Headlines, Latin America & the Caribbean

/ARTS WEEKLY/CULTURE: Calypso Raises Racial Hackles in Trinidad and Tobago

Peter Richards

PORT OF SPAIN, Jan 28 2004 (IPS) - It is the talk of the town. From political and business leaders to the man on the street, Winston Rawlins’ latest tune once again raises questions of race, morality and the line between good and bad entertainment.

The president of the National Association for the Empowerment of African People (NAEAP) Selwyn Cudjoe, said there was no outrage when the country’s first ethnic Indian prime minister, Basdeo Panday, told supporters that Indian people were being singled out for kidnapping “because they have money”, and that the crimes were racially motivated, because whites living in the wealthy suburbs had money but were not being targeted.

Less than three per cent of the country’s population is white.

“He certainly was not suggesting that the kidnappers of Indians and whites were Indians and whites,” Cudjoe said, adding that Cro Cro’s call to “kidnap the transgressors is meant to be used in a metaphorical sense”.

But law lecturer Dana Seethal says the calypso trivialises the seriousness of the threat faced by many people in recent years.

“To make matters worse, it is a fact that the vast majority of those kidnapped are of East Indian descent. In what has become a country sharply polarised along racial lines, is it not evident that any apparent condoning of specific criminal conduct seemingly focussed largely on one group will further alienate that group?”

“It is likely that business people of East Indian descent might feel even more threatened because of the government’s apparent failure to denounce what is obviously a song inciting kidnapping,” she wrote in her weekly newspaper column on Sunday.

The Afro-dominated Peoples National Movement (PNM) government has not publicly condemned the song.

National Security Minister Martin Joseph said he was unable to comment directly on the tune because he has not heard the lyrics. But he added, “I can’t advocate anything that will go against law and order in this country”.

Culture Minister Joan Yuille Williams told a news conference she does not believe the song seeks to incite citizens to engage in illegal acts. “The government will be worried if people go out there and try to incite people to kidnap. I really would not wish to think that that was what was meant,” she said.

Opposition Senator Robin Montano of the Indo-dominated United National Congress (UNC) has described Cro Cro as, “an excuse for a calypsonian”, telling legislators that if the Equal Opportunities Act was enforced, the singer would not have been able to sing such a tune.

The act, designed to address perceived inequities in employment practices and the allocation of state resources, also outlaws any public statement that could incite racial or sectional hatred.

The act, which was passed during the Panday administration’s term in office, is now the subject of a High Court challenge.

The media have also weighed in on the controversy. The Express newspaper said the calypsonian was advocating, “unlawful, retribution for wrong-doers in the society”.

“This is Cro Cro being as irresponsible as ever, and while he may argue that people are accusing him of a calumny that he never uttered, his past repertoire reinforces the charge that here, again, he is on another race-baiting run,” the paper said in an editorial.

In its editorial Newsday said, “it is disgraceful that a calypso should be composed and sung, publicly, which urges members of the public to kidnap citizens for whatever the reason”, reminding readers, “some of those kidnapped have even been murdered”.