Hosay

Uploaded by cool4rocknroll

HOSAY
By David Rudder

"Wear something red", was the popular cry
And like the pavements and streets, they were filled with envy
Because by morning light they were covered with our blood
I tell you not one soul here escaped the frenzy
You know sometimes you gamble in King and wild is the Joker
And sometimes the sight of the moon just riles up the lost, the hungry, the mad
These are the troubled times that we have down in Trinidad.

Because under the crescent moon and above the bloody asphalt,
Strange dogs were barking deep in the night
Under the crescent moon, I say the drums were silent
But somehow the rhythm continued, oh what a sight!
On the night of the day, it was the night of the day
Oh, the night when they say that the martyrs died.

Fame, yes, we're famous as hell
Why don't you know we're a star
At long last we have made it
A star like that star in the moon shining over the tomb
Dance the moon, we can't 'fraid it
Come on, dance, brother, dance, but death is your drummer
Oh, prance, sister, prance, the future's at stake
Jump high, jump low but this Hosay will take the cake.

Because under the crescent moon and above the bloody asphalt,
Strange dogs were barking deep in the night
Under the crescent moon, I say the drums were silent
But somehow the rhythm continued, oh what a sight!
On the night of the day, it was the night of the day
Oh, the night when they say that the martyrs died.

The power and the glory is so close at hand
But the beast, he was lurking for he too sits in the wings, in the wings
So when we searched for the moon all we saw were the vultures
But then a chosen people never worry 'bout these things, 'bout these things
So the roll of the tassa began to sound like the rhythm of bullets
And the thundering boom bass, well that was a bomb, was a bomb
Inna this Muslim time when the Hosay is number one

I say, under the crescent moon and above the bloody asphalt,
Brother man, strange dogs were barking deep in the night
Under the crescent moon, I say the drums were silent
But somehow the rhythm continued, oh what a sight!
On the night of the day, it was the night of the day
Oh, the night when they say that the martyrs died.

Not in this house! Not in this garden of Eden!
Oh, how we danced to the beat of this lovely lie, lovely lie
Until a man opened a door and showed us our other side
And our Mecca-ed illusions walked right on by
Now Trini know what is oozie diplomacy
Now Trini know what is SLR love
Inna these troubled times under the stars above.

I say, under the crescent moon and above the bloody asphalt,
Brother man, strange dogs were barking deep in the night
Under the crescent moon, I say the drums were silent
But somehow the drumming continued, oh what a sight!
On the night of the day, it was the night of the day
Oh, the night when they say that the martyrs died.

Under the crescent moon and above the bloody asphalt,
Strange dogs were barking deep in the night
Under the crescent moon, I say the drums were silent
But somehow the rhythm continued, oh what a sight!
On the night of the day, it was the night of the day
Oh, the night when they say that the magic died.

So "Wear something red", was the popular cry
And like the pavements and streets, they were filled, were filled with envy
Because by morning light they were covered with our blood
I tell you not one soul here escaped the frenzy
You know sometime you gamble in King but you pull the Court Jester
And sometimes the sight of the moon...

Source: The lyrics posted on this blog are often transcribed directly from performances. Although it is my intention to faithfully transcribe I do not get all the words and I have a knack for hearing the wrong thing. Please feel free to correct me or to fill in the words that I miss by dropping me a message via e-mail. I'd be forever grateful. Thanks in advance!

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A Note From The Gull

Thank you, David Rudder. Je me souviens.

"Patria est communis omnium parens" - Our native land is the common parent of us all. Keep it beautiful, make it even more so.

Blessed is all of creation
Blessed be my beautiful people
Blessed be the day of our awakening
Blessed is my country
Blessed are her patient hills.

Mweh ka allay!
Guanaguanare

"The Despair Of Having Everything."

