A CARNIVAL CADENZA
Dr. Lester CN Simon
A most remarkable phenomenon is happening right before our opened eyes and I almost missed it. Concurrent with the government’s seemingly inescapable march into the den of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), a mushroom of local talent, expertise and finance is exploding into a cavalcade of carnival music. Almost all of this music will soon disappear, probably before the money from the IMF is released. And almost all of this music will hardly be heard again, unlike the IMF. Am I missing something?
Thousands of miles across the Atlantic, another remarkable phenomenon is awakening our ears. Jazz and classical musicians are joining forces. Jazz pianist, Herbie Hancock and classical pianist, Lang Lang are performing, together, with the Philharmonia Orchestra at London’s Royal Albert Hall. Herbie Hancock reminds us that there was a time when classical musician would improvise, as in the cadenza portion of a concerto.
In the general discussion about the pairing of these two musical masters, something odd is being bandied about. Comments are made about the safety and security of classical music in contrast to the bubbling freedom of jazz. Herbie Hancock was exhilarated when Lang Lang abandoned that so-called safety and security and improvised a part of the music they were playing.
In making the contrast between security and freedom, we often ignore the fact that the freedom we take for granted is based on the security of years of strict, slavish attention to detail and study. Otherwise, freedom, with no apposite regard for its opposite (in the past and in the present), is rooted in raw, primal, wildness and becomes an oxymoron.
I wish to declare that the ease with which many of us are able to express ourselves so skillfully in music and the similar ease with which we abandon or destroy our musical creations at carnival, are all part and parcel of our inability to build a modern society and manage the affairs of this nation.
When we take our music for granted, we often do not spend the time and expend the energy to manage it like a business or to realize its true potential. Ask our four top calypsonians if their music sheets are kept in some local repository and they might ask you if you need a suppository. Musicians would scamper to find the music sheets to play at a concert to honour these same top four calypsonians, expecting these master singers to sing at such a concert. In fact, in deed and in honour, they should be invited to sit in the front row with their family whilst a national orchestra and singers regale them with the very songs through which these masters gave us so much pleasure and contemplation.
These days, it has become too easy to compose a song, if song it can be called. Some of these offerings will make “Sing a Song of Sixpence” sound like a platinum classic; others will force Dan the man to abandon the van, and yet others will force the grandchildren of Jean and Dinah, Roseta and Clementina to bet and lose their lives on something they are selling, round the corner posing.
Notwithstanding this criticism, the fact remains that time, effort and money are deployed and dispensed to produce what the artistes regard as works of art. If this process is not managed effectively by the artistes, by their managers and by other persons related in some way to the music, how can we expect them and their followers to suddenly become responsible, productive and efficient at work in the civil service?
It seems that we have to take a second, long look at our music industry and other art forms in this country. We must rescue music from the hotels in order to rescue our people. The way we organize an orchestra, a pan yard, schedule and manage a practice session, including ironing out all the kinks in the music and settling all the personality clashes, and still eat and drink and play and perform together, must carryover to the workplace.
Can it be that we have lost the wholesomeness of music in particular, and of the arts in general, that we see them simply as media of pleasures, and not also as tools to arm and fortify us with the discipline we need in the workplace? Can it be that music is so easy to us, and now even easier still, that we misunderstand what is meant when it is said that “music is the universal language” or when Beethoven said, “Music is the language of God”?
Music is not just the language that all people can understand and be moved by. Music, in all its requirements and facets, from idea to creativity, from production to marketing, from enjoyment to contemplation, is a gift from God. It is given to us to enable us to understand the world around us. Through its compulsory twinning of discipline and freedom, it provides us with the fundamental and universal tool required to run our lives, to run a business, to run a country and, yes, to run the IMF. Unfortunately, the IMF dances to calypso with a strange, discordant and irregular rhythm.
Sunday, July 19, 2009
Sunday, July 12, 2009
Benna
THAT ANTIGUAN CALYPSO SOUND
Dr. Lester CN Simon
The question is on the table: Does Antiguan calypso music have a unique sound compared to Trinidadian calypso? If so, what is it? Many persons contend that there is a difference. The very same, many people find it difficult to outline the said uniqueness of the Antiguan calypso sound. I am in this group that finds it difficult to clearly lay bare the differences. I thought it might be useful to open up further, the discussion started by Cleveroy Thomas, the host of a Friday night program on calypso music on Observer Radio.
Let us begin by lauding the contribution George Jonas made by calling in to the recent Friday night program on Observer Radio. He underscored the role of the musician, the more rhythmic aspect of the Antiguan sound and, as we discussed off air, the role of dance and radio.
Our examination of the Antiguan sound should survive and surpass the harrowing application of universal parameters that can be used to examine any form of music, be it calypso, classical music or jazz. There are at least four such parameters. These are the role of music in society, the functions of music societies, the quality of musicianship, and the commercial underpinnings that tie those in the music business to the music.
It is probably fair to start by saying that music and dance were born at or around the same time, twin members of the arts, one might say. To the extent that a society advances from a more physical to a more aural and cerebral desire for music, so too would the music in that society become kinder and gentler to the dancing feet. Music societies are often the custodians of the status quo. They would put on concerts in which the dancing member of the twins (of dance and music) would take second place, if any place at all, to the music used in ceremonies and rituals, including church services.
The presence of radio is crucial because with or without the hosting of concerts by music societies, radio allowed for the broadcasting of music to large audiences. Indeed, whilst such broadcast involved dance music, it allowed for music that was aptly described as “for your listening pleasure”. It would seem that the emerging polar positions of dance music and listening music might lead to a hybrid popular music that was somewhere between these two poles. Clearly, those societies that maintained some semblance of dance in their ceremonies and rituals, including, in particular, church services, might develop different hybrid music forms from those in the societies that did not. Look at the mammoth wave that followed Superblue after he won his first carnival Road March singing Soca Baptist.
