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Role of calypsonians should be recognised - The view from Barbados

Posted by CaribShout on September 21, 2009 at 6:34pm

From left: Head of the University of the West Indies Open Campus in Barbados, Dr. Ian Austin, Director of the EBCCI, Professor Gladstone Yearwood, and Dr. Hollis ‘Chalkdust’ Liverpool, speaking after Friday’s lecture. Calypsonians have a long history of identifying and suggesting solutions for crime in the Caribbean and should be recognised for their contribution. Seven-time Calypso Monarch of Trinidad and Tobago and Associate Professor of Social Sciences of the University of Trinidad and Tobago (UTT), Dr. Hollis “Chalkdust” Liverpool, presented this argument on Friday night during a lecture entitled “Crime, Calypso and Criminal Justice” at the Errol Barrow Centre for Creative Imagination (EBCCI). In a lecture interspersed with classic calypsos featuring the topic of crime from legends such as the Mighty Sparrow, Kitchener, Duke, and many others, Liverpool noted that despite their examination of the subject, calypsonians were seen to be purely entertainers who could not contribute to public policy. “Although calypsonians have commented on every topic imaginable, governments and a sizeable number of our local academics have not accepted their artistic generalisations and platitudes in song as being findings to be implemented in any government policy, regulation, or statute,” Liverpool said. He noted, however, that calypsonians had spoken about the impact of poverty, unemployment, lack of proper parenting, and under-education on crime in their songs. In addition, they had highlighted the ills of other practices as diverse as prostitution, domestic and child abuse, murder, and other violent crimes, but were not seen as experts on the subjects. To correct this oversight, he revealed that the UTT would be starting a programme to provide an artist’s diploma for calypsonians after two years, after which they would be eligible for a four-year degree. Liverpool noted that with crime spreading so rapidly across the islands of the Caribbean, solutions were needed to address the problem, and said that calypsonians had spoken out strongly in favour of capital punishment and the re-introduction of the cat-o’-nine-tails to deter crime. He said these facts all combined to show that calypsonians must have done research and analysed the data, and in a manner similar to social scientists, defined and offered solutions to crime, but for all this, the society has not given them any credit. Liverpool also noted that calypsonians had called for humane approaches to the crime problem, arguing that no one agency or approach could bring a solution to crime, and that developmental needs and human rights must be taken into account. “The evidence does suggest that calypsonians have over the years defined crime. We have criminalised certain patterns of behaviour, we have pronounced on the causes of crime, we have suggested the ways to prevent crime from [being] committed, we have offered proposals for review of criminal justice, and we have discussed issues and concerns of operating in the criminal justice system of the Caribbean,” he argued. Liverpool also noted that calypsonians had even anticipated the take-over of the gun culture from as early as the 1960s.

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