THE DESPAIR OF HAVING EVERYTHING
By Jean Baudrillard.
Translated by Luke Sandford
November 2002
Source: The European Graduate School. Graduate & Postgraduate Studies

The West's mission is to make the world's wealth of cultures interchangeable, and to subordinate them within the global order. Our culture, which is bereft of values, revenges itself upon the values of other cultures.

IS globalisation inevitable? What fervour propels the world to embrace such an abstract idea? And what force drives us to make that idea a reality so unconditionally?

The universal used to be an idea. Yet when an idea is actually realised globally, it commits suicide. With humankind as the sole authority of note, occupying the empty space left by a dead God, the human species now rules unchallenged, though it no longer has any overarching goal. Since humanity's enemies have all fled, it must generate foes from within its own ranks, while showing symptoms of inhumanity.

Hence the violence associated with globalisation, with a system that wants to eliminate any manifestation of negativity and singularity (including the ultimate expression of singularity, death). This is the violence of a society in which we are almost forbidden to engage in conflict. This violence, in a way, marks an end to violence itself, because it yearns for a world free from any natural order that might govern the human body or sexuality, life or death. It might be more accurate to use the word virulence, rather than violence. This violence has viral force: it spreads by contagion and chain reactions. It gradually destroys our immunity and ability to resist.

Globalisation's triumph is not certain yet, though. Faced with its homogenising and destabilising effects, hostile forces are arising everywhere. But anti-globalisation's ever-sharper manifestations — including social and political resistance — should be seen as more than just outmoded forms of rejection. They are part of an agonising revision that focuses on the achievements of modernity and "progress", a process that rejects both the globalised techno-structure and an ideology that wants to make all cultures interchangeable.

Anti-globalisation actions may be violent, abnormal or irrational, at least as judged by our enlightened philosophy. They may be collective, bringing together different ethnic, religious and linguistic groups, or they may be individual, including maladjustment and neurosis. It would be wrong to denounce anti-globalisation forces as populist, antiquated or terrorist. Every current event — including Islamic hostility to the West — happens in opposition to the abstraction that is the concept of universality. Islam is now public enemy number one because it has shown the most vehement opposition to Western values.

Who or what can thwart the global system? Surely not anti-globalisation forces, whose only aim is to slow the pace of deregulation; their political influence may be considerable but their symbolic impact is nil. The protestors' violence is merely another event within the system that the system will absorb — while remaining in control of the game.

Singularities [unique or unusual identities or approaches] could be used to baffle the system. Being neither positive nor negative, they do not represent alternatives; they are wild cards outside the system. They cannot be evaluated by value judgments or through principles of political reality; they can correspond to either the best or the worst. They are obstacles to one-track thinking and dominant modes of thought, although they are not the only kind of contrary approach. They make up their own games and play by their own rules.

Singularities are not inherently violent. Some can be subtle, unique characteristics of language, art, culture or the human body. But violent singularities do exist, and terrorism is one of them. Violence revenges all the varied cultures that disappeared to prepare for the investiture of a single global power. This is not really a clash of civilisations. Instead, this anthropological conflict pits a monolithic universal culture against all manifestations of otherness, wherever they may be found.

Global power — as fundamentalist as any religious orthodoxy — sees anything different or unorthodox as heretical, and the heretics must be made to assume their position within the global order or disappear completely. The West's mission (we could call it the "former West" since it lost its defining values long ago) is to reduce a wealth of separate cultures into being interchangeable, of equal weight, by any brutal means possible. A culture that is bereft of values revenges itself on the values of other cultures. Beyond politics and economics, the primary aim of warfare (including the conflict in Afghanistan) is to normalise savagery and beat territories into alignment. Another objective is to diminish any zone of resistance, to colonise and tame any terrain, geographical or mental

The rise of the globalised system has been powered by the furious envy of an indifferent, low-definition culture faced with the reality of high-definition cultures. Envy is what disenchanted systems that have lost their intensity feel in the presence of high-intensity cultures. It is the envy of deconsecrated societies when confronted with sacrificial cultures and structures.

