tropical islands, St Lucia's pretty much up there with the best of them, not down there with the rest. Think if it this way: When people from Martinique see you with envy, you still have something going for you.
Having said that, you need to actually take account of what you have going for you. Compy, Odlum, George Charles. Lewis, Walcott, St Omer. Sammy, Spencer, whatever. We know that.
Having said that, you need to actually take account of what you have going for you. Compy, Odlum, George Charles. Lewis, Walcott, St Omer. Sammy, Spencer, whatever. We know that.
You get
stuck in a rut if you can’t see the heroes right under your nose because you’re
so busy deifying people who don’t need deification. You start thinking that
maybe these people were exceptional and the rest of us can never be that great.
And that’s the worst thing you should do because the whole point of hero
worship is to make little kids look at a statue of a dead guy and say to
himself, “Yeah, I want to be like that. I want them to raise statues when I
die.”
Or better
yet, met up with a live hero on the street and say something like, “Hey
Kendel/Luther/Barbara, can you show me how to do this?”
Greatest is
a thing you find in the most unlikely places. Especially places like this,
small and surrounded by the sea. It’s in your community, it’s in your family,
it’s probably in you. You have to know it when you meet it, because a lot of
the time, greatness does not have any interest in blowing its own trumpet. You have
to know it when you meet it and appreciate it because if you don’t, greatness
will still be greatness and you will be the one who missed out.
Ladies and
Gentlemen, meet greatness, Lucian style. (The authors of this article mean, by
no means, for it to be taken as an exhaustive survey.)
IRMA BUSCHEL:
I never get tired of talking about Luther Francois’ greatest or Boo Hinkson
remarkable ability to negotiate the right situation. I’m still in love with
Barbara Cadet. But Irma Buschel, I have to tell you about Irma Buschel, because
if you don’t already know that she’s the greatest thing since toasters made
sliced bread interesting, then you don’t know anything about Irma Buschel at
all. Irma Buschel singlehandedly composed and performed the single greatest
piece of St Lucian music since Luther Francois gave us the international
revered work, Mon Du Don. Buschel’s contribution was the soundtrack for the
play Malfinis, directed by Kendal Hippolyte for CARIFESTA. But soundtrack is a
petty word for what Buschel produced for Hippolyte and his company. The correct
word to express Buschel’s mindblowing music was ‘score.’ She scored the play,
like a professional composer does for an opera. The play was a kind of horror
story set somewhere between hell and a plantation in the early 20th
century. The music was a post post-modern mix of all the musical ideas that
anyone ever thought were no good. At first listen, you don’t get it. It’s not a
bunch of songs. It’s a progression of sounds that have unpleasant results of
your emotional state. But then, you get it. Buschel wasn’t just playing music.
She was telling the truth. While all other music out there is trying to deceive
us, make us feel good in bad times or make us feel powerful when in fact we are
weak, Buschel simply made a piece of music that told the truth, not just about
life on a plantation in the 1920s but about life in the early 21st
century. All the parts of life that other songwriters avoid are in there:
Guilt, shame, secrecy, defensiveness, cruelty, conspiracy, deliberate deception,
all the things that make us human that we want to avoid, Buschel wrote them down in sound and
music. Her music broke all the rules. Time signatures that bind other musicians
to their beats were toys to her. Scales and keys and even notes as we know them
became flexible, changeable, almost unrecognizable things. Music is the master
of many a man, but not Irma Buschel. Music was her bitch, doing what she
wanted, when she wanted, breaking and remaking rules as though that was the
only thing she could do with the rules. And then…silence. Long sustained
silences like the night creeping across the land, enveloping even the mountains
in the safety of the darkness. With all she had said in the music, with all she
had to say, Buschel also understood what Miles meant when he said that
sometimes you say the most by saying nothing at all. And that’s Irma. Hanging
around Theo’s in Gros Islet, approachable, conversant, fun loving and social
and yet, supremely silent, never even touching her own glory much less
trumpeting it and as the world continues around her oblivious to the fact that
they are in the company of greatness.
Original Lucian Rock Star
MACOLM
MAGARRON: What? You still don’t know who Malcolm Magarron is and why that is
critically important? Okay, youth, here is what you do. You find out for youself
on the internet. But then, you also go to every adult St Lucian you know and
ask them about Malcolm Magarron. Everyone who knows something about Malcolm
Magarron and why he is important is part of your solution in life. Everyone who
knows nothing about Malcolm Magarron is part of the problem the world is facing
now.
Nerd of the Century
EDSEL
EDMUNDS: Your teacher told you he was a diplomat and the internet confirmed.
But look deeper and you will find an important scientist who made a global
contribution to the banana industry.
Edmunds should go down in history as the greatest nerd in the history of the
island and that’s counting Lewis and Walcott. While the two Nobel Prize winners
were out there working their way up the ladders that led to fame, Edmunds was
down in the dirt that they talked about in their books, solving an actual
problem. Banana plants were not giving the yields we needed and Edmunds noticed
that the plants looked sick. Under a microscope, he found little tiny vampire
worms in the dirt had been sucking the life out of the plants. His discovery
saved the banana industry in many countries from a sickness they couldn’t even
see.
God's Country. Too bad He left Man with Power of Attorney...
