Wait, Dorothy, Wait!

Can you choose the person from the crowd whose light should be put out?

WE ARE supposed to observe tragedy.

I don't mean for but a moment of silence. I don't mean to watch wild with curiousity and morbidity. I don't mean to stare just because everybody else is doing it and it's what we've been socialised to do.

I mean observe with the depth, feeling and heart that is meant to draw us into the fold of understanding, empathy and wisdom.

The kind of observance I mean takes time, effort, a wanting to be made better inside and to make better outside by carefully regarding the tragedy. It's like C.S. Lewis wrote an entire book called, A Grief Observed, because that's how much work he felt should go into the observation of such. And that was for one person he lost.

But these days, people a killed by the scores, hundreds, millions and we "observe" with little footnotes that go side-by-side with Lady Gaga wearing a dress made out of raw meat (something social commentary about that, now that I think about it).

What's worse, with very little observation, we open our big fat mouths and speak atrocities that parallel the tragedy on which we are commenting.

That's why, instead of a post in which I wax critical of what's happening -- nay! being done -- to Carnival in TnT, you're reading this lament.

See, I must observe the most recent slaughter of human beings by one other human being who was abetted in his crime by, perhaps, all human beings, because, after all, "We Are the World."

Conscious calypsonian and previous Calypso Monarch Black Stalin, many years ago, wrote a song to answer back those urging him to sing a "jam and wine" tune. In it, he said he would happily do so when this social ill was fixed, or that crooked politics stopped, or those people ceased downtrodding the already destitute, or these here refused to capitalise on the suffering of hard-hit societies.

Essentially, he would not sing about jamming and wining with some buxom, big bumcee-rolling babe while there were so many more pressing things that he as a calypsonian needed to address. The song was called, "Wait, Dorothy, Wait."

Well this is my, "Wait, Dorothy, Wait" week. I will observe the slaughter in New Zealand. In fact, I will call it right away what I think it is: an act of terrorism, equal to suicide-bombings and ethnic cleansing.

Good and mad

I am a multi-ethnic person in a cross-culture society with direct family lines to Muslim and to Caucasion people; not to mention all the rest of ethnicities, religions, creeds, colours, et al of the people in my family tree.

Why I am telling you this is so that when you read my posts on this tragedy, you will keep in mind that I do not have the luxury of being able to be a bigot claiming "pure" status of any kind. So when I talk, it is not from prejudice, but from a sense of justice that can only truly come about when we take all things into consideration ... basically when we truly observe.

If you are not afraid to listen, be sure to read me for the rest of the week here. I may be mad, but I can still try to do some good.

If you need more sunshine fare, and want to enjoy my honouring of "The Greatest Show on Earth": TnT Carnival, please link to Trinbago Shine On.

I tell you "Come good." It's the Trini way of saying: when you do something, you better do it the right way and real well.

It sounds to me like the Buddhist urging: "Do good. Do only good. Do good for others."

Please think about what that should mean to our words and deeds. Please.