BAJAN 'WUK-UP' CULTURE UNDER FIRE
By Rickey Singh
Guyana Chronicle
September 7, 2003
GUYANESE who may not be prudish but find it necessary to express their concern over sexual-oriented manifestations at cultural/entertainment events, especially during 'Mashramani', may also find it useful to pay some attention to the outpouring of outrage in Barbados over what is being vehemently denounced as disgusting "wuk-up" culture.
It is now some six weeks since Barbados's annual cultural festival, 'Crop-Over' - which is being well marketed in the Eastern and Southern Caribbean, as well as overseas - climaxed with thousands of merry-makers dancing in the streets to enchanting, pulsating music.
But a fierce, passionate debate continues over the debasement of the festival with what is being attacked as overbearing displays of sexual "wuk-ing up" masquerading as "ah we (Bajan) culture".
On top of this emotional talking point in the media, including radio talk shows, there is also the hot political issue of a cabinet minister's sudden resignation - without any explanation from him or Prime Minister Owen Arthur.
And if, together, the "wuk-up" culture controversy and the silence of the resignation from Arthur's cabinet of the lawyer Ronald Toppin 15 days ago, as Minister of Commerce, Consumers Affairs and Business Development, are not enough for public consumption, a debate has been revived over an apparent foot-dragging by the government on arrangements for Barbados to proceed towards a constitutional republic.
* First, the "wuk-up" culture controversy:
Sharp criticisms of a questionable morality in public behaviour - which has followed long after the eruption of sustained condemnation of lewd, vulgar displays at Carnival in Trinidad and Tobago - there were relatively muted disapproving comments over sexual displays at the Crop-Over festivals of 2001 and 2002.
But with the evident degeneration in explicit sexual manifestations by adults, and young children, at various "cultural" events during "Crop-Over" 2003, some media commentators and public figures have apparently found the failure to rebuke from officialdom just too much to bear.
In this Eastern Caribbean state, that perhaps has more churches dotting its landscape of 166 square miles than most, if not all others within CARICOM, there are now more of those speaking out publicly, and privately about declining public moral behaviour at cultural events.
They express a shared sense of shame at the disturbing negative influence of the "wuk-up" culture is having on even young children.
They also point to the more recent phenomenon of policemen and soldiers on duty being overcome by "Crop-Over" masqueraders who would suddenly sandwich them as they perform their lewd dancing that leaves nothing to the imagination.
One social commentator has recalled the sorrow expressed by former Dean of St. Michael Cathedral, Dr Harold Crichlow that, under the guise of "entertainment", it has become fashionable for the nation's "culture" to be demonstrated from the "waist down".
Until recently, middle and upper-class Bajans holding influential positions, were either waiting for officialdom to first condemn the degeneration of very suggestive sexual behaviour during "Crop-Over", or were simply holding their silence, especially those of minority ethnic communities, fearful of being misrepresented.
Whether out of fear of losing the votes of the predominant under-class, or simply hoping that the "wuk-up" frenzy, with its "bumper" and "belly" sexual dimensions would simply be corrected over time, both the ruling and opposition parties have preferred silence to public condemnation.
By last weekend, a leading voice of Barbadian history and culture, Professor Henry Fraser, as well as a newly appointed government Senator John Williams, felt constrained to break the silence over the sheer wickedness being passed off as "Bajan culture".
Fraser, Dean of the School of Clinical Medicine and Research at the Cave Hill Campus of the University of the West Indies, past president of the Barbados National Trust and a public orator in the service of the region's university, made a stirring call for the "wuk-up culture" to be laid to rest, as soon as possible, in the national interest of Barbados.
Whether it is "Crop-Over", or "Community Independence Celebration" activities, said Fraser, neither is an occasion for "lewdness and licentiousness, vulgarity, public display of simulated sex that has become part of our new Bajan bumper and belly culture ...
Resignation silence
"I categorically refuse to accept", he declared, "that the lewd and licentious behaviour progressively imposed on our sub-Bajan culture must be accepted. I categorically refuse to believe that the way and range of pelvic gyrations is the culture or barometer on which the Bajan culture should be judged ..."
While Williams was comparatively mild in his rebuke of the "lewd, wuk-up" dancing at "Crop-Over", Fraser referred to television coverage of two young children "wuk-ing up" during "Kadooment" (children's carnival), and concluded: "Something is fundamentally wrong in our community and in our minds when adults are amused and entertained by the precocious pelvic performances of little children".
Some other commentators have been expressing outrage of young girls and adult women departing from costumed bands to gyrate on policemen and soldiers on duty during "Crop-Over", as if competing for attention as they do their "thing" from "the waist down", contemptuously mocking the "morality" that others of their country folks rightly want to preserve.
* In the case of the resignation of the lawyer Toppin from Arthur's cabinet, to which he was reappointed just three months ago following the return to power of the ruling Barbados Labour Party, the refusal by him and the Prime Minister to disclose the reason for his going, is viewed as contempt for public opinion, including the loyal supporters of the party.
It has long been recognised that inherent in our Westminster parliamentary system of governance, a Caribbean Prime Minister is much more than the first among equals.
In reality, the enormous powers vested in a Prime Minister are more than those constitutionally permitted a President of the United States of America. A CARICOM Prime Minister can simply dismiss and appoint cabinet ministers, at will, and call elections as he pleases.
Disappointing, therefore, as it remains for even sympathetic media people and loyalists of the government to relate to the refusal by Toppin to disclose even part of his sudden resignation letter, or the Prime Minister's own refusal to say anything publicly, the Barbados society seems to be experiencing a dose of that absolute power of a Caribbean head of government that has, variously, manifested itself across the region.
Speculations persist whether the departure of Toppin may be linked to disagreement with the Prime Minister over the Fair Trading Commission (FTC), or a related issue of Cable and Wireless seeking new rate increases.
Last Friday, the government found it necessary, without any reference to Toppin's resignation, to deny reports that the members of the FTC had been asked to resign - a possibility vaguely alluded to by Toppin two days earlier. Instead, said Toppin's successor, Senator Lynette Eastmond, she would be asking cabinet to "expand" the membership of the FTC.
Whatever the truth - which should soon emerge - no one seems to publicly accept that, as the spin doctors of the governing BLP and the Arthur administration would wish, that Toppin simply wanted to return to his private law practice.
Three months after convincingly retaining his St. Michael West Central constituency, and reappointed to cabinet? Not for real.