Dear Editor,
At any festival such as Carifesta X there are many inherent benefits to the host country, which in the short or long term may outweigh the accounting or economic cost of the event. That is why countries around the world seriously compete to host mega-events. That is why Guyana should seriously be bidding to host as many Caribbean events as possible. In so doing, Guyana will not only become the hub of Caribbean integration, at least at the level of mass interaction, but generate a renaissance within the country. One foresees positive multiplier effects in the political, social, economic and intellectual life in the society; the development of ideas, new and improved ways of doing things, taking care of the infrastructure, effective planning, implementation, and forecasting will become imperative. Opportunities for income generation and poverty reduction through the use of indigenous resources will be expanded now that the nation is beginning to appreciate the ideas of self reliance and ingenuity exhorted by the late President Forbes Burnham.
Many of these aspects were evident at Carifesta X. For instance, while the opening ceremony was mediocre in substance and presentation, by the closing ceremony, ten days later, meaningful changes were taking place. That indicated that a process of evaluation and rethinking was occurring at the decision-making level. A lesson that should be reinforced from the experience is that the less we engineer partisan considerations and control in national activities, the broader will be collaboration and accountability for the common good.
Secondly, the Caribbean has added to the Guyanese lexicon. Representatives talk about building the “cultural industry.” This conceptualization is unknown in Guyanese discourse. In Guyana, the arts are mistakenly seen as having only entertainment, historical, cultural and sentimental value. Generally, it is not recognized that the arts and artists, like rice and sugar, doctors and engineers, contribute to the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) or Gross National Product (GDP). The activities of artists generate a chain of demand, supply, and income relationships within and without an economy. They keep businesses alive, employees employed, contribute to balance of payments, and the rate of turnover of an economy. These outcomes of artistic transactions are normally missed or ignored by policy-makers. This partly explains why the issue of copyright is not seriously addressed by the state. It also partly explains the insignificant investment in the arts and quality of production from the arts.
The impact of rice and sugar on the GDP is intimate with their scales of private and public investment. It is no less so with the arts. And just as the scales of income in those industries are dependent on their market size and market accessibility so it is with the arts. Furthermore, like lawyers, doctors, and engineers, who earn income from their knowledge and skills,artists should be in no less a position.
But the peculiarity of the arts requires a significant body of middle and upper income earners to thrive. The domestic market segmentation is too small. Thus the earlier Caricom becomes a single market, and intra and extra-regional tourism develops and integrates with the arts, the earlier and larger would be the economic space and income opportunities for the arts sector.
Sometimes policy-makers get too caught up with expenditure rather than returns. Like the accounting mind which sees value in terms of only dollars, they fail to see opportunity costs and benefits which may be more significant than the accounting dollar. Perhaps, at a deeper level than what the opening ceremony of Carifesta X reflected: a deficiency of investment in the arts and/or the quality of thinking. If we accept that the arts, in addition to their entertainment and psychological value, reflect, engage and shape the spirituality of a people, then we could accept that the opening ceremony of Carifesta X exemplified the condition of the Guyanese spirituality.
By spirituality, I mean in context, the stock and quality of ideas, values and virtues which energize the nation. What was presented to the world was just people doing things − no demonstration of creative and innovate energy, no precision in form and excellence in substance, nothing marketable. Even the broadcasters were struggling to find expressions. Many criticized the opening but applauded the closing ceremony. But note, the closing ceremony was not particularly energized by Guyanese contributions. In a real way the Guyanese acts reflected Guyanese everyday life in every arena, where finesse and grace are no longer pursuits of the beautiful and the ugly.
Yours faithfully,
Lin-Jay Harry-Voglezon
