28 December 2009
more on world peace...holidays...um...
From Matthew:
'Lived in Trinidad & Tobago a few years ago, half a year teaching theater/carnival studies … The Hindus, Muslims and Christians all celebrate one another's holidays, for your very reason: to have as many days off as possible. It's a running joke on the islands, and someone's always coming up with a holiday. And most of the year at least half the population (not a scientific number) is preparing for carnival, which, while ostensibly a two and half day party, lasts 6 weeks or more (and people spend a good chunk of their year's income on it). Those not participating run to the beaches and holiday there. Used to be a small but socially active contingent of Jews there too, who fled war-time Europe and ended up there. But now their party's relegated to the Jewish cemetery in Port Of Spain. The effect of the holiday sharing in T&T is a kind of incest of religious figures and tropes, like the way Mary is evidenced in African religions, African traditions appear in the European carnival traditions and like the way the Buddha's nose morphed more Greek after Alexander passed through north India … "Play yuhself" is the phrase used - and the image of the Trinidadian being someone with no core identity except whatever they are playing at the moment is one I heard many times … Atheist robots indeed. The dream of slaves never dies. It is, somehow, the economy of dreaming itself.'
'Lived in Trinidad & Tobago a few years ago, half a year teaching theater/carnival studies … The Hindus, Muslims and Christians all celebrate one another's holidays, for your very reason: to have as many days off as possible. It's a running joke on the islands, and someone's always coming up with a holiday. And most of the year at least half the population (not a scientific number) is preparing for carnival, which, while ostensibly a two and half day party, lasts 6 weeks or more (and people spend a good chunk of their year's income on it). Those not participating run to the beaches and holiday there. Used to be a small but socially active contingent of Jews there too, who fled war-time Europe and ended up there. But now their party's relegated to the Jewish cemetery in Port Of Spain. The effect of the holiday sharing in T&T is a kind of incest of religious figures and tropes, like the way Mary is evidenced in African religions, African traditions appear in the European carnival traditions and like the way the Buddha's nose morphed more Greek after Alexander passed through north India … "Play yuhself" is the phrase used - and the image of the Trinidadian being someone with no core identity except whatever they are playing at the moment is one I heard many times … Atheist robots indeed. The dream of slaves never dies. It is, somehow, the economy of dreaming itself.'
