I WOULDA keep quiet. But there it was – out loud while Government opening a frightening chasm between how much it spending and how much it mekking, something that would mek a lot of householders contemplate suicide.
But that, I have come to realize, is how many Barbadians are. We have got so accustomed to Government being the almighty source of freebies.
As I said, I would not have said a word – especially now. I would certainly not have been letting anybody hear me say that Government (all by its lonesome) should provide an entertainment centre.
Well, in truth, the expression used was a cultural and performing arts centre. But it did not come from the lips of a poet or a painter or a sculptor or a dancer or an actor — artists/artistes who can’t survive with full-time involvement in their art, who have no mass market to bring in substantial dollars. Interesting.
The talk made me reflect on entrepreneurship. A lot of focus on that in Barbados these days. Entities have been set up to provide funding. Others to provide strategic help. Yet others to band entrepreneurs together to best look after their interests.
And a whole PR machinery is into its promulgation. So we can even put names and faces to local entrepreneurs, many seemingly ordinary people just like us, thanks to various media features.
Maybe a word of caution, though. Some years ago, I heard a business speaker say that people should distinguish entrepreneurship from activities engaged in, by shove of dire circumstances, like, say, selling coconuts, corn, dunks, ackees, bread ’longside de road, or car washing. Survival is what that is, he said.
Well, I am no expert on the matter, but there may be a reason why such persons are referred to as being in the informal sector. I am not sure that many of them are eagerly looking forward to the next meeting of the Small Business Association or joining any queues at the Youth Entrepreneurship Scheme. I may be wrong, though.
More important than any distinction, however, is the stark fact in a country like Barbados a paradigm shift is, or was, necessary. And entertainment/culture/the arts can’t be left out. It is becoming very clear that the old model, vigorously pursued in Barbados, of Government providing more than the lion’s share of the premier infrastructure in this field, has to be replaced by an entrepreneurial one.
Don’t forget: Government has already provided the Gymnasium, the National Stadium, Kensington Oval, Farley Hill, The Steel Shed and school halls around the country. And it apparently can’t even repair the Daphne Joseph Hackett Theatre for non-profit thespians, or find the wherewithal to do the necessary with the Empire Theatre.
And the Plantation Theatre just failed. Bear in mind, too, that we already believe we are overtaxed. If we are not to be taxed more and if Government is already borrowing up to its eyeballs, how can we sensibly expect Government to solely foot the bill for what other people make a good living out of?
And then cry out when the fees to use said facility are high, so that Government does not seem like a financial jerk?
Yuh see the situation with the Wildey Gymnasium, where no-money sports governing bodies and clubs often have to drive past because they can’t afford to pay to use the place?
And this is for groups whose practitioners don’t make money and could not have been expected to be entrepreneurs in its setting up.
And we want to use the same paradigm for people and entities that make money?
People who make a (good) living in the entertainment/culture/arts field should be thinking of at least helping to paddle that canoe, in much the same way as other entrepreneurs, even small-scale, in other fields do. I am not saying that entertainers should, by themselves, set up entertainment venues. But it cannot be thought sensible that in a changing world, you can be looking solely to Government, while you take your money and run.
Now, I know that at this point it might be said in response, “If Government would cut out waste in other areas, it could undertake these things.”
Well, unless you have been sleeping, for the longest while successive Governments have been saying that they will cut out wastage. If you and your family had been holding your breath for that, there wouldn’t be any Alleynes or Brathwaites or Clarkes or Griffiths left in Barbados. Dey woulda dead out. So don’t count on it.
Ent it funny that we always talking about giving back, but it like it don’ apply to entertainers or sportsmen who have made or are making big bucks? They can’t be entrepreneurial businesspeople too?
The taxpayer or James Husbands must bear it all — while they smile all the way to the bank, and the rest, Government included, frown all the way to bankruptcy?
Sherwyn Walters is a writer who became a teacher, a song analyst, a broadcaster and an editor.
