A particularly good saying advises that when you dig a hole for someone to fall; dig two. It suggests that what you are planning for your enemy; prepare yourself to suffer the same fate.
I always thought that was real cool and would keep on repeating it to my detractors until the day I stumbled on a better saying by the Psalmist. Our West Indian action of digging two holes is rather cumbersome and the Psalmist has a better deal.
Psalm 7: 14-16: “He who is pregnant with evil and conceives trouble gives birth to disillusionment. He who digs a hole and scoops it out falls into the pit he has made. The trouble he causes recoils on himself; his violence comes down on his own head.”
I say a big ‘thank you’ to the Psalmist for giving humanity the better advice. You only need to dig one hole — not two as our West Indians have always advocated.
My subject is the Hon Alexis Jeffers who has thumped his chest and said that come Culturama 40, his CCM party will be in office and that he would be directing activities of Culturama.
He however entangled himself with facts by stubbornly stating that Culturama’s 40th anniversary will come around next year. He said all that on Wednesday August 8, when he hosted the ‘On the Mark’ show on Voice of Nevis (VON) radio.
“I am sure there are ways and means we can certainly discuss, hopefully this evening, on improving Culturama as we look forward to the 40th edition which comes up next year. And they say life begins at forty — that is what I have always heard.
“For the 40th edition we would want to see quite a number of things that are different, quite a number of things that would… we can use towards ensuring that Culturama moving forward as of next year could be bigger and even better.”
But how would the CCM get Culturama right if they do not know its history?
Since Culturama was first held in 1974, how would CCM be celebrating its 40th anniversary in 2013? Jeffers, go ahead and make Culturama as old as you wish, but it ain’t going to die because you have added a year to its life. Like wine, the older it is, the better the festival.
However, first get your facts right, and then go on radio — it is never advisable to go before.
“We should be getting our act together and promote our 40th anniversary which comes up next year July,” said Jeffers. Is ‘we’ referring to Nevisians or the CCM? Definitely not Nevisians because they all know that Culturama’s 40th anniversary comes around in 2014.
CCM is not even in Government. In his monologue, advising how he would market Culturama’s 40th anniversary in 2013, he talked like he was the government, and was the minister in charge of Culturama.
Did Vance Amory or Mark Brantley clear Jeffers’ marketing strategies for Culturama’s 40th anniversary in 2013?
In stating that Culturama would be 40 next year, this guy Jeffers was either being wilful or downright daft. Even after two callers to the programme told him that Culturama actually started in 1974 he went ahead and ignored them.
A lady caller: “I think you are wrong. You are misleading people because this year is the 38th year.”
Jeffers: “Culturama started in 1973, next year would make it 40.”
As if to prove the lady wrong, he went on to say: “We celebrated our 35th anniversary in 2008, you recall that? I suppose it is either my maths is incorrect or something. I know we celebrated our 35th anniversary in 2008.”
It is not your maths Hon Jeffers. It is your sick ambition — you are not in Government.
Hon Jeffers please check your CCM records and you will find that your then CCM government, with the late Hon Malcolm Guishard as minister in charge of Culturama, celebrated Culturama’s 30th anniversary in 2004 with a special anniversary magazine named ‘Culturama @ 30’.
Are you, Mr Jeffers, such daft that you cannot add up years. Is that why you said in your ‘commercial free’ commercial programme (On the Mark), that you will be in government next year? First get your maths right and then go look votes.
Another caller: “Good evening. Culturama started in 1974.”
Jeffers (after a pregnant pause): “Hello? The caller is gone. Caller said Culturama started in 1974. I must have my days wrong because as far as I know Culturama started in 1973.
“That is what I am aware of…. as far as I know it is 1973. But anyway, be it as it may, that the understanding that I have, and what I know, we are going to have Culturama 40 next year.”
Then more confusion and misinformation followed. What a CCM (complete confusion moment) night it was!
Another caller who sounded like a top CCM official (but because he did not identify himself I will not call his name): “Mr Alexis, Culturama started ’74. But you are correct because this could be the 39th, because the first one and then second one would be the first anniversary.
“So I think that is why there is that little disruption. It actually started in ’74 and then ’75 would have been the first anniversary, but it was the second Culturama.”
The caller added more gibberish about Culturama including a year it was supposed to have been washed out. Common sense would dictate that if one year was missing, then you subtract and not add. But he kept on adding to catch up with Jeffers.
.
That caller gave no answer — his was worse than the Jeffers maths. Oh how sad! The best option would be to go to a grade four class and let those brilliant young Nevisians give us the proper advice on how to count years and anniversaries.
They are so hungry for power they are adding a year to the history of Nevis. It is not a sure bridge. CCM’s absurdity has truly reached a crescendo.