The quality of the musicians seems so fundamental, it is almost not worth mentioning. What is worthy of mention is that origin and nurturing of the quality of the musicians and the calypsonians. It has been said that although musicianship can be improved by playing at hotels, hotel music in a country whose lifeblood is tourism, diverts the musicians from their role in the development of local music. This means that rather than a regular diet of local music for the demanding and thirsty locals, all we get is a jam-packed primal offering for a few weeks around carnival time.
Unless there is proper marketing and sponsorship, or music societies assist in the financial and other management areas of national orchestras, the commercial aspects of music can determine the success or failure of top ranking musicians and artistes, The advent of music piracy has challenged the way we get money from exposing our music to listeners (and dancers) but the internet is pointing us in a direction to help head off some of the piracy. More importantly, the financial future of live music in dances or fetes or shows is assured.
So now we have looked at the four parameters, what are the developmental differences between Antiguan and Trinidadian calypsos? Do not entertain the thought that simply because Trinidad is the homeland of calypso, that Trinidadian calypso is superior. There are many examples (I hate to mention West Indian Cricket, these days) in which the master has been surpassed by the student. Indeed, some say that is how it should be. If at all Trinidadian calypso is superior, our analysis must prove this, although the concept of superiority in music might reside only in the biased ears of the listener.
It is said so often by so many persons I respect, I am beginning to think it might be true. They claim that calypso music gets faster, starting on a musical meridian from Trinidad (slower) to Tortola (faster). It begs the question about the entry and penetration of radio into Trinidad, compared to Antigua. I recall listening to calypsos on radio in the sixties. Some were quick and jumpy but most of them were more for listening compared to what I saw (hiding under the counter) in local dancehalls. Indeed, I vividly recall the wild big-people dances, in which, on one occasion, a kind gentleman man handed back a woman her blouse, which she had allegedly danced off onto the dance floor, all by herself.
Worse, I luridly recall the even more physical dances I would see at carnival time; dances that poor little, tiny me, in short pants, had to put up with. Imagine big people who would otherwise chastise you at church or at or after school, now singing and demonstrating and remonstrating about some part of the male anatomy standing up for what it wanted. That sort of public, primal wildness would make a good parson drink off all the wine, and send out the server to buy some more.
With the migration of Antiguans and people from other neighboring islands to the Virgin Islands, these islanders would want to maintain their musical roots. They would probably end up playing faster calypso than the calypso back home, if their local, calypso music was only for annual celebrations such as carnival, and they were starved of a regular diet of local, dancing calypso in concert and in competition with calypso played just for listening pleasure.
As a society moves towards calypso for listening pleasure, the skills of the writers of calypso stand out. I have to report that, whilst it might not be a uniqueness of Antiguan calypso, many of our calypsos seem to be recitations or poems written as such, and then an attempt made to put them to calypso music; or is it put calypso music to them?. Such inorganic and aplastic calypso becomes almost as angular, and in and out as the geographical shape of Antigua itself. This is probably why, with the resurrection of the jumpy, up-tempo music of the Burning Flames, Antiguans once again took part in that long lost ritual of following home your band at carnival time; in this case, walking and dancing all the way from town to Potters.
Hardly surprising then that the Soca Monarch show is upstaging the Calypso Monarch show. The role of radio in stifling debate, in general, during a dark period of our history, probably had some bearing on the paucity of well written calypsos with acute and biting social commentary, except for the token allowance grudgingly granted at carnival time.
The question is still on the table, or is it now on the dance floor? What is this unique Antiguan calypso sound? Whatever the original, authentic, Antiguan calypso sound is, we have to examine it more to identify it. Its identification is not just nostalgic because we are now into a pepperpot culture of music. It is precisely because of this merging of cultures, that we must always be able to identify our own, just as a good chef, can identify salt, pepper and sugar, so as to make it a little sweeter and a little hotter. And then you can ( in typical Antiguan twang), drink some ice water. Or, if the burning flames get too hot, you can obey the command to take part in the calypso baptismal order, and again in Antiguan lexicon, take a jump and “bathe you skin” in Country Pond water.
Dr. Lester CN Simon
The question is on the table: Does Antiguan calypso music have a unique sound compared to Trinidadian calypso? If so, what is it? Many persons contend that there is a difference. The very same, many people find it difficult to outline the said uniqueness of the Antiguan calypso sound. I am in this group that finds it difficult to clearly lay bare the differences. I thought it might be useful to open up further, the discussion started by Cleveroy Thomas, the host of a Friday night program on calypso music on Observer Radio.
Let us begin by lauding the contribution George Jonas made by calling in to the recent Friday night program on Observer Radio. He underscored the role of the musician, the more rhythmic aspect of the Antiguan sound and, as we discussed off air, the role of dance and radio.
Our examination of the Antiguan sound should survive and surpass the harrowing application of universal parameters that can be used to examine any form of music, be it calypso, classical music or jazz. There are at least four such parameters. These are the role of music in society, the functions of music societies, the quality of musicianship, and the commercial underpinnings that tie those in the music business to the music.
It is probably fair to start by saying that music and dance were born at or around the same time, twin members of the arts, one might say. To the extent that a society advances from a more physical to a more aural and cerebral desire for music, so too would the music in that society become kinder and gentler to the dancing feet. Music societies are often the custodians of the status quo. They would put on concerts in which the dancing member of the twins (of dance and music) would take second place, if any place at all, to the music used in ceremonies and rituals, including church services.
The presence of radio is crucial because with or without the hosting of concerts by music societies, radio allowed for the broadcasting of music to large audiences. Indeed, whilst such broadcast involved dance music, it allowed for music that was aptly described as “for your listening pleasure”. It would seem that the emerging polar positions of dance music and listening music might lead to a hybrid popular music that was somewhere between these two poles. Clearly, those societies that maintained some semblance of dance in their ceremonies and rituals, including, in particular, church services, might develop different hybrid music forms from those in the societies that did not. Look at the mammoth wave that followed Superblue after he won his first carnival Road March singing Soca Baptist.
The quality of the musicians seems so fundamental, it is almost not worth mentioning. What is worthy of mention is that origin and nurturing of the quality of the musicians and the calypsonians. It has been said that although musicianship can be improved by playing at hotels, hotel music in a country whose lifeblood is tourism, diverts the musicians from their role in the development of local music. This means that rather than a regular diet of local music for the demanding and thirsty locals, all we get is a jam-packed primal offering for a few weeks around carnival time.