The global system assesses any resistance as potentially terrorist, as in Afghanistan (1). When a territory bans democratic liberties such as music, television or women's faces, when nations take courses opposed to what we call civilisation, the "free" world sees these events as indefensible, regardless of what religious principles may be at stake.

So to disavow modernity and its pretensions of universality is not allowed. Some resistors reject the belief that modernity is a force for good or represents the natural ideal of our species; others question the universality of our mores and values. Even when the resistors are described as "fanatics", their contrariness remains criminal, according to the received wisdom of the West.

This confrontation can only be understood by considering symbolic obligations. To understand the hatred the rest of the world feels towards the West, we must reverse our perspectives. This is not the hatred felt by people from whom we have taken everything and to whom we have given nothing back. Rather, it is the hatred felt by those to whom we have given everything and who can give nothing in return. Their hatred stems from humiliation, not from dispossession or exploitation. The attacks of 11 September were a response to this animus, with one kind of humiliation begetting another.

The worst thing that can happen to global power is not for it to be attacked or destroyed but for it to be humiliated. Global power was humiliated on 11 September because the terrorists inflicted an injury that could not be inflicted on them in return. Reprisals are only physical retaliations, whereas global power had suffered a symbolic defeat. War can only respond to the terrorists' physical aggression, not to the challenge they represent. Their defiance can only be addressed by vengefully humiliating the "others" (but surely not by crushing them with bombs or by locking them up like dogs in detention cells in Guantanamo Bay).

There is a fundamental rule that the basis for all domination is a total lack of any counterflow to the prevailing power. Bestowing a unilateral gift is a powerful act. The "good" empire gives without any possibility of a return of gifts. This is almost to assume God's place or to take on the role of the master who ensures his slaves' safety in exchange for their labours. (Since work is not a symbolic compensation, the only remaining options for the slaves are revolution and death.)

But even God allowed humanity to give him the gift of sacrifice. Within the traditional order it was always possible to repay God, or nature, or another higher authority, by sacrifice. This safeguarded the symbolic equilibrium between human beings and everything else. Today there is no one left to compensate, to whom we might repay our symbolic debt. This is the curse of our culture: although giving is not impossible, giving back is impossible, because sacrifice has had its importance and power taken away, and what remains is a caricature of sacrifice (like contemporary ideas of victimisation).

So we find ourselves stuck with always being on the receiving end, not from God or nature, but from technical mechanisms that provide general exchange and gratification. Almost everything is given to us. And we are entitled to it all. We are like slaves, bondservants whose lives have been spared but who are still bound by an intractable debt. At some point, though, that fundamental rule always applies and any positive transfer will be met with a negative reaction.

This is a violent expression of repressed feeling about lives in captivity, about sheltered existences, about, in fact, having far too much existence. The return to a more primitive condition may take the form of violence (including terrorism) or the form of denials characterised by powerlessness, self-hatred and remorse, negative passions, which are a debased form of the payback that it is impossible to make. The thing we hate within ourselves, the obscure focus of our resentment, is our surfeit of reality: our excessive power and comfort, our sense of accomplishment. This is the fate that Dostoevsky's Grand Inquisitor had prepared for the tamed masses in The Brothers Karamazov ["to vanquish freedom and to do so to make men happy"]. It is exactly what the terrorists condemn in our culture. Hence the endless coverage of — and fascination with — terrorism.

Terrorism depends not only on the obvious despair of the humiliated, but on the invisible despair of globalisation's beneficiaries. It depends on our subjugation to the technology integral to our lives, and to the crushing effects of virtual reality. We are in thrall to networks and programmes, and this dependence defines our species, homo sapiens gone global. This feeling of invisible despair — our own despair — is irreversible because it is the result of the total fulfilment of our desires.

If terrorism is really the result of a state of profusion without any hope of payback or obligation to sacrifice, of the forced resolution of conflicts, then eradicating it as if it were an affliction imposed from the outside could only be illusory. Terrorism, in its absurdity and meaninglessness, is society's verdict on — and condemnation of — itself.

