`Wuk-up’ in Barbados
Guest editorial
Guyana Chronicle
July 31, 2004
SEXUAL gyration that leaves nothing to the imagination and controversy are now standard fare for Barbados's premier cultural event `Crop-Over’.
The controversies traditionally swirl primarily around the calypsonians and the National Cultural Foundation (NCF).
But it is the debasement of womanhood and sex itself that may have degenerated to a level that cries out for serious soul-searching in this country that once prided itself in making a difference in public moral uprightness among our Caribbean societies.
As if overwhelmed by the captivating `wuk-up’ behaviour that manifests itself in the most explicit forms from the waist down, a lot of good people who once raised their voices against what passes for "ah we culture" in this Caribbean land, have become sadly quiet or indifferent.
Worse, there are some influential people, including those of the Christian faith, who attempt to rationalise as seasonal revelry a "Bajan wuk-up". They cannot be unaware that this outrageous public behaviour, marketed as tantalising "dance fever", carries a dangerous message of its own for public rectitude.
Such Barbadians even make comparisons with the anything-goes-mood among fellow Caribbean people during their own national carnivals. They seem unmindful of the social and moral implications as a consequence of the extent to which 'Crop-Over' is now associated with self-degradation and sexual debasement.
Look at television coverage, for instance, of Crop-Over events and you get an idea of the sickening message, with even school-going children being increasingly caught up in the `wuk-up’ sensation as they emulate adults, men and women, mothers and fathers, even grandparents!
For sure, there is much more to 'Crop-Over' than the `wuk-up’ preferences associated with lewd public behaviour. Those who have invested so much of their creative imagination to illustrate what's good and wholesome about the festival have an obligation to rescue it. Now is the time for some critical questions about the downside, the immoral side of `Crop-Over’.
Is there a failure at media houses that sustain lewd behaviour with "close-up" coverage of unmistakable sexual orientation? Have market forces become so dominant, so decisive in influencing the costumes and quality of shows, sponsorship of programmes and actiivites that a great cultural festival, evolved over three decades, has now degenerated into one big annual `wuk-up’ occasion for an expanding entertainment industry?
In delivering the second `Earl Warner Memorial Lecture’ in May, that outstanding asset of Barbados and the Caribbean, George Lamming, alluded to some of the ambiguities in our Caribbean experience. These ambiguities, he noted, were often at their sharpest when television and the print media "overwhelm the boundaries between culture and the entertainment industry".
"Who is responsible for the kind of television we view", asked Lamming, who holds the view that much of what has gone wrong may have to do with the self-serving "sanctification" of entertainment as "culture".
As we prepare this weekend for the "high fever" of 'Crop-Over 2004’, it would be useful to reflect on Lamming's link between "culture" and the "entertainment industry".
(Comment by Rickey Singh in yesterday's Barbados `Weekend Nation’)