Unless there is proper marketing and sponsorship, or music societies assist in the financial and other management areas of national orchestras, the commercial aspects of music can determine the success or failure of top ranking musicians and artistes, The advent of music piracy has challenged the way we get money from exposing our music to listeners (and dancers) but the internet is pointing us in a direction to help head off some of the piracy. More importantly, the financial future of live music in dances or fetes or shows is assured.
So now we have looked at the four parameters, what are the developmental differences between Antiguan and Trinidadian calypsos? Do not entertain the thought that simply because Trinidad is the homeland of calypso, that Trinidadian calypso is superior. There are many examples (I hate to mention West Indian Cricket, these days) in which the master has been surpassed by the student. Indeed, some say that is how it should be. If at all Trinidadian calypso is superior, our analysis must prove this, although the concept of superiority in music might reside only in the biased ears of the listener.
It is said so often by so many persons I respect, I am beginning to think it might be true. They claim that calypso music gets faster, starting on a musical meridian from Trinidad (slower) to Tortola (faster). It begs the question about the entry and penetration of radio into Trinidad, compared to Antigua. I recall listening to calypsos on radio in the sixties. Some were quick and jumpy but most of them were more for listening compared to what I saw (hiding under the counter) in local dancehalls. Indeed, I vividly recall the wild big-people dances, in which, on one occasion, a kind gentleman man handed back a woman her blouse, which she had allegedly danced off onto the dance floor, all by herself.
Worse, I luridly recall the even more physical dances I would see at carnival time; dances that poor little, tiny me, in short pants, had to put up with. Imagine big people who would otherwise chastise you at church or at or after school, now singing and demonstrating and remonstrating about some part of the male anatomy standing up for what it wanted. That sort of public, primal wildness would make a good parson drink off all the wine, and send out the server to buy some more.
With the migration of Antiguans and people from other neighboring islands to the Virgin Islands, these islanders would want to maintain their musical roots. They would probably end up playing faster calypso than the calypso back home, if their local, calypso music was only for annual celebrations such as carnival, and they were starved of a regular diet of local, dancing calypso in concert and in competition with calypso played just for listening pleasure.
As a society moves towards calypso for listening pleasure, the skills of the writers of calypso stand out. I have to report that, whilst it might not be a uniqueness of Antiguan calypso, many of our calypsos seem to be recitations or poems written as such, and then an attempt made to put them to calypso music; or is it put calypso music to them?. Such inorganic and aplastic calypso becomes almost as angular, and in and out as the geographical shape of Antigua itself. This is probably why, with the resurrection of the jumpy, up-tempo music of the Burning Flames, Antiguans once again took part in that long lost ritual of following home your band at carnival time; in this case, walking and dancing all the way from town to Potters.
Hardly surprising then that the Soca Monarch show is upstaging the Calypso Monarch show. The role of radio in stifling debate, in general, during a dark period of our history, probably had some bearing on the paucity of well written calypsos with acute and biting social commentary, except for the token allowance grudgingly granted at carnival time.
The question is still on the table, or is it now on the dance floor? What is this unique Antiguan calypso sound? Whatever the original, authentic, Antiguan calypso sound is, we have to examine it more to identify it. Its identification is not just nostalgic because we are now into a pepperpot culture of music. It is precisely because of this merging of cultures, that we must always be able to identify our own, just as a good chef, can identify salt, pepper and sugar, so as to make it a little sweeter and a little hotter. And then you can ( in typical Antiguan twang), drink some ice water. Or, if the burning flames get too hot, you can obey the command to take part in the calypso baptismal order, and again in Antiguan lexicon, take a jump and “bathe you skin” in Country Pond water.
Monday, June 29, 2009
The Bajan Got It Right
THE PRIME MINSTER OF BARBADOS IS BOSS
Prime Minister Thompson of Barbados is paving a new path to true Caribbean integration.
The fundamental problem we are facing regarding immigration is this: Irresponsibility. The governor of the ECCB recently mentioned the lack of fiscal responsibility on the part of Antigua and Barbuda, and Jamaica. A few more countries can be added to this list. I want to suggest that it is also political and civil service irresponsibility that is at the heart of the problem.
There are penalties for running a country or an immigration department worse than a peanut vendor. Barbados is taking a responsible approach to immigration and the irresponsible Caribbean nationals, including Norman Girvan, are upset. They are upset because they still do not get it: Running any country, in particular a developing country with a post slavery society, demands almost a slavish attention to professional responsibility. Freedom is not free, in its genesis, deuteronomy or revelation.
In the context of the Free Movement of People, there can be no such thing until the wild and vulgar degrees of political and civil service freedom we practise are replaced by responsibility; not perfection, just plain old measurable and manageable responsibility, as Prime Minister Thompson is trying to chart. Without this, Free Movement of People will be nothing but a public guttural exercise on a public toilet.
And by the bye, Antigua and Barbuda should NOT enter an IMF program. If we do, our lack of fiscal and other professional responsibilities will mean that not even dog will want to eat our supper.
Prime Minister Thompson of Barbados is paving a new path to true Caribbean integration.
The fundamental problem we are facing regarding immigration is this: Irresponsibility. The governor of the ECCB recently mentioned the lack of fiscal responsibility on the part of Antigua and Barbuda, and Jamaica. A few more countries can be added to this list. I want to suggest that it is also political and civil service irresponsibility that is at the heart of the problem.
There are penalties for running a country or an immigration department worse than a peanut vendor. Barbados is taking a responsible approach to immigration and the irresponsible Caribbean nationals, including Norman Girvan, are upset. They are upset because they still do not get it: Running any country, in particular a developing country with a post slavery society, demands almost a slavish attention to professional responsibility. Freedom is not free, in its genesis, deuteronomy or revelation.
