Caribana: An invocation in diaspora

By Ramabai Espinet

Toronto - Perhaps first generation migrants to a place can never completely abandon their apprehensions of an earlier, more rooted reality than the transplanted one in which they find themselves. Perhaps the first apprehension of home never vanishes and all other homes are referenced from whatever that particular nucleus consisted of, negative or positive.

These are graying thoughts, hardly likely to occur to the “young in one another’s arms” to quote the poet Yeats, likely though to be a certainty to those who think, like Frank Sinatra, that “love like youth is wasted on the young.”

But such thoughts could not escape me (and other onlookers whom I checked) as we stood in the noonday hot sun at the Caribana launch at Nathan Phillips Square on Friday, July 18th and listened to the jockeying speeches of politicians, witnessed the prolonged frozen photo-opped smiles of those presenting and receiving cheques from the city or from sundry political outfits, governmental or otherwise, and the big-it-up salutes to those in the crowd who were thought to be worthy of such big-ups.

A sense of deja-vu reigned. It was not allayed by observing the crowd on hand. A small crowd, to start, aging Caribbean/ Canadian citizens accompanied by the young too disempowered still to protest, held firmly by the hands of grandparents or being pushed in baby buggies, or the young bussed in early from sundry schools and day-cares and happily occupying the few available seats while those aunties and grannies and nen-nens who arrived at the appointed hour of twelve o’clock hugged the shade and tried to see and hear from afar.

Call me a liar if you want but I could count the few young adults there on the fingers of my hand. And don’t talk about diversity! While politicians boasted from the platform about Toronto being the most multicultural city in the world, my beady eyes took in the unambiguous West Indianness of the crowd diversified by a sprinkling of office workers maybe from the periphery of Nathan Phillips Square and extending their curiosity or just having lunch.

 So it was we and we alone, as far as I was concerned, pushing, shoving, heaving and groaning to put the show on the road again this year for an imagined community of interest, organizing and planning to put money in the pockets of hoteliers and other merchants, showin we motion, showin we riddim, showin how we could wine and have a good time, showin dem how we is we.

Click here for continuation:

GIHA president for Toronto visit

Toronto — The very outspoken President of the Guyana Indian Heritage Association (GIHA), Ms Ryhaan Shah, will be in Toronto this upcoming weekend as guest of Roar Toronto. While here, Ms Shah will meet with the media and some MPs and will be the guest speaker at a public forum on Saturday July 26 at 3:00 p.m. in the French Room of the International Centre, 6900 Airport Road, Mississauga (use Hall 2 entrance).
Ms Shah will also be releasing in Toronto a GIHA report, Indians Betrayed, Black on Indian Violence, Government’s Denial and Inaction which was launched a few weeks ago in Guyana. The 164-page report combines five papers that were presented earlier at a symposium which include GIHA’s own findings from its field visits and counselling of victims of ethnic violence.

The report also contains papers on the criminal transfer of wealth by economist Dr. Ramesh Gampat and medical scientist Dr. Somdat Mahabir; one on the failure of the media to report ethnic atrocities as hate crimes by Ryhaan Shah; another entitled "Manufacturing Docility" by Swami Aksharananda and one on the role of the African police force in the violence against Indians by Ravi Dev.

Shah is a trained journalist who was General Manager of GTV between 1998-99. She received the 1999 Caribbean Broadcasting Union Awards for Best Television Documentary in Caribbean, Remembering Burnham" and Best Television Feature the Caribbean, "Life & Times of Cheddi Jagan."

                   Headlines Continued