A timely reminder to my wife from a good friend with Jewish connections: tell Richard he’s gone too far overboard criticising Israel.
I am not anti-Jews. I happen to be a very proud citizen of a country that has been called “the civilised island”. We try to live by the rule of law and do things right. And when Israeli Secret Service agents go into another country, knock a man unconscious and smuggle him to Israel where he is hanged . . . or use forged passports to enter another country to kill a man in his hotel room, I cannot regard that as civilised conduct.
Anyhow I expected Messrs Mossad would come calling. And when Charlie Kulander turned up a few days later, he looked the part. Handsome, athletic, debonair in a down-to-earth, easy-going way. He was, he told me, writing an article for National Geographic Traveler Magazine.
Yeah, right! Like National Geographic Anything wastes time with goat farmers. I mentioned my Mossad suspicions . . . .
But we got talking. And his first question was: what makes Barbados different from the other islands so that a tourist feels safer here?
He had been mugged in Jamaica by a big, angry fellow right in front of travel posters declaring: “Jamaica. Come experience the warmth of our people!” Remarked Charlie: “This guy wasn’t just warm. He was boiling over and frothing at the mouth.”
In a hilarious piece (Tres Cheap: A Travel Writer Storms The Caribbean), he tells more: “At the Montego Bay airport the first thing you notice are the Jamaicans themselves, a hands-on kind of people . . . . I sought refuge in the bathroom, which didn’t stop a mob of taxi drivers from following me in, tugging at my shirt while I stood at the urinal.
“ ‘Can I please pee in private’ I pleaded. Laughing among themselves, they moved back about two inches without loosening their grips on the duffel bag slung over my shoulder.
“At some resorts guests are actually warned not to leave the premises. That’s the irony of the tourist industry. People pay $3,000 to be isolated from the country they came to visit.”
We aren’t that bad yet. And I attributed it to our English heritage (which sadly the British seem to have lost). Unlike our neighbours, we were never influenced by the more hooligan European cultures. And, pray God, we keep it like that.
Which perforce necessitates my return to the nonsense of Gabby’s song being accepted in a Barbadian national calypso contest. In the Weekend Nation (August 13), Sinclair Gittens tries to make a case for allowing Spanish influence into our calypso. This is a recipe for disaster.
If “there is no individual who can clearly define what are the boundaries of calypso”, must then waltz, tango or heavy metal be allowed?
But the dangers of this cultural penetration go far beyond a calypso contest. My former right hand man, Owen Corbin, who cut canes with other West Indians in America, always noted how, unlike a Bajan, a Jamaican never says “Betcha . . .” as in “Betcha I lick off yuh head!” The Bajan vents his anger with his colourful vocabulary. The Spanish-influenced Jamaican licks off your head.
And since Gabby’s song hit the airwaves, mosquitoes have become more aggressive; my female goats on heat have started biting each other’s nipples, a well-known Latin custom; and an artiste allegedly tore off a radio announcer’s shirt because he disagreed with his comments.
This is not Barbadian behaviour. And the NCF must nip it in the bud with strong guidelines for future calypso contests.
Charlie Kulander’s final question was: “You wouldn’t live anywhere else, would you?” But he already knew the answer.
I in turn apologised for suspecting him of being Mossad. “The bomb’s clamped under your gallery table,” he let on. “By the way, a very pretty National Geographic female photographer will be contacting you in a few days.”
So, Mossad’s turned to female hit-men? We shall see.
Meanwhile, Dawn Morgan wuhlossed at a Lowdown column titled Three Ms To kill. My actual title was Monkeys, moths and maniacs. That killing title was the work of Kishmar Shepherd, a pleasant and efficient young sub-editor. Perhaps he’s descended from those “wild Shepherds watched their flocks by night” people. I don’t know.
They were Jews, right?