In the context of the Free Movement of People, there can be no such thing until the wild and vulgar degrees of political and civil service freedom we practise are replaced by responsibility; not perfection, just plain old measurable and manageable responsibility, as Prime Minister Thompson is trying to chart. Without this, Free Movement of People will be nothing but a public guttural exercise on a public toilet.
And by the bye, Antigua and Barbuda should NOT enter an IMF program. If we do, our lack of fiscal and other professional responsibilities will mean that not even dog will want to eat our supper.
Sunday, April 19, 2009
Keeping Company
THE COMPANY YOU KEEP
Dr. Lester CN Simon
Sometimes we have to look back to see ahead. We should go through this exercise now as we try to chart a course out of these perilous economic times. I have heard it said by intelligent people that in times like these we need a saviour. Whenever we say this, and if we really mean it, we must ask ourselves if the saviour has not already given us the answer through the written words of one of our sterling, native sons.
We have had the good fortune of experiencing two polar examples of relationships between companies and workers, to know right from wrong. We have had companies with varying degrees of unionized workers from militant to token unionization. We have also had companies, including a spectacular one, which not only had no unionized workers, they covertly or overtly abhorred unionization.
Examination of both extremes should tell us that militant unionization and no unionization are ultimately counterproductive. When we hear union officials cry out for workers and extol the fundamental rights of workers, we are reminded of the origin and history of trade unionism in this country. We should balance this with the genuine cries of some employers. We regard the Labour Code almost as a sacred document, even though it has some imbalances and is in need of revision and modernization.
To understand the opportunity rather than the danger we are facing in these perilous, economic times, we must re-read one paragraph of The Struggle and the Conquest by Sir Novelle Richards. Parts of it read, “The aim of the Trade Union Movement was that workers in the sugar industry should be accepted as partners, whereby they could share in the wealth created by the industry, rather than being tools employed to do a job.”
This text, which should be in all workplaces, goes on to say that the planters resisted this partnership approach. It notes that increases in wages would mean less profit for the company, unless there was improved production efficiency. The trade union movement at that time challenged the producers to this paradigm shift of improved production efficiency to balance the warranted increases in wages. The seminal paragraph of the text ends by noting that men like Moody-Stuart and others were willing to accept the challenge but “others did not relish the additional exertion and planning necessitated by this challenge.”
So, it is written, that the producers, the owners, were too lazy to exert themselves, to work, to plan, in order to make their own business more efficient. This is sterling stuff by Sir Novelle Richards. However, if the dead could cry, he would be bawling long eye water to discover that after all the struggles and conquests, we have arrived at a stalemate. Not only are some producers and owners still too lazy to exert themselves to improve efficiency, when some of them honour the raison d’etre of the trade union movement, there are workers who do not want to join the partnership-efficiency struggle.
The fault does not lie just with some owners and some workers, it is also seated in the lap of some trade union officials. Hopefully they express disapproval of some actions of their workers in private when the workers are blatantly wrong. But some things must be acknowledged in public: like the wanton abuse of the sick leave provisions in the Labour Code. And since we are on the topic of sick leave and acknowledgement in public, let me shout out that a few doctors and some workers are unconscionably and wantonly bartering sick leave. There is a vulgar joke about a postman who went to deliver a letter to a doctor and was offered a sick leave certificate, without asking for one; and even before he had delivered the letter, or had a clinical examination.
Last year, in a telling article by Banks and Coutu, in Harvard Business Review, some clues were given on how to protect your job in a recession. Suggestions included starting to act like a business partner and a survivor if you really want to be one. Studies show that supervisors and management will often choose workers that are more congenial than those who might be more capable but difficult to work with. It was also suggested that workers be ambidextrous and wear multiple hats, aiming to improve efficiency.
The basic plan is not to become depressed, helpless and hopeless. The article noted that studies of concentration camp survivors showed that a central, defining requirement for survival is to see a good future ahead rather than bury your head in the current quicksand. The article did not note that the black West Indian history of survival during slavery was based on this fundamental strategy whilst we were labouring under inhumane conditions to build much of the western world on sugar and spice and everything but nice. The successful West Indian response to this present world crisis is predicated on a thorough re-examination of our past histories and conquests.
In these times, even if you are employed, you should have a survival strategy in case the worse comes and you lose your job. You should carefully consider and plan for working for yourself or joining a group of similar workers and starting something new or unique. To become the best worker you can be in any company, you might have to lose your job during a recession and work for yourself to redefine your work ethic and possibilities. In the while, companies will have to be wise enough, or be forced by circumstance, to take on the original, primary aim of the trade union movement, or risk going under.
While you are working for yourself during hard times, you must make yourself more marketable for the future, when a job turns up. Self employment will enable you to discover that ultimate and yet fundamental journey that all workers, management and union officials will have to undertake to realize the post slavery and post colonial meaning of work. It will change the concepts of terms bandied about, like union, employers’ federation, trade union, chamber of commerce, workers union, or, the perfectly named, trade-and-labour union.
Working for yourself will not only prepare you for the best company you can keep, it will prepare you for the best partnership company that can keep you; the Novelle dictum, if you wish, for these and all times.
Dr. Lester CN Simon
Sometimes we have to look back to see ahead. We should go through this exercise now as we try to chart a course out of these perilous economic times. I have heard it said by intelligent people that in times like these we need a saviour. Whenever we say this, and if we really mean it, we must ask ourselves if the saviour has not already given us the answer through the written words of one of our sterling, native sons.
We have had the good fortune of experiencing two polar examples of relationships between companies and workers, to know right from wrong. We have had companies with varying degrees of unionized workers from militant to token unionization. We have also had companies, including a spectacular one, which not only had no unionized workers, they covertly or overtly abhorred unionization.
Examination of both extremes should tell us that militant unionization and no unionization are ultimately counterproductive. When we hear union officials cry out for workers and extol the fundamental rights of workers, we are reminded of the origin and history of trade unionism in this country. We should balance this with the genuine cries of some employers. We regard the Labour Code almost as a sacred document, even though it has some imbalances and is in need of revision and modernization.