(1) You could say serious natural disasters are a form of terrorism since, although they are technically classified as accidents (such as Chernobyl), they may resemble terrorism. In India, the Bhopal poison gas tragedy (technically an accident) could have been terrorism. Any terrorist group could claim responsibility for an aviation accident. Irrational events can be attributed to anyone or anything, so that, at the limit, we could see anything as criminal, even cold weather or an earthquake. There is nothing new about this: in the aftermath of the 1923 Tokyo earthquake, thousands of Koreans were blamed and killed. In a system as integrated as our own, everything destabilises; everything seeks to undermine a system that lays claim to infallibility. Given what we are already undergoing because of the system's rational grip, we may wonder if the worst catastrophe is the infallibility of the system.

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"Patria est communis omnium parens" - Our native land is the common parent of us all. Keep it beautiful, make it even more so.

Blessed is all of creation
Blessed be my beautiful people
Blessed be the day of our awakening
Blessed is my country
Blessed are her patient hills.

Mweh ka allay!
Guanaguanare

You Don't Need Glasses To See [Song]

Uploaded by calypzombie85
YOU DON"T NEED GLASSES TO SEE
By Lord Invader

Myself and my girl was lying in bed
She took a comb and start to scratch my head
Me and my chick was lying in bed
She took a comb and start to scratch my head.
In a romantic way she then held me tight
She held on to my top lip and gave me a bite
I asked her, "Darling, why you bit me?"
She said, "You fool! You don't need glasses to see."

So I then asked her the reason why
She gazed into my eyes and started to cry
And she began to roll all over the bed
I saw her eyes was getting so red
And like a wrestler she held me in a clinch
She kissed me on my cheek and give me a pinch
I asked her, "Darling, why you pinch me?"
She said, "You fool! You don't need glasses to see."

I lie down on the bed very cool and calm
She took her head and placed it on my right arm
And she told me, "Invader, dearie, honey,
You know I love you sincerely?"
I made a move to to go, she said, "Not a foot!"
She drag me in my collar and give me a butt
I asked her, "Darling, why you butt me?"
She said, "You fool! You don't need glasses to see."

She then got up and turn off the light
She said, "Invader, is trouble in here tonight!"
She locked the door and she hid the key
She said, "Honey, you know you torturing me."
I pretended as though I didn't hear
She took a feather and started tickling my ear
I asked her, "Darling, why tickle me?"
She said, "You fool! You don't need glasses to see."

Source: The lyrics posted on this blog are often transcribed directly from performances. Although it is my intention to faithfully transcribe I do not get all the words and I have a knack for hearing the wrong thing. Please feel free to correct me or to fill in the words that I miss by dropping me a message via e-mail. I'd be forever grateful. Thanks in advance!
..............................................................................................................................
"Patria est communis omnium parens" - Our native land is the common parent of us all. Keep it beautiful, make it even more so.

Blessed is all of creation
Blessed be my beautiful people
Blessed be the day of our awakening
Blessed is my country
Blessed are her patient hills.

Mweh ka allay!
Guanaguanare

Sing For The Land [Song]

Uploaded by cool4rocknroll
SING FOR THE LAND
By Black Stalin

Keep your party card, it not necessary!
I don't have to join no group to represent the country
I want to get it straight to my fellow Trinbagonian
I does sing for the land and then for the man
Because parties does form today,
The next day they gone down the drain
But my IOU for this country would always remain
For when Drake and Morgan landed here from Africa, brother
Is Trinidad and Tobago whey took the role as my mother.

Is Trinbago who give Stalin the privilege
Just to find out who I am after the Middle Passage
So it's my obligation to make sure the twin island
That how I meet it, I could leave it in a better condition
So then I can't wait on no PM, no Opposition, or no party
You see I got to do the little that I could do
And do it wholeheartedly for this country.

