In the UK and much of North America it is the summer, which leads into the summer festival and carnival season in relation to Caribbean and African American celebrations. Between July an August there are many of these festivals. The origin of these festivals was to from Europe, and as descendants from African slaves black people would use these festivals to practice African cultural celebrations and traditions from the motherland to how it is used today in Caribbean Carnival around the world.
Carnivals are often organised in the UK by a committee and funded by the local authority, this means the council has a say in how the organisation is run and the direction it may take. This also means when there are cuts to funding the carnival is likely to suffer the most. The typical response is the local black community will discuss who and how money from the past has been misappropriated and they will in some case know who has wrongfully appropriated funds but they do not as a whole look at creating solutions to these problems.
There are two routes we can take in regards to the carnival, firstly we can fund it ourselves, secondly we can continue with largely public funding.
Considering the first approach, I have looked at a membership model. This would encompass the following:
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A general meeting where all attendees pay a membership fee of £1 and a minimum contribution of £1 to the running of the carnival.
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This would mean there would need to be a committee voted in demonstrating: Capability; Transparency; and Accountability.
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The committee would need to have a mixture of young persons and experienced business owners.
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The local authority may be able to contribute by providing a grant or access to the streets for the parade to take place.
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An entrance fee to the carnival could be applied if not enough funds were raised to hold the event.
The second approach would consider the current model of public funding, where:
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The local authority would required a business reason for funding
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The carnival would be open to including races other than black people being celebrated (just look at Notting hill carnival these days)
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There would be a lack of soul as there may be other groups who would be on the committee who are not black.
Reviewing the first approach of self sufficiency, there would be a risk that our people would not contribute to the carnival as they may say that in the past it has been free and why shouldnt the local authority continue to pay. I would have said this a few years ago but I realise, if we pay for it ourselves it means we can again have a carnival for the community and educational on culture and tradition.
Currently carnivals have since the late 80’s/early 90’s been rife with violence and dysfunction as rival gangs have used it as places to fight and the presentations have whilst they have followed Caribbean culture they are very sexualised, whilst the music is very aggressive and not uplifting contributing to the bad vibes which cause fights and animosity.
Therefore I would propose the following for the carnivals:
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Liaise with and form a partnership with Africans to learn about African traditional dancing and cultural celebrations.
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Have Africans on the board as many carnivals are very Caribbean centric.
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Music should be Soca, Reggae, traditional African music and anything positive and uplifting
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Have board members who are black and not any other colour.
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Present and host events and services to the local community which can raise revenue (e.g.job skills, tutoring children and adults, film showings and other events beneficial to the community).
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Have all the participants in the carnival celebration as being black and from the caribbean or Africa.
Some of the points raised above are in the interests of black people, we could rent a building or a office space for the committee from the council at a cheap rate until we are able to buy a building to host a committee. The organisation would need to be a social enterprise, so it would be able to have charitable status but also be able to make profits and use it how they would like in the best interests of the community it serves.
There would need to be administration procedures put in place such as the following:
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A quarterly report created which would state the incoming and outgoings every 3 months
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A independent structure for a disciplinary commission would be required to ensure those guilty of acts would be investigated if found guilty a legal case is bought against them.
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An audit by auditors every 6 months or unannounced.
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A annual general meeting of the carnival committee and its members to vote in a new committee comprised of:
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Chair
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Deputy Chair
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Secretary
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Treasurer
- Other trustees/committee members
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This organisation would be required to look like and behave as a organisation, which would put confidence in our people to fund future events. If we are not organised then we may have events but they will be without soul and the other possibility is to have no event a lack of recognition of our presence from a social point of view and then we sit and talk about how good it used to be and the problem why it never happened again, rather than taking action in regards to creating a carnival representing the black community.
Further information
A history of Carnival (www.allahwe.org)
Notting Hill Carnival Organisers Reign (www.dailymail.co.uk)
The Untold Story of Notting Hill Carnival (www.standard.co.uk)
Upliftment Information 