To understand the opportunity rather than the danger we are facing in these perilous, economic times, we must re-read one paragraph of The Struggle and the Conquest by Sir Novelle Richards. Parts of it read, “The aim of the Trade Union Movement was that workers in the sugar industry should be accepted as partners, whereby they could share in the wealth created by the industry, rather than being tools employed to do a job.”
This text, which should be in all workplaces, goes on to say that the planters resisted this partnership approach. It notes that increases in wages would mean less profit for the company, unless there was improved production efficiency. The trade union movement at that time challenged the producers to this paradigm shift of improved production efficiency to balance the warranted increases in wages. The seminal paragraph of the text ends by noting that men like Moody-Stuart and others were willing to accept the challenge but “others did not relish the additional exertion and planning necessitated by this challenge.”
So, it is written, that the producers, the owners, were too lazy to exert themselves, to work, to plan, in order to make their own business more efficient. This is sterling stuff by Sir Novelle Richards. However, if the dead could cry, he would be bawling long eye water to discover that after all the struggles and conquests, we have arrived at a stalemate. Not only are some producers and owners still too lazy to exert themselves to improve efficiency, when some of them honour the raison d’etre of the trade union movement, there are workers who do not want to join the partnership-efficiency struggle.
The fault does not lie just with some owners and some workers, it is also seated in the lap of some trade union officials. Hopefully they express disapproval of some actions of their workers in private when the workers are blatantly wrong. But some things must be acknowledged in public: like the wanton abuse of the sick leave provisions in the Labour Code. And since we are on the topic of sick leave and acknowledgement in public, let me shout out that a few doctors and some workers are unconscionably and wantonly bartering sick leave. There is a vulgar joke about a postman who went to deliver a letter to a doctor and was offered a sick leave certificate, without asking for one; and even before he had delivered the letter, or had a clinical examination.
Last year, in a telling article by Banks and Coutu, in Harvard Business Review, some clues were given on how to protect your job in a recession. Suggestions included starting to act like a business partner and a survivor if you really want to be one. Studies show that supervisors and management will often choose workers that are more congenial than those who might be more capable but difficult to work with. It was also suggested that workers be ambidextrous and wear multiple hats, aiming to improve efficiency.
The basic plan is not to become depressed, helpless and hopeless. The article noted that studies of concentration camp survivors showed that a central, defining requirement for survival is to see a good future ahead rather than bury your head in the current quicksand. The article did not note that the black West Indian history of survival during slavery was based on this fundamental strategy whilst we were labouring under inhumane conditions to build much of the western world on sugar and spice and everything but nice. The successful West Indian response to this present world crisis is predicated on a thorough re-examination of our past histories and conquests.
In these times, even if you are employed, you should have a survival strategy in case the worse comes and you lose your job. You should carefully consider and plan for working for yourself or joining a group of similar workers and starting something new or unique. To become the best worker you can be in any company, you might have to lose your job during a recession and work for yourself to redefine your work ethic and possibilities. In the while, companies will have to be wise enough, or be forced by circumstance, to take on the original, primary aim of the trade union movement, or risk going under.
While you are working for yourself during hard times, you must make yourself more marketable for the future, when a job turns up. Self employment will enable you to discover that ultimate and yet fundamental journey that all workers, management and union officials will have to undertake to realize the post slavery and post colonial meaning of work. It will change the concepts of terms bandied about, like union, employers’ federation, trade union, chamber of commerce, workers union, or, the perfectly named, trade-and-labour union.
Working for yourself will not only prepare you for the best company you can keep, it will prepare you for the best partnership company that can keep you; the Novelle dictum, if you wish, for these and all times.
Sunday, April 12, 2009
Jamboree for the Living
BACH TO BACH
Dr. Lester CN Simon
It was with bitter sadness and curdled regret that many of us endured the passing of the Antigua and Barbuda Jazz Festival; a festival that we had worked so hard to build but could not sustain against all sorts of odds. I am not jealous of the success of the other regional jazz festivals but I have never had the urge to attend. I am still looking for a music festival that not only adds to the national coffers but one that leaves me and other local musicians and all of us so enriched musically that we want to sing and dance beside ourselves. I think I have found one.
Classical music is often regarded as European music to be played by Europeans only; or at least music that is played best by them. Indeed, many Europeans have championed this stereotype and often look askance at outsiders who venture to break down the sacred halls of their cultural birthright. Moreover, some of our own West Indians classical musicians have performed this protector function better than some Europeans. The colonized surpasses the colonizer.
It is for reasons like these, as well as simple unfamiliarity, that many West Indians will tell you that classical music is dead music by dead composers. They regard it as funeral and funereal music that must be shut out from their ears and barred from their minds. Strange. These are the same folks who will tell you about a wonderful, classic movie they thoroughly enjoyed. And yet they seemingly ignored the fact that the wonderful, classic movie they extol was made wonderful and classic largely because of the same classical music they despise.
Classical music and Jazz (not the 5 minutes popular, smooth jazz version; but the more extended format) came to me the same way reading a book without pictures came to me as a child. It was difficult at first; but then I discovered I could paint my own pictures, even if my pictures were slightly different from the ones painted by others, including the writer or composer.
I have to confess that I took a lucky shortcut into classical music. I decided to listen to classical music centered around instruments I like to hear; like the cello, violin, viola, clarinet, flute, French horn or English horn. I also have to confess that the first time I heard Dvorak cello concerto, I was moved to dance along to a particular passage as easily (well almost as easily) as I had danced the first time I heard Bob Marley, Shadow, Super Blue or John Coltrane.
The idea that music is the universal language and that all emotions can be experienced in all forms of music is a universally acknowledged truth. So here is another confession: I once thought country and western music was the pits. I started to change my mind when a friend (Dorbrene O’Mard) remarked that the stories were similar to those of calypso. I was finally convinced when I read that Charlie Parker would often listen to country and western music in night clubs, to the dismay of fans and other jazz musicians. When asked what he found in such simple music, he responded, “The stories, man. Listen to the stories.” And jazz and all other types of music, including classical music, are all about stories, stories in sound, with vacant canvases waiting for you to paint the pictures of your life. Also, Charles Mingus, in response to a snide remark about the simplicity of folk music, reminded that all music is folk music because horses do not sing. It’s all folk.
