Who can doubt that the West Indian nation in relation to its tiny population and insignificant economic and military weight has been disproportionately blessed by the fruits of our extraordinary range of creative men and women.
In my own little corner in Georgetown, immersed in the day to day business of ordinary life for years just around the corner I could meet and get to know well extraordinary, world class imaginations like those of Martin Carter, Stanley Greaves, Wilson Harris and the visionary artist Philip Moore, to mention just four – and world class intellectuals and creators like Denis Williams, Mary Noel Menezes, David Dabydeen and Clem Seecharan to give just some names in a list that would be long. And I am sure my experience is no different to that of fellow citizens throughout the length and breadth of the West Indies. Caribbean creative achievements are world class at the very least in literature, music, art, economics (think of Arthur Lewis), cricket and athletics in particular but sports as a whole, and in that astonishing and spectacular popular art which is Carnival.