Nero Fiddles While Rome Burns

By: Charles H.E. Campbell

Nero fiddles…
We often repeat the maxim that the high unemployment levels and lack of opportunities is a main source of the high crime rate in our society. In the search for solutions to our current security/social crisis, cultural activities can play a very pivotal role in providing communities all over the country with a structured, organized and continuous program of training and exposition of exponents of the performing arts, especially since we are by nature, artistically inclined and famously so.

This is the precise mission of the Jamaica Cultural Development Commission (JCDC)- to unearth, develop and showcase Jamaica’s creative talents and provide avenues for channeling creative energies into a constructive, on-going national programme of activities. They are responsible for the perpetuation and promotion of national and traditional folk forms and other cultural events. However, like many other aspects of our national life, this objective has been short circuited and compromised by narrow mindedness, lack of vision and selfish, political and economic interests.

Over the years, unfortunately, the subject areas assigned to various ministries have to a large extent been influenced by the clout or personality of a particular minister. Whole ministries have been designed for the minister’s benefit, rather than for efficiency on behalf of the Jamaican populace. This leaves us in the culture sector with a splintered budget and duplicate administrative bodies eating out a large percentage of the overall public funds assigned to it. The trend since the 70s to carve off pieces of the national cultural budget and distribute to various ministries has left the JCDC starved of vital funds and stymied its ability to adequately carry out its mandated functions.

The Ministry of Education, Youth and Culture has overall responsibility for government’s cultural policies through its culture division. However, the Jamaica Promotions Corporation (JAMPRO), which falls under the Ministry of Commerce, Science and Technology, has a film and an entertainment unit, the Ministry of Industry and Tourism has an entertainment division and the agency in charge of intellectual property also falls under the Ministry of Commerce, Science and Technology. The Office of the Prime Minister still retains a cultural unit that produces special events along with its main responsibility for state ceremonies and the Ministry of Local Government is allotted funds for cultural related activities under Social Development Commission (SDC) and the division of Sport. Yet, the effect of all this is that the state has retreated from active influence and participation in the cultural lives of our communities.

For instance, the Festival Song Competition was central to our cultural cycle and a stimulus for our emerging popular music- in fact, festival songs were national hits. Artistes like Bob Marley, Toots and the Maytals, Desmond Dekker, Jimmy Cliff, Jacob Miller, Tommy Cowan, Derrick Morgan and the Blues Busters were, in their formative years, participants in our Festival Movement. This did not only expose their talents but in turn enhanced their perception of cultural identity, trained, groomed and prepared them for the next stage of their international careers. Any review of our Festival Song history will reveal that the progression was from Ska to Rock Steady, and then to early Reggae. Around this time, the latter part of the 1970s, the state got side tracked (or was it hi-jacked?)- restrictive criteria were set concerning instrumentation and the Festival Song Contest regressed musically, and mainly promoted Mento music, lagging far behind the rest of society who had moved on to and with the Reggae and Dancehall genres. This marked the beginning of the mass withdrawal of our popular artistes from the competition, but more importantly, the competition’s disconnect with popular music and society in general, and the fact that it became virtually irrelevant on today’s entertainment scene. In light of this, Eric Donaldson’s Cherry Oh Baby (1970), remains the last genuinely popular festival song win. The committee formed last year to reorganize the popular song contest must stick to their bold objectives and not be ambushed by the few vociferous adherents to this musical traditional format.

While I love Mento music, our national popular song contest must strive to achieve some measure of currency and showcase the best of our Reggae/Dancehall music. How come neither a DJ nor a sing jay has ever won the contest, yet the Reggae/Dancehall idiom has won over so many people across the world who purchase the records? Think of the symbiotic impact this would have both for the festival as well as the artistes.

What the sector needs and the state of the country demands is consolidation of government funds into the Division Of Culture. This will facilitate a sustained and extensive community programme all across the country promoting heritage, culture, community animation along with the visual and performing arts to foster an ethos of collaboration , fellowship and harmony among people from all walks of life in the processes of cultural assimilation and development.

National cultural activity should be a culmination and showcase of on going, sustained community activity, so that it is self perpetuating. It should not replace it, as is now the case. So much of the budget that we should be spending in the development of creative talent in the communities is being spent on a plethora of “national” and quasi-state events which have mushroomed over recent years, attended by a rotation of about fifteen hundred people, most of whom can afford to pay for their own entertainment and do not need the sponsorship of the state and otherwise have little interest in popular culture.

While ostensibly done for a good cause, functions like the recent Tsunami Relief concert did nothing to enhance the country’s international image or the careers of the artistes who participated. It was so poorly promoted, it was the nation’s biggest secret. We need to retrieve control of the budget from carpet baggers and dilettantes and dispel the myth they perpetrate that the JCDC organized events cannot attract adequate or suitable corporate sponsorship for certain types of events. It should be returned to the professional team honed by the JCDC., so that they may infuse opportunity, a constructive vehicle of self expression and renewed spirit in our communities.

The JCDC however, must stand up to the politicians and call a halt to the wholesale giveaway of tickets to their major commercially viable events. They have painstakingly rebuilt these valuable entertainment products over the last few years and it is heart wrenching to see them having to turn back potential paying patrons because of a full house that has a liberal mix of free tickets given out by politicians, which are often callously resold outside the gates in competition with their box office, depriving them twice over of significant revenue.

Provisions under the last budget for the Ministry of Education, Youth and Culture for the celebration of national events, including Emancipation, Independence and Heritage Week, was $35 million; development of cultural programmes was $31 million; Labour Day $5 million; administration and direction $47 million; international exchange programme $1 million; promotion of cultural programmes $1 million and arts $60,000. When the cultural and events budgets from the various ministries are totaled, the true budget for culture is double this amount. If there is an amalgamation and streamlining of these administrations and monies allotted to all ministries and agencies aforementioned, a higher proportion could be spent directly on more useful and socially viablecultural programmes and initiatives.

As an important and indispensable sector of the economy- it is high time to expose the political shenanigans. Most importantly, however, we must more effectively lobby for rationalization and better use of public funds earmarked for cultural development in our annual budget so that these funds do not continue to be hi-jacked for personal hairy-fairy schemes, but are instead used to channel the creative energies of our youth into constructive processes of cultural assimilation and development, even profitable careers for some, away from the guns and other antisocial behaviour…And Nero fiddles while Rome burns.

© 2005 C.H.E. Campbell