ESCTT calls for independent probe of Helon’s disruption

The Eman­ci­pa­tion Sup­port Com­mit­tee of Trinidad and To­ba­go (ES­CTT) has called for an in­de­pen­dent in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to the dis­rup­tion of 2025 Ca­lyp­so Monarch Helon Fran­cis’ per­for­mance at Di­manche Gras on Car­ni­val Sun­day night.

In a state­ment yes­ter­day, the ES­CTT con­demned the in­ter­rup­tion of Fran­cis’ per­for­mance of Doh For­get as a de­lib­er­ate dis­rup­tion of the broad­cast au­dio, not­ing that view­ers at home and across the di­as­po­ra were first be­wil­dered and then be­gan to ques­tion whether pol­i­tics played a part in cen­sor­ing the young ca­lyp­son­ian.

The com­mit­tee high­light­ed that Min­is­ter in the Prime Min­is­ter’s Of­fice, Bar­ry Padarath, had re­mind­ed the pub­lic that Di­manche Gras is a state-spon­sored event, cau­tion­ing that State sup­port should not be mis­in­ter­pret­ed as state con­trol.

ES­CTT de­scribed the dis­rup­tion as par­tic­u­lar­ly con­cern­ing be­cause it oc­curred while Fran­cis sang lines ad­dress­ing cen­sor­ship and so­cial is­sues:

“Tell me where, tell me where else can we go

If they try to ban de words in meh ca­lyp­so?

…You could try to stop so­cial me­dia

Or de tap­ing of po­lice mur­ders

You could rewrite a Bill like de ZOSO

But don’t for­get, dis is Trin­ba­go!”

TTT lat­er apol­o­gised, at­tribut­ing the in­ci­dent to a “con­nec­tiv­i­ty Dante tech­ni­cal er­ror.” How­ev­er, ES­CTT called on the TTT board to en­sure an in­de­pen­dent in­ves­ti­ga­tion, so that cit­i­zens can be re­as­sured that po­lit­i­cal in­ter­fer­ence did not play a part.

The com­mit­tee al­so crit­i­cised the Prime Min­is­ter’s sug­ges­tion that ca­lyp­soes were “di­vi­sive” and that pre­vi­ous po­lit­i­cal com­men­tary had alien­at­ed the pop­u­la­tion. ES­CTT em­pha­sised that ca­lyp­so is not in­tend­ed to sim­ply make peo­ple hap­py, but serves as a ve­hi­cle for sto­ry­telling, ex­am­i­na­tion and so­cial cri­tique. Cit­ing Pro­fes­sor Gor­don Rohlehr, the com­mit­tee not­ed that ca­lyp­so “shares the tra­di­tion­al African artis­tic func­tions of af­fir­ma­tion, cel­e­bra­tion, protest, satire, praise, blame and con­flict.”

Con­cerns about cen­sor­ship have grown fol­low­ing re­ports that dur­ing a livestream on WACK 90.1 FM, a man whis­pered on cam­era, “We mut­ed Helon’s mic on TTT,” prompt­ing the even­tu­al shut­down of the sta­tion’s livestream­ing plat­form. ES­CTT ques­tioned whether this demon­strat­ed the in­flu­ence of “un­ac­count­able elites.”

The com­mit­tee urged the Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter to is­sue an apol­o­gy for what it de­scribed as a con­temp­tu­ous den­i­gra­tion of the ca­lyp­so art form and stressed that na­tion­al lead­ers must en­gage with is­sues of the day, keep­ing the youth of the na­tion fore­most in their thoughts.