So why not have a classical music festival? Jazz festivals, including its many and varied formats, have been taken to the point of exhaustion, repetition and redundancy. Calypso and soca abound. Pop, Creole and world music are also taken. What will happen to our Romantic Rhythms? If it follows the path of our jazz festival, what’s left?
With or without Romantic Rhythms, we can start a classical music festival by bringing together overseas and local musicians, including, and here is the kick: steel pan players. Such a festival would be the culmination of one or two weeks of music workshops. Television programs and documentaries will be showcasing the twin islands whilst recording the development of the festival through the personal journeys of the musicians and the progress of the musical items. You might recall that in its early years, the St. Lucia Jazz Festival included workshops, to which regional musicians were invited. Sadly, this was smoothed over by the smooth jazz and pop.
Before and after the celebrated success of the Simon Bolivar Youth Orchestra of Venezuela, many classical music aficionados said that the future of classical music was in Venezuela. They also pointed to China. Antigua and Barbuda has strong ties with these countries. In the April, 2009 edition of Classic FM magazine, a 16 year old violinist of the Simon Bolivar Youth Orchestra, Angelica Leon, said that music taught her so much, from being on time to working as part of a group. Youth in this orchestra have been taken from the chores of rustic, rural farms to playing music in palatial concert halls all over the world.
Centering a classical music festival around visiting and local musicians with the aim of improving and extracting musical talent, in addition to attracting regional and more distant visitors, will give our local musicians, including pan players, something else to aim for. It will help to force the older, lazy musicians to adapt or be relegated to the back rooms of some of the hotels, playing Yellow Bird and Jamaica Farewell.
What do we do when some of our nationally conscious music lovers start to complain that all this concentration on classical music is making us neglect our indigenous music? We will show them that the skills acquired from playing classical music and the responsibility of being in an orchestra can carry over to calypso, soca, jazz or whichever type of music they request. Indeed, if you listen carefully, you might just hear local musicians whispering or singing a vaguely familiar tune to each other, in uppity tones: Bach to Bach, Bob to Marley, give me any band, we learned music already. Sing the chorus. Bach to ….
Dr. Lester CN Simon
It was with bitter sadness and curdled regret that many of us endured the passing of the Antigua and Barbuda Jazz Festival; a festival that we had worked so hard to build but could not sustain against all sorts of odds. I am not jealous of the success of the other regional jazz festivals but I have never had the urge to attend. I am still looking for a music festival that not only adds to the national coffers but one that leaves me and other local musicians and all of us so enriched musically that we want to sing and dance beside ourselves. I think I have found one.
Classical music is often regarded as European music to be played by Europeans only; or at least music that is played best by them. Indeed, many Europeans have championed this stereotype and often look askance at outsiders who venture to break down the sacred halls of their cultural birthright. Moreover, some of our own West Indians classical musicians have performed this protector function better than some Europeans. The colonized surpasses the colonizer.
It is for reasons like these, as well as simple unfamiliarity, that many West Indians will tell you that classical music is dead music by dead composers. They regard it as funeral and funereal music that must be shut out from their ears and barred from their minds. Strange. These are the same folks who will tell you about a wonderful, classic movie they thoroughly enjoyed. And yet they seemingly ignored the fact that the wonderful, classic movie they extol was made wonderful and classic largely because of the same classical music they despise.
Classical music and Jazz (not the 5 minutes popular, smooth jazz version; but the more extended format) came to me the same way reading a book without pictures came to me as a child. It was difficult at first; but then I discovered I could paint my own pictures, even if my pictures were slightly different from the ones painted by others, including the writer or composer.
I have to confess that I took a lucky shortcut into classical music. I decided to listen to classical music centered around instruments I like to hear; like the cello, violin, viola, clarinet, flute, French horn or English horn. I also have to confess that the first time I heard Dvorak cello concerto, I was moved to dance along to a particular passage as easily (well almost as easily) as I had danced the first time I heard Bob Marley, Shadow, Super Blue or John Coltrane.
The idea that music is the universal language and that all emotions can be experienced in all forms of music is a universally acknowledged truth. So here is another confession: I once thought country and western music was the pits. I started to change my mind when a friend (Dorbrene O’Mard) remarked that the stories were similar to those of calypso. I was finally convinced when I read that Charlie Parker would often listen to country and western music in night clubs, to the dismay of fans and other jazz musicians. When asked what he found in such simple music, he responded, “The stories, man. Listen to the stories.” And jazz and all other types of music, including classical music, are all about stories, stories in sound, with vacant canvases waiting for you to paint the pictures of your life. Also, Charles Mingus, in response to a snide remark about the simplicity of folk music, reminded that all music is folk music because horses do not sing. It’s all folk.
So why not have a classical music festival? Jazz festivals, including its many and varied formats, have been taken to the point of exhaustion, repetition and redundancy. Calypso and soca abound. Pop, Creole and world music are also taken. What will happen to our Romantic Rhythms? If it follows the path of our jazz festival, what’s left?
With or without Romantic Rhythms, we can start a classical music festival by bringing together overseas and local musicians, including, and here is the kick: steel pan players. Such a festival would be the culmination of one or two weeks of music workshops. Television programs and documentaries will be showcasing the twin islands whilst recording the development of the festival through the personal journeys of the musicians and the progress of the musical items. You might recall that in its early years, the St. Lucia Jazz Festival included workshops, to which regional musicians were invited. Sadly, this was smoothed over by the smooth jazz and pop.
Before and after the celebrated success of the Simon Bolivar Youth Orchestra of Venezuela, many classical music aficionados said that the future of classical music was in Venezuela. They also pointed to China. Antigua and Barbuda has strong ties with these countries. In the April, 2009 edition of Classic FM magazine, a 16 year old violinist of the Simon Bolivar Youth Orchestra, Angelica Leon, said that music taught her so much, from being on time to working as part of a group. Youth in this orchestra have been taken from the chores of rustic, rural farms to playing music in palatial concert halls all over the world.
