There has been a steady lament of the reality that traditional ole mas is dying. On Carnival Tuesday this year two of the major dailies gave quite a bit of ink to this although it was saddled with a rather irrelevant interview with an official of the San Fernando Carnival Committee and lacked substance as it had no feedback from the people that actually do this.
Also, note that neither the MP for San Fernando West (Faris Al-Rawi absent) the Mayor, Deputy Mayor, Alderman or Councillor nor Carnival Committee member was present at the Promenade at 7 am when we presented our show as has always been the case. Or if they were there, they were inconspicuous. Were they at SAPA? Where the modern mas was?
Here is the truth of how this has come to pass. In 2008 or thereabouts, the San Fernando Carnival Committee, led by the then mayor, received a sponsorship of $900,000 from blink bmobile to assist with the cost for staging a better and improved Carnival in San Fernando. This figure was based on a newspaper report and never denied by the relevant people involved.
The Committee then created this contaminant called “modern mas” in J’Ouvert by adding a new dimension to the categories of J’Ouvert Competitions called Modern Mas! Can you believe that? And to ensure that it would be successful the bulk of the prize money went to the winner of that category.
The death knell of traditional ole mas in south had sounded as ole mas was now relegated to slum lord status complete with the low prize money of $5,000 from the $900,000 sponsorship. Successive years would see an unprecedented growth in the number of Modern Mas bands which attracted the very same young people Blue Boys had targeted and were cultivating to succeed us in keeping ole mas alive in San Fernando.
With that last year came the all-inclusive J’Ouvert jersey and paint band. A band in south had eight trucks with jersey-mas last year and this year was sold out two weeks before Carnival! I will not go into any analysis of why the migration except to say empirically you will go where your friends go. In addition three new J’Ouvert jersey and paint bands were born this year.
Blue Boys reluctantly and painfully moved away from the previously non-negotiable position of 30 years of using a steelband on J’Ouvert morning to a loud and irritating DJ truck just to accommodate the youths so that they may continue the ole mas. The mas camp was open from the Wednesday before Carnival right up to Carnival Sunday night until J’Ouvert morning.
A book of characters to portray was drawn up by the “ideas man” Dave Ramsingh and members were advised how to portray and present their mas. We take this seriously and have been doing so since 1968. That Ole mas is dying is not only attributable to the above but to a serious lack of media coverage and attendant importance unequal when compared to all other Carnival activities.
Every year we invite the media to come down to the mas camp to sample and see for themselves the excitement and aura of a ole mas camp, the fun and laughter and cooking and liming that takes place which create the genesis of the ideas that are later portrayed.
Not one has ever attended.
A casual look at this year’s coverage (Carnival Tues edition) would reveal that one newspaper writer spent more time describing the jersey mas at SAPA and two lines mentioning ole mas in an article with nine paragraphs! He was not even at the Promenade—no photos whatsoever.
Another had an extensive article on the dying of ole mas complete with a description of some of the characters...but yet no pictures…the photographer was at SAPA!
Only one newspaper has one photo of Blue Boys J’Ouvert. In addition when the results of the Carnival competitions were announced in the press, none of them printed the results of J’Ouvert while all other competition results were published.
And you wonder why ole mas is dying! The media have given and continue to give disproportionate and advantageous prominence to the nonsense that has now become J’Ouvert. This is why traditional ole mas is dying, and why the Promenade is empty and SAPA is full. I do not wish to end there so as I will give my solution to bring back ole mas in San Fernando.
1—Eradicate all modern mas as they have no place in J’Ouvert;
2—Bring back the “bomb” competition on High St to encourage steelbands back on the road;
3—Increase the number of prizes for Individuals in J’Ouvert, both male and female, and couples so that if you don’t want to join a band you could still play;
4—Keep the mud mas and jab jab on the route now reserved for modern mas;
5—Market San Fernando as the J’Ouvert capital of T&T (TIDCO), as Port-of-Spain has a very small ole mas presence that gets quite a lot of press.
Lets start there and take it via the KISS method (keep it simple and smart).
Val Ramsingh