How could I sit down and wait on somebody
To jump on the TV and tell me to --------
Since I small, I hearing T&TEC load shedding
Everyday WASA people begging, water wasting
So when I lock off my water or I stop my current from wasting
It ent no T&TEC people or WASA that I helping
Because the first duty to my country is to make sure I always try
That none of them people ent run down the river dry, dry, dry.

Is Trinbago who give Stalin the privilege
Just to find back myself after the Middle Passage
So it's my obligation to make sure the twin island
That how I meet it, I could leave it in a better condition
So then I can't wait on no PM, no Opposition, or no party
You see I got to do the little that I could do
And do it wholeheartedly for this country.

If your party love the things whey I saying
We could put black force together and do a little protesting
But when the moment reach and we both start to disagree
To go we separate ways, we all must be free
Because I don't owe you nothing, it's the land I owe
And how you serving the land, I don't want to know
Because as a Trinbagonian, it's my duty to do my best
And as the old people say, "Do your best and forget the rest."

Is Trinbago who give Stalin the privilege
Just to find out who I am after the Middle Passage
So it's my obligation to make sure the twin island
That how I meet it, I could leave it in a better condition
So then I can't wait on no PM, no Opposition, or no party
You see I got to do the little that I could do
And do it wholeheartedly for the country.

I alone know how much this country do for me
So I alone could say how much I could do for the country
So how could any man or woman Trinidadian
Tell me how I must contribute to this land?
Because since I born, this country been taking care of me
And I making sure that I do the same carefully
Because this is just a warning to my fellow Trinbagonian
That I go lay my life down any time at all for the land.

Is Trinbago who give Stalin the privilege
Just to find out I'm an African after the Middle Passage
So it's my obligation to make sure the twin island
That how I meet it, I could leave it in a better condition
So then I can't wait on no PM, no Opposition, or no party
You see I got to do the little that I could do
And do it wholeheartedly for this country. One love!

Source: The lyrics posted on this blog are often transcribed directly from performances. Although it is my intention to faithfully transcribe I do not get all the words and I have a knack for hearing the wrong thing. Please feel free to correct me or to fill in the words that I miss by dropping me a message via e-mail. I'd be forever grateful. Thanks in advance!
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A Note From The Gull

Thank you so much for this offering, Black Stalin! Until I heard this song today, nothing, nothing, nothing was lifting the heaviness that I've been feeling. I've always shared your conviction but I allowed myself to become distracted for a while by human folly. Thank you, compatriot, from the bottom of my heart, for sending your light to find me.

"Patria est communis omnium parens" - Our native land is the common parent of us all. Keep it beautiful, make it even more so.

Blessed is all of creation
Blessed be my beautiful people
Blessed be the day of our awakening
Blessed is my country
Blessed are her patient hills.

Mweh ka allay!
Guanaguanare

Engineering Failure

According to the T&T Express of June 9, 2010, it was on June 8 that the AG called on the Integrity Commission to secure both the movable assets and the entire property at Guanapo because as he said "the assets may very well belong to the State and action ought to be taken to ensure the compound receives adequate protection." It must have been soon after this that the looting began, by locals anyway, because I am not convinced that those contractors' trucks that had already been briskly removing materials from the site were in fact really associated with that company or if they were, if there wasn't the possibility that contrary to what they were asserting, they were removing materials that had already been paid for by Phantom & Co.

I'd like to be able to blame the AG or the CoP or the Integrity Commission but I cannot. I have strong suspicions but I simply do not know enough about the chain of command, about the legislation guiding policing or about the powers of the Integrity Commission, to direct my accusations with any confidence at one of, or all the parties involved. Sometimes though, I suspect that things are made to appear more complicated than they are in order to deliberately obfuscate and discourage scrutiny by the general public.

