Nicholas Laughlin's blog etc.

Carnival is over

So this is how it ends: with neither a bang nor a whimper, but a meeting of "stakeholders". This is the logical and utterly depressing conclusion of Carnival's mercenary debasement over the last two decades: representatives of Pan Trinbago, TUCO, the NCBA, and the NCDF want to "set Carnival to a permanent fixed date in April" because "Carnival is now an industry and like any other it needs regulating". These are the same people who have cut Carnival off from its community roots in the name of corporate sponsorship, pushed spectators off the streets and corralled masqueraders behind cordons in the name of security, suffocated real creativity in the name of profit margins, and are hell-bent on making Carnival the preserve of tourists and the comfortable middle class. Now they want to efface Carnival's ritual and historical roots in the name of convenience and efficiency, just as the PNM culture ministry effaced the Savannah barbergreen.

Minshall said it already: This Is Hell.