SMMA/PMA/WHS:
With a mixture of pride and shame, we include the Qualibou Caldera on this
list. Pride, because it confirms to the world that we are something unique, in
world of Pyramids, Himalayas and Taj Mahals. Shame because we’re selling the
World Heritage Site as real estate. It’s like we’re not just selling the goose,
we’re shooting it first and selling it by the pound. Shame on the government.
Shame on the planning ministry. Shame on the landowners. Shame on us all for
turning a blind eye.
MERLE
GODDARD: Microbiologist who makes preserved food safe for some of the biggest
companies in the world. You know what that means? We have, in the national
skill set, the ability to process and preserve complex foods. You know what
that means, nigger? It means mangoes and coconuts never need to rot, ever
again. We can turn every single edible thing in the country into money. Or at
least food for later.
JOHN
PHULCHERE: If John Phulchere lived anywhere in the developed world, people
would be clamoring to be the one who made him famous, the one who got him the
best deal, the one who got him the highest price. Unfortunately, he is from St
Lucia, the one place in the world that produces high art but has no
appreciation for it at all. He doesn’t care. He’s still the only person anyone
knows who produce portraits that look like they were painted with candlelight
and sculptures that look like they might sweat or burst into tears.
ZANE PIERRE:
Not because he’s Zane Pierre, but because he is currently the premiere symbol
of enduring excellence in St Lucian football in spite of institutionalized
neglect, chronic misorganization and all manner of unspeakable bullshit. Praise
Jah Trinidad as a pro-league that Lucians can defect to. If not for that, St
Lucia would be the most suicidal place in the world to be a great footballer.
No lie, bro. The Iraqi footballers have better facilities than our ballers.
The audacity of heterodoxy, the triumph of levity...
LUCIAN BOBO
SHANTI: For bringing back honor and dignity to the livity of Ras Tafari in this
island, even though it is at the cost of orthodoxy.
YOUNG
FARMERS: If there is one set of people who will save this country from its
leaders, it’s the young farmers. In spite of government’s failure of deliver
the lands and the support needed to boost agricultural diversification, in
spite of the collective failure to recognize food security as the foundation of
nation building (unless you’re a Hun), young people have recognized that the
future of money is in food. From young bank tellers to young drug dealers, the
youth are going back to the land.
LUCIAN
HACKERS: Hacking in St Lucia used to be limited to fellas trying to crack the
firewalls of their jabal’s Facebook page and phone. But over the last year in
particular, it seems like some hackers got serious and started hacking the
right people for the right reasons. The results have been in the news and have
been to everyone’s benefit. Well, almost everyone. Okay, I’m talking too much
about something that should not even be spoken of. Moving on…
GANJA
FARMERS: I don’t want to say too much, but I have to tell the truth: Lucian
weed got better. Waaay better. It’s like local ganja farmers read a book or
something. Right now, as we speak, fellas in the hills are translating
micro-biological terms into kweyol. No lie, dread. An amazing number of
ordinary ganja smokers and growers have decided to be scientific about their
stuff. And in no time you can see the results. And smell it. And smoke it. But
I digress. It used to be that it one guy offered you a local and another guy
offered you a Vinci, you’d take the Vinci. But now? You mad! Lucian weed is top
grade. If only our government would find some way to help us sell this stuff to
Holland. Help us make legal Euros. In return, we’ll pay VAT. Plus, you can tax
five bags if you want. We’ll play a license fees too. And pay VAT on the
domestic stuff, too. Not to mention that you get to turn a generation of young
criminals into enterprising agriculturists, like magic.
DRENIA
FREDERICK/DAVINA LEE: As we get used to the idea of jumping straight from
theater into audio/visual features, bypassing the whole tie up of television
and film production, two young female directors have emerged as top ting in the
future of St Lucian performance. Drenia Frederick has emerged as the dramaturge
par excellence, the heir of Hippolyte and other great theater directors. Davina
Lee, meanwhile, has emerged as the cinematographer par excellence. While the
rest of the Lucian camerati are either tech zombies or amateurs with ambition,
Lee is a tech saavy artist with an eye, not just for perfection, but for the
composition of the shot.
KENDEL
HIPPOLYTE: You really thought I was going to be able to resist this, Mr
Hippolyte. Ha. That’s funny. Okay, for the benefit of the humble master, let us
digress for a moment. Kendel Hippolyte is perhaps the youngest of the
generation of writers who came after Walcott. Now, you have to understand that
Walcott himself is not an isolated case of genius, he is the apex of a
generation of unrelenting genius that included Stanley French and Roddy
Walcott. Having established that Walcott was the tallest tree in the forest, it
became easy for lazy people to neglect the fact that there were other tall
trees that we could climb and see the world from. I got lucky. Kendel Hippolyte
was my literature teacher. But that generation also gave us Garth St Omer,
MacDonald Dixon, John Robert Lee. Okay, I realize now that Kendel is not one of
that generation. He comes later. But that’s how great he is. His influence has
surpassed that of the entire generation between him and Walcott. And unlike
Walcott, Hippolyte is a great director as well as a great writer. Many Lucians
don’t know this, because they see this mystic dread on the bus and could never
imagine that they were rubbing shoulders with someone whose legacy is greater
than that of any living Lucian political leader. But leave St Lucia with him
and see how fast you learn that in some places, this man is a demigod and
everywhere he works, he leaves a little legend behind him and transforms
someone’s life.
Off the beaten track. Nice. How would we learn about Irma, if she is so quiet about her own work? I hope she can promote and distribute better now using the technology.
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