Values and culture don’t seem to be friends in Barbados any more.
Mention the word “culture” here and virtually everybody thinks you can only mean folk expressions – music and other art forms, customs, dialect and so on.
Not values.
Furthermore, from what is said and done, it is clear that most people feel that our music, dancing, talk, et cetera are the critical components in strong nationness.
It is fair to say too, that we seek to locate our identity in our folk expressions.
I say that they are one aspect of our identity – and not the most important either.
Why should there be more earnest concern that spouge is dying (or dead) than that civility is on its death bed in Barbados?
Why should there be more resonating regret that the Landship is no longer a mark of us than that discipline does not any longer identify us?
What values – not folk expressions – do we see as in our bloodstream/ lifestream, as representative of us, or contend against infringements as un-Barbadian and show the vigorous working-at as if they are life and death matters? Probably two: education – and that may be on the wane, especially among males – and heterosexuality (my tongue is partly in my cheek, people).
We see more vibrancy and consuming passion in planning for the folk-expression interpretation of culture than we see in relation to the aforementioned civility and discipline and other values like strong family life; transparent and accountable governance; productivity; the certain, timely and impartial rule of law; necessary self-reliance; community; respect for others and their property; “make do” (resourcefulness in difficult circumstances); critical thinking; creative/innovative thinking and action; civic-mindedness.
Do we with staunch resolve pursue these latter things every day, with widely shared commitment, with organizations and institutions unstintingly dedicated to their pervasive survival? Rhetorical question.
So while there is a pervasive plan to have us singing or swaying or chipping or wukking up, there are no pervasive plans to have us imbibe and grab on to, as for dear life, good governance, strong family life, respect for others and their property and other values-based expressions of community/affinity that could be potent forces towards a superior we-ness.
The powers that be may talk about the other things, but they busily and ardently plan for the folk expressions.
The tendency to foreground music and dance and such is very strong here – and virtually uninhibited. “Cultural expressions” trump everything else. And not only among people like the woman who said: “If my little girl din’ know how to wuk up, I would be so shame. Wha’ dah is we culture.”
You observe it also among supposedly sane people. When the authorities became concerned about order and discipline at the Barbados Secondary Schools Athletics Championships being undermined by noisy drumbeats and the attendant unsavoury behaviour, one of the contradicting concerns expressed by many who otherwise deserved your respect was that the drums is we culture.
So discipline and order are not our culture and should not be major concerns?
I tell wunna a’ready that despite having Hollywood, rock and roll, jazz, rock music, square dancing, line dancing, yodelling, Saturday night boozing, NFL zeal, baseball (“the American game”), backyard barbecuing, the citizens of the United States do not see those things as the essence of their Americanness.
They reserve pride of place for freedom of expression, self-reliance, opportunity, individualism, creativity, the rule of law and other things as is seen by the widespread vibrant, strident – in-your-face, even – pursuit of, and challenges to encroachment on, these areas.
But if you go to the National Senior Games this weekend and find that a DJ has mistaken a sports event for a fete, with inconveniently inserted, unsympathetic-to-the-nature-of-the-thing music – and with the seeming collusion of the organizers – you will know what we consider to be our culture. Not values like a sense of time and place and respect and sensitivity. Apparently, those en we culture.
Hasn’t your culture gone horribly awry when the contest, the whole basis for anybody being in the stadium, becomes merely a platform for pandering to some spectators?
For in Barbados when “cultural expressions” clash with what are arguably higher matters – values – time and time again we have more zeal for the expressions than for the values.
So our country sinks more than economically even as “cultural expressions” increase – ’cause we have not recognized that it is values – above everything else – that keep you afloat.
Values are culture too!
• Sherwyn Walters is a writer who became a teacher, a song analyst, a broadcaster and an editor. Email offwally@gmail.com.
