|
The truth about Tobago Heritage Festival’s
origin
This is not JD’s baby |
| By
DERSON CHARLES |
THE
2006 edition of the Tobago Heritage Festival was launched with a
massive street parade through the streets of Scarborough last week
Friday. Now in its 20th year, the island’s premier cultural
event, which runs for two weeks from July 14 to August 1, faces
a number of challenges, according to one of its founding fathers
George Stanley Beard.
Speaking in an exclusive interview with TnT Mirror last Tuesday,
Beard, who served as Secretary for Tourism in the former National
Alliance for Reconstruction (NAR)-run Tobago House of Assembly (THA)
has charged the current Peoples’ National Movement (PNM) administration
of the THA with politicising and prostituting the festival.
“They, the PNM, have taken the festival way off course from
its original aims and objectives,” he slammed.
Beard also took the opportunity to correct the history of the origins
of the Tobago Heritage Festival.
The late JD Elder, an anthropologist, who for many years served
as Secretary for Culture in the NAR regime, had been widely regarded
as the person who gave birth and nurtured the indigenous festival
of the Sister Isle.
But, according to Beard, this has been one of the biggest misnomers
about the festival.
“I hear people, who should know better, running their mouths
up and down proclaiming JD Elder as the “father” of
our heritage festival.
“This is a big disappointment because to date, no one has
done or said anything to correct the facts,” he lamented.
|
Games
we used to play.
Heritage dancers take to the streets.
The
Moriah Wedding.
|
Beard
recalled that he came into the Assembly in December 1986, following
the resignation of the then Chairman ANR Robinson, who became the
Prime Minister of TnT.
He pointed out that JD Elder was a member of the THA since its inception
in 1980, which meant that he had been serving for a full seven years.
“When I was appointed as Tourism Secretary, I recognised that
nothing was happening in the island.
“I had to develop a vehicle to move tourism forward because
as an island we were not on the map,” declared Beard.
He continued: “Trinidad overshadowed everything with Carnival
and Best Village festivals.
“I decided to adopt a policy of an integrated form of cultural
tourism, which was presented to the Executive Council of the THA.
|
“JD
was Secretary for Culture at the time and he was a great resource
person, who assisted and supported the plan,” he stressed.
According to Beard, he formulated the plan with Bindley Benjamin,
the late Fritzroy Wright and Joan Applewhite, who were all
members of his staff in the Department of Tourism.
“They were the core people along with a few other facilitators,
who wrote up the heritage festival plan that was presented
to the Assembly,” he revealed.
“It took six months for the Assembly to buy in to the
concept.
“It was a hard sell because there were a lot of doubting
Thomases, who felt that bringing up the past was taboo.
“They also had a problem of showcasing the dialectic
language of Tobago, saying how people already saying that
we speak badly.
“They also could not see culture and entertainment as
a vehicle for sustainable economic development,” remarked
Beard.
|
Miss
Tourist takes a chip with
this Moriah wedding character.
|
|
He recalled that in the trial year of 1987, the Assembly voted a
budget of $1,000 for the festival.
“The records are there to show that from that budget, we used
only $300,” he revealed.
Beard credits the direct involvement of two of his University of
Manitoba former classmates in Josanne Leonard and Lynette Wiltshire,
who assisted in attracting sponsorship of over $62,000 for the festival
that year.
“Now, with so much sponsorship, we are hearing that the THA
spending over $4.5 million on this year’s festival.
“Where is all that money going?” he queried.
Beard said that among his ground rules for the festival was “no
politics” should be practiced and that he headed a multi-political
composed committee to run the festival for its first two years.
He opined, however, that the festival began to derail, when it was
moved from Tourism to the Culture Division in 1989.
“That was when the bastardisation of heritage began to take
place,” he fumed.
Beard was adamant that in the original concept, steelband, calypso
and mas had no place in the Heritage Festival.
“They all have their separate time and place but not heritage,”
he insisted.
Beard warned that if the present administration continued to publish
untruths about the origins of the festival, then he would be forced
to take legal action to correct the history.
“I have made my contribution to the development of the island’s
cultural landscape and we must pride ourselves in speaking the truth,”
declared Beard. |
|
