Things the people should know in defense of the vote and calypso
This article was first published at the end of the first week of the Lenten season, observed by Roman Catholics in the year two thousand and nineteen. It is meant for a Dominican audience in lieu of heightened partisan polarization and bickering coming out of the Carnival-Calypso season, a period which saw unprecedented partisan rhetoric very much common to such climate. The struggle to gain votes and to redefine Calypso away from its oversight responsibility and place it in a sort of bias partisan point of view gave rise to this response. This is an election year in Dominica and I argue that both the vote and Calypso have been paraded as scapegoats of a status quo which is unrelenting in its opposition to the people’s conscious demands for a new social order.
This situation was arrived at following almost two decades of one party or regime having authority over the Dominican electoral system. Now, this is not unique to Dominica and one only has to look at other examples of authoritative democracies – past and present – for affirmation. The initiatives of the Dominican Government fall squarely in the domains of centralized authoritative rule.
This is my professional assessment which was arrived at, as has been stated, following several very well ventilated instances of authoritative tendencies, and there is no need to rehash those. Let me instead invest this discussion on the future and the youths which is where I believe attention needs to be placed.
I focus on two key areas: Voting and Calypso. Again, I decided to concentrate on those key points because of the perceived misrepresentation of the agency of the voter and the mischaracterization of the treasured foundational art of Calypso.
The lead premise of this article is: votes should not and cannot be purchased, sold, bought, and Calypso is not, cannot and should not be politically partisan, nor must it be socially proper. Calypso certainly is not fearful of authority.
This article is copyright © 2019 DOM767