Centering a classical music festival around visiting and local musicians with the aim of improving and extracting musical talent, in addition to attracting regional and more distant visitors, will give our local musicians, including pan players, something else to aim for. It will help to force the older, lazy musicians to adapt or be relegated to the back rooms of some of the hotels, playing Yellow Bird and Jamaica Farewell.
What do we do when some of our nationally conscious music lovers start to complain that all this concentration on classical music is making us neglect our indigenous music? We will show them that the skills acquired from playing classical music and the responsibility of being in an orchestra can carry over to calypso, soca, jazz or whichever type of music they request. Indeed, if you listen carefully, you might just hear local musicians whispering or singing a vaguely familiar tune to each other, in uppity tones: Bach to Bach, Bob to Marley, give me any band, we learned music already. Sing the chorus. Bach to ….
Friday, April 3, 2009
How The Rest Was Won
HOW THE WEST WAS WON
Dear Editor
I am alarmed and frightened to hear that the UPP took us into the last general elections knowing that the voter list was padded and flawed. Someone from the UPP should clarify this issue and say what options, if any, were opened to the UPP party armed with this terrible information.
The manager of one of the UPP candidates said on Observer Radio that they tried in vain to address the electoral commission on the matter of some 900 registered voters who they could not account for. And so, they decided to “take a chance”. Take a chance with an entire country on the wings of a prayer?
Is the UPP a religious organization? The overemphasis of God seems to be a cover for its crass ineptitude. I now understand why one of the commissioners (Ms. Agnes Blaize) from the electoral office said on Serpent’s show some weeks before the elections that God sees everything. Not even the Vatican could or would prepare for an election like this.
I am now asking if the some members of the electoral commission had let out to the UPP candidates that the list was padded. Is this why an independent inquiry has not been mounted into the abject failure of the electoral commission?
Believing in God is essential. But the good Lord help those who help themselves. Depending on God to win a general election because of the abject blunder of your party machinery, and then praising God for the victory, is sacrilegious and deserving of a hot, pointed seat in the deep recesses of hell.
So what is the way forward against this terrible world economic condition we now face? Let’s build as many churches as possible and praise the Lord. Amen.
(The following was not in the original letter)
But the service is not over. After church, I recall the strong, almost umbilical affinity some members of the ALP have for their party, even though they know that the ALP top brass have been accused of corruption in public office. I am hastily turning around on my Damascus road to avoid this epiphany:
When ALP politicians are accused of corruption, they themselves may be forced to hold a public inquiry, or the UPP can mount one, regardless of how long it takes to get to the truth. When the UPP government and party give away the governing of the country on the wings of a prayer (like they almost did), and console us by saying it was God’s will, what sort of public inquiry do we hold? A public inquiry into God?
Dr. Lester CN Simon
Dear Editor
I am alarmed and frightened to hear that the UPP took us into the last general elections knowing that the voter list was padded and flawed. Someone from the UPP should clarify this issue and say what options, if any, were opened to the UPP party armed with this terrible information.
The manager of one of the UPP candidates said on Observer Radio that they tried in vain to address the electoral commission on the matter of some 900 registered voters who they could not account for. And so, they decided to “take a chance”. Take a chance with an entire country on the wings of a prayer?
Is the UPP a religious organization? The overemphasis of God seems to be a cover for its crass ineptitude. I now understand why one of the commissioners (Ms. Agnes Blaize) from the electoral office said on Serpent’s show some weeks before the elections that God sees everything. Not even the Vatican could or would prepare for an election like this.
I am now asking if the some members of the electoral commission had let out to the UPP candidates that the list was padded. Is this why an independent inquiry has not been mounted into the abject failure of the electoral commission?
Believing in God is essential. But the good Lord help those who help themselves. Depending on God to win a general election because of the abject blunder of your party machinery, and then praising God for the victory, is sacrilegious and deserving of a hot, pointed seat in the deep recesses of hell.
So what is the way forward against this terrible world economic condition we now face? Let’s build as many churches as possible and praise the Lord. Amen.
(The following was not in the original letter)
But the service is not over. After church, I recall the strong, almost umbilical affinity some members of the ALP have for their party, even though they know that the ALP top brass have been accused of corruption in public office. I am hastily turning around on my Damascus road to avoid this epiphany:
When ALP politicians are accused of corruption, they themselves may be forced to hold a public inquiry, or the UPP can mount one, regardless of how long it takes to get to the truth. When the UPP government and party give away the governing of the country on the wings of a prayer (like they almost did), and console us by saying it was God’s will, what sort of public inquiry do we hold? A public inquiry into God?
Dr. Lester CN Simon
Monday, March 30, 2009
Physician Heel Thyself
WHICH DOCTOR?
Dr. Lester CN Simon
To arrive at the correct diagnosis, all doctors are taught to start by obtaining a proper medical history of the patient’s ailment. This should then be followed by a thorough physical examination and appropriate investigations. Let’s carry out this exercise to see if we can diagnose what is affecting the Antiguan and Barbudan doctors who were trained in Cuba and who are still unregistered and unemployed.
The first historical point we have to register is that as far back as 1988, the Cabinet of Antigua and Barbuda agreed that local doctors trained in Cuba will be eligible for registration on satisfactory completion of a one year of internship in Antigua and Barbuda. It should be noted that the local Medical Board was in agreement with that position. It should also be noted that this requirement for a local internship for one year was identical to what obtained in other English-speaking West Indian islands. Moreover, this requirement of a local one-year internship was adopted in many islands after consultation with the Dean of Medicine of the University of the West Indies.
The question you are dying to ask is why this requirement for registration was not communicated to all medical students going off to Cuba in 1988 and thereafter. I will answer that question by telling you that in 2007, almost twenty years after the Cabinet decision, I tried to find out how many of our medical students were in Cuba. I went to the Ministry of Education. No one knew the answer. It was suggested that I go to the Board of Education since that was the agency that gave scholarships. They asked me to give them a few hours to get the information. I gave them more hours than they wanted, and yet I was turned over to the Cuban charge d’affaire.
