One knows that a powerful theme in the Caribbean literary tradition is our physical environment, its harbouring nature, its sensual bounty, steamy fertility, tales of pilaging by "conquerors"...the yearning for a psychic and social and just "reconquest".

Recently, due to concerns involving the Treasure Beach ecology
(the Canal...the Pond...Fisheries), Diana McCaulay, from JET (Jamaica Environmental Trust) suggested that their documentary film, Jamaica for Sale about Tourism and Unsustainable Development, be shown publicly to all who care about the environmental degradation of our Natural Resources...the effects of mega-tourism, especially on the Coasts.

Have Mercy! Oh the lament for our losses of Fisheries...Mangroves...Coral Reefs...and on the scene,the Growth of Garbage...and the not "natural" inequities in citizenship and people's sense of futility.

It seems as though it is too late to blast the Call of the Conch Shell to the organizers of the Calabash Fest to weave this documentary into its late night schedule.
Word is out that that die is cast, and another film from "Sweet Sweetback" Melvin Van Peebles is sceduled for the Piccha Show.
(presumably for its "entertainment value" in tune with Perry's The Harder They Come.

I dare to imagine that the showing of "Jamaica For Sale" would be just another star to honour Perry Henzell and his literary and cinematic legacy.

I am recalling the mentoring and encouragement that Perry gave to Stephanie Black's documentary Life and Debt, which exposed the devestating nature of the IMF's relationship with the Jamaica economy.

Much of the script was excerpted from A Small Place, a short piece by one of the Caribbean's finest writers, Jamaica Kinkaid, and was shown at a previous Calabash Fest.
"Life and Debt" so aptly fit the Calabash experience, replete with
great conscious music (Marley' "One Love" & "No Woman No Cry";
Susan Couch's "Fortunes of Love"; Buja Banton's "Destiny". Rolondo McClean's "Be Still Babylon", Muta's "Life and Debt",some "Nyabinghi Chants"...even a little Belafonte..."the bucolic "Island in the Sun".

Diana McCaulay"s and Esther Figueroa's Jamaica For Sale may not match that line-up of performing artists, but it has garnered
high praise from such authors as Jenny Burman (Transnational Yearnings: Tourism, Migration & Diasporic Culture and Patricia Powell ( The Fullness of Everything)

Calabash Time is a concentrated moment for Story Telling...The mike is open to all...though time-constrained.

Can anyone offer a venue, when there are so many "eyes-ears-an open hearts" in Treasure Beach...more than at any time of the year from all corners of the planet...even link it to a well publicized Citizen's Alert event for those of us who will still be in TB for several days after the Calabash tent is struck???

Put up the bed sheet cross some lignum vitae or cassha tree...Call it the Perry Piccha Sho, or sumtin, and PLEASE give us Jamaica For Sale In the Time of the Calabash.

Oh, Island in the sun
Willed to me by my father's hand
All my days I will sing in praise
Of your forest, waters, your shining sand

www.jamaicaforsale.net

www.lifeanddebt.org/about.html

ABSOLUTELY !! We want to see this important film at Calabash.

Stop selling your land and treat it with respect and love, without it you have nothing and then you will live how I live ( in an Apartment that I don't own and nowhere to grow food even if I have a house I still don't own the land because no one will sell there land here just lease which is all life is any way just a lease so make the absolute best of it you can and leave it for your children and teach them how to respect and love the land and it will do the same right back to them and you. One Love People

By Nigel on Friday, May 15, 2009 - 12:04 pm: Edit Post
Stop selling your land and treat it with respect and love, without it you have nothing and then you will live how I live ( in an Apartment that I don't own and nowhere to grow food even if I have a house I still don't own the land because no one will sell there land here just lease which is all life is any way just a lease so make the absolute best of it you can and leave it for your children and teach them how to respect and love the land and it will do the same right back to them and you. One Love People

Amen!