Someone please allow me to offer a free history lesson to these wilful CCM misinformers: The first edition of Culturama was held between August 1 and 5, 1974. The first event was held under the patronage of the Hon Fitzroy Bryant, a Kittitian.
38 years ago (not 39, you misleaders), Nevisians were wise enough to invite a Kittitian to be the patron of the festival. In 2012 leader of Her Majesty’s Loyal Opposition in the Federal Parliament the Hon Mark Brantley, of CCM, does not want Kittitians to come to Nevis for Culturama.
The year 1983 saw St. Kitts gain its independence and because of the closeness of the independence celebrations and Culturama, the Nevis summer festival was as a result not held. Calypso completion was held in Nevis (a Kittitian won), while the queen show was held in St. Kitts (a Nevisian won). We are one people — someone tell that to the CCM people and more so Mark Brantley.
Could 1983 be the year the CCM leader was talking about on the Mark’s show (hosted by Alexis Jeffers) saying that Culturama was washed out? Where is your history you CCM people?
After all the confusion and display of utter ignorance by the two CCM officials, Jeffers went ahead and congratulated himself and the CCM leader who had called: “It is always good when we can clarify and clear up these minor issues.”
What about the major issue of CCM being in government come Culturama 40 which according to Jeffers’ maths will be next year? How did the CCM land Jeffers as their candidate? CCM can, and should be excused if the leader who called ended up being the worse.
Culturama’s age was not the only intriguing thing on the show. Host Jeffers talked about the calypso show in this year’s Culturama.
Said Jeffers: “One of the persons I would like to single out at this time, including all of the others who would have won over the years, and who would have won through in this past Culturama, I want to single out this evening… eer you know, and I do not want to be… I don’t want to be, how should I call it?
“I do not want anyone to think that I am being prejudice (sic) in this case, but I want to single Keith ‘Dis An’ Dat’ Scarborough.”
The big man you are, you did not need to stammer on national radio Hon Jeffers. You should have called a spade a spade. Your fellow, but failed, CCM candidate had delivered as he would have been ordered: He had laced his lyrics with vitriol aimed at the ruling party.
The judges (CCM Press Secretary Mervin Hanley called some of them NRP-judges — I did not know that the NRP had anything to do with the calypso judging) were not looking at the poison he was spewing but rather how he arranged the music and how he presented it — poison or no poison.
CCM people are being driven against the wall by their own guilt conscience. You guys thought that he would not win.
Then he went ahead to spew rubbish on radio in the name of protecting the vitriol-spewing DumDum CCM calypsonian. “Keith would have won this competition back in 2007 and now 2011 and over those years, between 2007 and 2012, sorry I said 11 but it is 12, between those years he would have in my opinion done enough to have won it at least once or twice before this year but circumstances prevented him from doing so.”
These CCM people are simply myopic. Why can’t they be the judges and give their fellow DumDum CCM calypsonian the crown year after year? That is what Jeffers was implying, and it shows how immature he is.
He should first have looked at Dis An’ Dat’s participation record at Culturama before he could have opened his mouth on radio.
Dis An’ Dat started competing in Culturama as a calypsonian in the year 1976. His first win was in 1984, and went on to win in 1986 and 1988. The NRP was in government some of those years, while the CCM came into the scene in 1992. After 1988 he did not win again until 1995.
There are SIX years in between (1989, 1990, 1991, 1992, 1993, and 1994) that he did not win, yet he participated. Did Jeffers also complain to the CCM in government?
Dis An’ Dat won again in 1998 and 2000, but did not win in 2001, 2002, 2003, and 2004. He then won in 2005 but lost in 2006. Jeffers please wake and smell reality. Did you complain to the CCM that your DumDum calypsonian ought to have won in the years he missed out when they were in power?
Stop confusing Nevisians by mixing culture with tribal politics.
Everyone salutes Mr Keith ‘Dis An’ Dat’ Scarborough for his contribution to the culture of Nevis by his consistency at the Culturama since 1976. Hon Jeffers, for the good of Nevis, please take time and learn to distinguish between Nevis’s cultural history and the CCM political tribalism.
Jeffers is so consumed by this deliberating tribalism that he does not even know when he strays from sense to nonsense. He said in his programme that Mr Halstead ‘Sooty’ Byron was the chairman of Culturama in CCM days, but he is now not fit to be the person in charge.
What Jeffers said above simply does not add up. Is that how low CCM has come?
Even a pig knows that a pearl is valuable before it tramples on it in mud.
He then ended the programme spectacularly by telling his listeners: “We will be back next year!”
You are right Hon Jeffers. You succeeded in consigning the ‘On the Mark’ radio programme in the hole you had dug for Culturama. Stop digging when you are already in a hole.