00:00resistance remembrance and renewal according to educator and activist role gibbons these
00:06are critical elements to recapturing the essence of the cultural aspects of carnival
00:10under an ever-evolving space he notes that etched in that culture is struggle revolution
00:16and other integral elements to the nation's identity comes out of resistance
00:23right um and then memory or remembering because of the kinds of discontinuities and fragmentations
00:33that we've had so remembering becomes an important part of our own sense of self gibbon says calypso
00:43became a tool representing the voices of ordinary people at a time when there was virtually no
00:48representation for them fast forward to the present he believes that many artists have
00:53moved away from tackling some of the highly serious national issues and have taken a more economic
00:58approach he isn't necessarily criticizing it saying it is important but what about calypsonians who
01:05stick to the traditional aspects are they now facing censorship which was present in the earlier years
01:10of the art form but i certainly know that the the the calypsons that have been critical of the current
01:17government have been excluded all right another people are not writing i mean there's no question
01:23about the calypso of the season is clearly lady victoria's um um um big uh big sale right which speaks
01:32directly to our situation okay and she she wasn't even considered but according to gibbons it's not only
01:39within this sphere that there is an attempt at silencing voices in this regard i can see that that that
01:46the regime the current regime is attempting to be autocratic and you know through the use of abuse
01:52in parliament directly um and through exclusion of calypsos that that are critical that of of of of
02:00themselves and so on at the same time they're showing up the very criticisms in so doing that
02:06the calypsonians are making gibbons points to dependency as something that is compounding the situation
02:12including within the steel plan fraternity as many bands depend on sponsorship what we have built over
02:18the years the culture of dependency right so that the steel band the the calypsonians who are excluded
02:26from the show and they don't think about what can i do right what can i do but i'm saying
02:34that we build
02:34this thing dependency and feel that we we can't do it ourselves yeah but everything in our history
02:41shows us that we can but gibbons expresses hope as he believes the country is at a critical juncture
02:47in what he calls an ongoing revolution and our response to that is also a defining of ourselves
02:56a defining of who we are who we decide that we are and i'm i'm very i'm very optimistic about
03:01that
03:03all right because i see it cutting across lines of race all right that these people here are trying
03:11to harden alicia boucher tv6 news
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