THE spreading negative impact of the global financial and economic crisis is now being offered as an official explanation why The Bahamas can no longer host, as originally pledged, the eleventh Caribbean Festival of Arts (CARIFESTA) in August next year. 

This unexpected development has created a problem for the 15-member Caribbean Community of which CARIFESTA has emerged, since its inauguration in Guyana in 1972, as the Greater Caribbean’s premier cultural festival.

Following a meeting in Suriname last month of CARICOM’s Regional Cultural Committee, a decision was taken to invite tenders for hosting the event, at least by June 2011.

But the Community’s Secretary General, Edwin Carrington, has since been quoted by the Caribbean Media Corporation as saying: “We haven’t had any replacement candidate” to host the festival.   

This is the second occasion that The Bahamas Government of Prime Minister Hubert Ingraham has disappointed its CARICOM partners in failing to host CARIFESTA. The first was in 2007.

Then, the Community Secretariat was advised that the new Ingraham administration, which had succeeded that of ex-Prime Minister Perry Christie’s at the May 2007 general election, was not in a position to host CARIFESTA in view of the inadequate preparations inherited from the previous Progressive Liberal Party government, a claim rejected by ex-Prime Minister Christie. 

Guyana had come to the rescue, following hurried consultations involving member governments and the Community Secretariat. Having been involved in the massive preparations involved, as one of the host countries, for Cricket World Cup 2007,  it accepted the challenge to stage CARIFESTA X which was launched on August 22, 2008. 

At the closing ceremony, The Bahamas delegation was ready to affirm the commitment of Prime Minister Ingraham’s government to host CARIFESTA XI by August 2010.

Now has come the official word out of Nassau that due to prevailing economic problems related to the international financial and economic crisis, it cannot fulfill its commitment to host the festival next year. 

If the global economic crisis is indeed the reason for failure by The Bahamas–the once flourishing tourism-based economy–to host the next CARIFESTA, then it is difficult to see which CARICOM state, with the possible exception of Trinidad and Tobago, would be willing to come forward with the offer to do so.

If no welcome bidder turns as host for 2011, it may well be that CARIFESTA XI could  be clashing in 2012 with general elections campaigning in a number of CARICOM states, including The Bahamas, Jamaica and Trinidad and Tobago. That would hardly be the sort of national climate for such a great cultural event which had as its central theme for the 2007 festival, “One Purpose, Our Life, Our Culture”.
(Courtesy Barbados Daily Nation)