As the present government of the country prepares to ‘jump da line’ destroying the present culture of the Bahamas by attempting to force another to fit, I would like to ask how exactly how does Junkanoo-Carnival advance Bahamian culture and achieve its goal?

What its basic goal?

“Christie : Carnival is here for good” – The Nassau Guardian

Excerpt from this article; “Expressing confidence of Bahamian buy-in to Junkanoo-Carnival, Prime Minister Perry Christie said while the event is a work in progress, it will get better every year and it is poised to be a ‘big event’ that will benefit the Bahamian people ‘mightily’.

Speaking to The Nassau Guardian at the Music Masters competition on Friday night, Christie said the song competition was evidence of carnival working.

‘I’m seeing thousands of Bahamians who are also enjoying themselves,’ he said.

‘I think this is work in progress.

‘It’s going to get better and better each year, like for example the song competition.”

There are a few questions to ask oneself as the Prime Minister makes these statements; one, did Junkanoo-Carnival get ‘better’ this year, is the song competition a sign of it getting ‘better’, is this the same song competition that is a part of our Independence celebrations and what is the primary objective of Junkanoo-Carnival?

Let me re-clarify my position on Junkanoo-Carnival, I feel that it is a foreign culture that the Progressive Liberal Party (PLP) government is attempting to force onto the Bahamian culture and by adding ‘Junkanoo’ to the front of it, has attempted to convince visitors to our shores that it is indeed a part of our culture; it is not.

Then that brings me to the question of what is the primary objective of Junkanoo-Carnival?  At its inception, many were convinced that it was to bring visitors to our shores; the ‘Heads-in-Beds’ concept; a touristic stimulus of sorts.  If you create an event interesting enough then people would come to ‘experience’ it, to date has this been the case?  The Prime Minister speaks of ‘seeing thousands of Bahamians enjoying themselves’ and I have nothing against this but was this the primary purpose of the event when it was first conceived? 

With the timing of it all, being around the very same time the Progressive Liberal Party won the government in 2012, then many believe that the event has been put together for Bahamians to enjoy themselves but what about all of the money being spent under the guise of bringing people to our shores, has the government deceived us yet again?

Last year’s Junkanoo-Carnival operated at a deficit and there was talk of compensating some of the vendors, I do not know if this was ever done but this year’s Junkanoo-Carnival, which the Prime Minister said would/should be better, created less of a buzz than it did in its first year which it ran at a deficit, so I guess we will have to ‘jump de line’ for the final figures on this JC as we did with the first one to get an idea if it idea did do better.

I doubt it.

The Progressive Liberal Party fails for one reason, it is their nature.

END