Local News

THE MECCA OF NATIONAL EMBARRASSMENTS

The assumption here is that a group of right thinking individuals sat around a table in what one presumes was a discussion of some measurable intellect and came up with this as the theme for the 2014 carnival season –   Spicemas the MECCA of Calypso and Soca. The capitalization of the word MECCA is derived from the presentation of the theme as posted on the Spicemas website.

The immediate and candid response to the theme has to be a chuckle because one would play along thinking it was a very weak attempt at humor.

However, this national humiliation is the continuation of a string of embarrassments Grenadians have been suffering in recent times at the hands of those entrusted with varying mandates of National interests.

Recently our National football team returned from Dominica where it failed to defend its Windward Island title. The Coach of the National team, on returning to Grenada, revealed that the team was put together 12 days before the competition. We even past up the opportunity for a friendly against Jamaica prior to the competition because a National team was not functional. Here is an appeal to the GFA, please remove Grenada from your name until that organization is fully and unequivocally qualified to represent the National interests of Grenada’s football. It is one thing for the football association to continue to be an embarrassment through the inadequacies of its president and executive etc.; it is another to drag Grenada into that mélange of confusion and deceit. We can do without the national embarrassment.

Back to the carnival theme, that other national embarrassment. The challenge, one suspects, for those who came up with the theme, must be the definition of the word MECCA. That train of thought compelled a perusal of the Spicemas website to determine the directors and garner a sense of what shortcomings in brain-power there might be.

And alas, on the board is the mouthpiece of the failed celebrations of the 40th anniversary of Grenada’s Independence, the board also includes the Head of the Division of Culture a Ministerial department that has become as irrelevant as it is dysfunctional. Others on the board include the bandwagonists/political stooges and a couple of individuals who in better company would be able to make a substantive contribution to Spicemas.

Apart from the inaccuracy of the information contained in the theme, one has to question who are we expected to attract to our MECCA of Soca and Calypso. Well, definitely not Trinidadians or Vincentians who have being able to deliver a better Calypso product during their carnival seasons. In fact, the embarrassment that was the Calypso finals last year will rank Grenada at the bottom of any list if a ranking system was to be established for quality of calypso shows during carnival.

Unfortunately, the embarrassments will continue as under-qualified and inept persons worm their way into positions of national prominence and make decisions without regard to the damage of the National image.

On the flipside of the national embarrassments are the stalwarts who continue to make us proud. Devon Smith just completed another 500-run season in the recently concluded West Indies 4-day competition. Tallpree continues to be an exemplary ambassador as he represents Grenada and its brand of music globally, on his present tour. Young Anderson Peters continues to impress along with a plethora of young, hardworking athletes who seem extra-ordinarily motivated by the opportunities that are available to Grenadians following on the heels of Kirani’s Olympic gold medal performance.

As a people we are obligated to speak out letting the pride of Grenada and Grenadians echo throughout the 133 square miles and beyond, so that way those are hell-bent on embarrassing us as a people can find some other vocation to exploit and debase.

Dexter Mitchell

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