I would be eternally grateful if an investigative journalist or an impartial expert would take the time to break it down for us. As regards the securing of assets in this particular case, tell us what the Attorney General can and cannot command. Tell us what the CoP can and cannot allow his officers to do. Tell us what the Integrity Commission is empowered to do. Tell us if the PM and the Minister of National Security were consulted. Tell us if these were extraordinary circumstances under which established procedures could have been altered by those who had the power to do so within the law.

It is one thing to disagree violently behind the scenes but it is really unfortunate that the AG and CoP should have had this brawl out in public where some strong and not easily retractable fighting words were uttered. Since the energy has been expended, let us see if it will amount to something useful. If nothing positive results from it, we are going to conclude that it was simply another diversion, two officials bellowing and locking horns without any interest in moving us as a nation closer to creating a system that defends accountability and transparency. Yesterday, Stephen Kangal in his article "Adopting a consultative approach to foreign policy." described Minister of Foreign Affairs, Dr Suruj Rambachan's adoption of "a consultative, transparency and accountability-based strategy." Sounds promising.

Public officials who are confident and have nothing to hide, do not avoid public scrutiny and have no need to bluster when the facts of the matter can be calmly presented with respect for themselves and the intelligence of the citizens that they serve.

So many Trinbagonians in public fora are critically assessing this situation, asking all the right questions and proposing intelligent guidelines for investigation. They were born and bred in this country and there are thousands more like them who are honest, intelligent and self-motivated. What I will argue constantly is that we absolutely do have the qualified and capable people right here in Trinidad and Tobago to do the work that is required, and to do it well. However, they do not exist or function in a vacuum. There is a "culture" that we have to take into consideration and that culture will also constrain the functioning of imported personnel.

The source of the problems with our public offices, including the Police Service, is not at the points where these ills are publicly manifested. The problems are enabled by the culture within which these officers exist, both internal to the service and that of the government and society. There is little accountability because this is what has been allowed by those who bear responsibility for holding public offices and officers accountable.

To take the example of the Police Service, I believe that it has been convenient for the corrupt at all levels to have a police service that the rest of us can blame. Apparently these officers' backs are particularly broad and well suited to the role of sin eaters in this society. Those with half a brain, however, know that they are not a law unto themselves and that if the political will existed, heads would roll, for example, when officers repeatedly fail to respond to calls for help from citizens in distress or do not show up in court to present evidence. The police officers who give the rest of the service a bad name, the officers who are inefficient or as corrupt as the criminal elements that they are expected to subdue, have clearly analysed and understood this society. Monkey really know what tree to climb. All law breakers, whether blue collar, white collar or platinum have discerned that lawlessness will be tolerated by the administration.

Perhaps the AG can explain to us, in the interest of transparency, exactly how public servants are held accountable for their misdeeds or plain criminal negligence. Perhaps he can examine his conscience and even if he does not share what he discovers there with us, he can still ask himself if he really made every effort, with firmness and respect for his equals, to have his orders enforced re the Guanapo site. Or, is it that it suits his purpose now to allow the present Commissioner to appear to have failed.

I can only speak for myself when I say that I have completely lost patience with hearing the list of suspects in this case. I want to know who had ultimate authority and therefore responsibility for ensuring after June 8, that the AG's orders were enacted. Has Calder Hart's property been secured by the way? We do know that he is the owner and that he is under investigation. AG, are you diligently pursuing this?

I do not believe that foreigners are necessarily more competent or honest than locals and they've certainly provided us with abundant evidence to the contrary, both within and outside of this country. I maintain that all public officials (specifically those who cannot be relied upon to police themselves) will be only as honest as the climate within which they operate. The leader bears ultimate responsibility for the actions of his/her subordinates. In the framework of organisational performance assessment, the buck stops at the head.
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"Patria est communis omnium parens" - Our native land is the common parent of us all. Keep it beautiful, make it even more so.

Blessed is all of creation
Blessed be my beautiful people
Blessed be the day of our awakening
Blessed is my country
Blessed are her patient hills.

Mweh ka allay!
Guanaguanare