One crucial point we have to examine is what is meant by an internship. Let the definition from the online dictionary, Wikipedia, suffice: “A medical intern is a term used in the United States for a physician in training who has completed medical school. An intern has a medical degree, but does not have a full license to practice medicine unsupervised. In other countries medical education generally ends with a period of practical training similar to internship, but the way the overall program of academic and practical medical training is structured differs in each case, as does the terminology used.”
One key point to appreciate is that whilst academic medical training can be universalized, practical medical training is largely dependent on the way the local medical system is organized and the prevalence and morbidity of different types of diseases doctors are commonly exposed to.
Call it what you want because the name does not matter. Investigations by competent authorities including regional medical councils show that while the internship done in Cuba is perfect for Cuba, that same internship is grossly imperfect for Antigua and Barbuda and the rest of the English-speaking West Indian islands. This is the basis of the 1988 Cabinet decision. The fact that this perfect-for Cuba but imperfect-for-us internship in Cuba, is largely a reflection of the relatively good state of healthcare and the medical system in Cuba compared to the healthcare system in Antigua and Barbuda and the other islands, should not escape your attention. Cuba boasts an excellent, highly integrated medi9cal network system that is the envy of countries in the Caribbean, Latin America and the rest of the world.
The other key to hold on to is that the doctor doing an internship (the intern) does not have a full license to practice medicine unsupervised. Prior to the recent Medical Practitioners Act 2009, the laws of Antigua and Barbuda catered only for complete registration. This meant that any newly registered local doctor trained in Cuba, could practice initially unsupervised in a system for which he or she is not adequately prepared practically. And “practically” is the operative word. This is untenable. Ironically, after Cuba has done so much for us, we are being asked to do relatively next to nothing.
Those who suggest that older, local registered doctors are against local, Cuban-trained doctors are misguided. The medical pie is much larger than you think. The center of healthcare in the OECS in the future will be in the country that sees this Cuban-trained local doctor issue as an opportunity instead of a problem. This country should be Antigua and Barbuda.
Until such time when we can “cubanize” our healthcare delivery system, there is only one solution for all local doctors trained in Cuba, as noted as far back as 1988. Call it what you like: internship, externship, or whatever. My demonstrating colleagues must undergo the type of supervised practical training with the related registration in the proper place that is appropriate for the country in which they want to practice. And which country is that, my dear good doctor? Antigua and Barbuda, I presume.
Dr. Lester CN Simon
To arrive at the correct diagnosis, all doctors are taught to start by obtaining a proper medical history of the patient’s ailment. This should then be followed by a thorough physical examination and appropriate investigations. Let’s carry out this exercise to see if we can diagnose what is affecting the Antiguan and Barbudan doctors who were trained in Cuba and who are still unregistered and unemployed.
The first historical point we have to register is that as far back as 1988, the Cabinet of Antigua and Barbuda agreed that local doctors trained in Cuba will be eligible for registration on satisfactory completion of a one year of internship in Antigua and Barbuda. It should be noted that the local Medical Board was in agreement with that position. It should also be noted that this requirement for a local internship for one year was identical to what obtained in other English-speaking West Indian islands. Moreover, this requirement of a local one-year internship was adopted in many islands after consultation with the Dean of Medicine of the University of the West Indies.
The question you are dying to ask is why this requirement for registration was not communicated to all medical students going off to Cuba in 1988 and thereafter. I will answer that question by telling you that in 2007, almost twenty years after the Cabinet decision, I tried to find out how many of our medical students were in Cuba. I went to the Ministry of Education. No one knew the answer. It was suggested that I go to the Board of Education since that was the agency that gave scholarships. They asked me to give them a few hours to get the information. I gave them more hours than they wanted, and yet I was turned over to the Cuban charge d’affaire.
One crucial point we have to examine is what is meant by an internship. Let the definition from the online dictionary, Wikipedia, suffice: “A medical intern is a term used in the United States for a physician in training who has completed medical school. An intern has a medical degree, but does not have a full license to practice medicine unsupervised. In other countries medical education generally ends with a period of practical training similar to internship, but the way the overall program of academic and practical medical training is structured differs in each case, as does the terminology used.”
One key point to appreciate is that whilst academic medical training can be universalized, practical medical training is largely dependent on the way the local medical system is organized and the prevalence and morbidity of different types of diseases doctors are commonly exposed to.
Call it what you want because the name does not matter. Investigations by competent authorities including regional medical councils show that while the internship done in Cuba is perfect for Cuba, that same internship is grossly imperfect for Antigua and Barbuda and the rest of the English-speaking West Indian islands. This is the basis of the 1988 Cabinet decision. The fact that this perfect-for Cuba but imperfect-for-us internship in Cuba, is largely a reflection of the relatively good state of healthcare and the medical system in Cuba compared to the healthcare system in Antigua and Barbuda and the other islands, should not escape your attention. Cuba boasts an excellent, highly integrated medi9cal network system that is the envy of countries in the Caribbean, Latin America and the rest of the world.
The other key to hold on to is that the doctor doing an internship (the intern) does not have a full license to practice medicine unsupervised. Prior to the recent Medical Practitioners Act 2009, the laws of Antigua and Barbuda catered only for complete registration. This meant that any newly registered local doctor trained in Cuba, could practice initially unsupervised in a system for which he or she is not adequately prepared practically. And “practically” is the operative word. This is untenable. Ironically, after Cuba has done so much for us, we are being asked to do relatively next to nothing.
Those who suggest that older, local registered doctors are against local, Cuban-trained doctors are misguided. The medical pie is much larger than you think. The center of healthcare in the OECS in the future will be in the country that sees this Cuban-trained local doctor issue as an opportunity instead of a problem. This country should be Antigua and Barbuda.
Until such time when we can “cubanize” our healthcare delivery system, there is only one solution for all local doctors trained in Cuba, as noted as far back as 1988. Call it what you like: internship, externship, or whatever. My demonstrating colleagues must undergo the type of supervised practical training with the related registration in the proper place that is appropriate for the country in which they want to practice. And which country is that, my dear good doctor? Antigua and Barbuda, I presume.
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