WE DOH WANT NO ROW, LEE
By KEN ALI
ERROL Fabien’s “No Row Lee” is a revelation.
The double-meaning soca parang says a lot about the artiste and the public’s cynical mood.
For one, Fabien appears to have broken a fairly recent unwritten code by urban artistes about not singing critical and risqué numbers on the People’s National Movement.
Ever since national politics descended into open tribal conflict, performers of calypso and its derivatives have stopped pounding the PNM in song.
Equally, Dr. Gordon Rohelhr and other “calypso academics” no longer describe the art form as the voice of the opposition.
Instead, the native culture is the unapologetic expression of the PNM tribe, utilised to propagate the party and to mock and assail opponents.
With the Government funding the calypso enterprise, virtually all artistes and show promoters know on which side their bread is buttered.
Longstanding radical voices have been silenced, with some ranting on vacuous matters even as major national issues abound.
Fabien has broken the mold.
In his thinly-veiled takedown of Prime Minister Dr. Keith Rowley, the veteran entertainer portrays the country’s leader as arrogant, noisy, combative, and not attentive to his duties.
That’s a courageous step.
Admittedly, Fabien is an anti-PNM politician who has faced the electorate.
He has long had the courage of his convictions.
But he is also an entertainer in the same circuit in which other artistes operate, and he runs a national television station that is regulated by a State agency.
As a man about town, he would be aware of Rowley’s high-handedness and thin-skinned personality.
Indeed, Fabien calls out those traits, singing: ‘He like a rottweiler/ He could be a lot milder.”
A PNM leader has not received such sharp censure from a frontline national entertainer since – who knows!
Certainly, no calypso commentator has put a PNM boss under the sword over the past couple of decades, despite his obvious and dreadful failings.
Performers look the other way even if there is raging crime, poverty, unemployment, and other social and economic problems.
They foment rage on any anti-PNM regime.
That is the new rule book, one that is heavily funded by taxpayers.
In 1980, Relator told then-Prime Minister Dr. Eric Williams in song to “Take a Rest.”
Relator won the calypso monarchy.
Williams died in office the next year.
But that was in an era before our indigenous culture came to be used for ethnic ascendancy.
Not only is Fabien’s eye-popping castigation of Rowley a benchmark, it is matched by the public response.
The song got a buoyant life on social media, where it mushroomed, attracting tens of thousands of ardent listeners within a couple of days.
I don’t know if the soca-parang has been aired on radio stations, though I doubt that broadcasters would give oxygen to a caustic critique of an authoritarian prime minister.
But with social media being the new meeting place, radio is irrelevant for a protest song that falls on fertile ground.
The criticisms of Fabien’s radical number appear to be far outnumbered by favourable comments and the social media flourish.
And that may be a litmus test of the country’s political mood, and a verdict on the ruling regime.
Surely, Rowley is aware of mass disenchantment, since he put off the local government polls on spurious grounds.
Faris Al Rawi’s public spin for postponing the election has only further tarnished an already discredited politician.
Under Rowley’s watch, the mass of poor and suffering has multiplied, crime is eating away the country’s soul and there is growing despair and discontent.
His detached manner has not helped his cause, and neither have his cadre of non-performing officials and the seeming lack of vision for the land.
Professor Selwyn Cudjoe captures the essence of the matter in saying that “Rowley does not really possess a coherent view of the society.”
Cudjoe counsels that the Prime Minister “needs to attend to his duties in a humble manner.”
Banish any such hope.
Rowley’s imperious manner – captured in Fabien’s song – remains an intrinsic part of his make-up, and, even as age 73, there are no indications of him becoming even-tempered and unruffled.
If the widespread endorsement of Fabien’s appraisal is a guide, many people have become worn down by Rowley’s belligerent manner, to add to his administration’s chronic underperformance.
That does not necessarily mean a PNM revolt at the polls.
It is simply that large numbers are disgruntled with Rowley’s style and substance.
Also, don’t count on a rush of anti-PNM numbers from urban artistes.
But Fabien’s audacious song exposes a political flashpoint in a way no sample survey could do.
It suggests that the forthcoming months could be fascinating, even revealing, much like Fabien’s “We Doh Want No Row, Lee.”
