Commentary
Dara Healy
Culture matters
DARA AND HALY
I bow to the Almighty
I bow to all the gods
I bow before all curses
in the presence of the Almighty
I salute God
Greetings to all Orizas
Hello all ancestors
who kneel before God
Yoruba SPIRITUAL traditions stretch back thousands of years in history, before slavery, conversion or encirclement by foreign entities seeking to profit from black bodies. In TT, Yoruba peoples intermingled with Ibo, Koromante, Masai, Asante and others; descendants of the royal family, merchants, artists or griots, keepers of oral traditions. The Yoruba village in Port of Spain is a permanent marker of their presence, although the space is rarely cleared and is often occupied by the homeless.
In many ways, African culture reverberates outward and upward from this space; in the hills of Laventille, through the narrow streets of Belmont, navigating along the East Dry River, which also shows constant signs of neglect.
We continue to forget the origins of our pan and its association with Ogun, the Orisa deity of iron and steel, at our peril. We continue to deny that the people of Laventille and East Port of Spain created music from discarded materials. Thus, despite the broadcast of pan on a global platform, millions around the world still do not know the most important word in the history of pan – Laventille.
Despite the lives sacrificed to preserve African culture, global eyes and hearts are no closer to understanding the pain poured into the limestone that paved the first streets of our capital, the determination beaten into the forbidden drums, the screams of the victims of Christopher Columbus . , or the blood dripping from Picton’s cruel whips.
The ancestors surrounding the Yoruba village watch. This emancipation was forged in another time and space. We now realize that Britain has underdeveloped the Caribbean, that our education system still fulfills colonial dreams, and that the children of Africa continued to be denied the true reward of freedom, of self-determination.
When, in the 1990s, Rudder asked “Who let the cocaine pass?” we already knew. Open secrets and a culture of silence fostered dysfunction among many, to satisfy the profits of a few. It is the same now with weapons. Gangs have proliferated and every day, guns are fired into several communities in this small country of 1.4 million – no community is safe.
In the news, the faces of young Africans – the children Sandra begged us to protect – stare back at us from the police’s most wanted lists.
However, we pay little respect to the ancestors, we pretend not to understand what they need.
On the morning of Emancipation at 4am, a small group of us will walk reverently towards the Yoruba village. Our journey will begin at the All Stars garden, an important point of cultural resistance. In the early morning air we will sing the ancient songs that today our students are not allowed to hear.
We will pour libations and offer sacred materials as we ask the ancestors to forgive but also empower us. And we will call out the names of the elders who laid the foundation for our stick fighting, lavways and our traditional masquerade, those who are often disrespected by those charged with protecting our traditions.
We will remember Pan-Africanists like Padmore, Sylvester-Williams and Ture, prized internationally for their influence on the African diaspora but largely forgotten in their homeland.
We will call out the names of the many culture warriors who preserved the kongo-bele, avalou, bongo and many others, hiding these art forms in the drum skirts, chests and goat skins, masking their rituals within the practices of the slaver.
My tears are for the pain I feel for the people of Laventille, for myself. For the sense of loss I feel when I walk down Leon Street now. So little has changed since I held my grandmother’s hand and went to church to hear the great Father Harvey. Of course, I have changed. I now realize that the key to my self-determination is a belief system embodied by the Yoruba village.
Through the work of the Emancipation Support Committee, NJAC and other organizations, thousands will march Monday in celebration of freedom. But it is not enough. My tears are for reparations meetings that never happen, ineffective investigations into age-old injustices, and my inability to do more.
Laventille, pan and Yoruba village. Forged in the fires of cultural resistance, holding fast to the belief that freedom will come. Mo juba gbogbo Orisa, true freedom will come.
Dara E Healy is a performance artist, communications specialist and founder of the NGO, Indigenous Creative Arts Network – ICAN
