SENIOR Government officials gloated last week over the passage of a law that names the steelband as the national instrument – 94 years after its invention.
There is an uncanny celebratory Cabinet picture as if a major natural gas discovery was achieved or Finance Minister Colm Imbert had balanced the budget.
Steelband is credited as being developed in 1930, first with traditional or pan-‘round-the-neck.
Most belatedly, in 1992, then-Prime Minister Patrick Manning, in his Independence Day address, declared steelband the national musical instrument.
By that time, Trinidad and Tobago had lost patent rights to pan, which was commercialised with instrument factories in several progressive countries.
In addition, tuners, arrangers and panists were providing great music to spellbound international audiences, and selling records and teaching classes to appreciative foreigners.
In the land of its birth, rusting pans remained under breadfruit trees or alongside cemeteries for most of the year, scrubbed and tuned only for the annual Panorama competition.
Pan Trinbago stayed housed in quarters rented from Government elites.
As Prime Minister, Basdeo Panday granted the steelband body land at Macoya for a head office and concert hall, a first call for enthralled visitors.
Those facilities never materialised.
Recently, Prime Minister Dr. Keith Rowley announced the premier real estate was turned over to India’s richest man Mukesh Ambani for the construction of yet another cricket stadium.
Most nationals recoiled in silence.
And now in a bizarre twist, the Rowley Government has passed a law designating steelband as the national instrument.
It is not clear what that means.
The jubilant Cabinet aside, the society does not know how to respond.
Pan Trinbago is still funded by taxpayers, steelband players receive stipends for Panorama, and there remains no interest in marketing and commercialising the instrument.
The age-old calypso lament “wey pan reach” remains relevant almost a century after its pioneers converted discarded oil drums into the only musical invention of the 20th century.
Three decades ago, Caribbean Man Lloyd Best made a comprehensive proposal for developing a steelband industry.
Best’s recommendation included community theatres to involve youths, develop skills and promote entrepreneurship.
Maybe the law passed last week is meant to stir cheap emotions similar to the recent semantic attachment of “African” to Emancipation Day.
More than anything else, the long-delayed measure illustrates decades of leadership incompetence, poor judgment, and absence of a competitive spirit.
The fact that Government officials saw reason for euphoria indicates the wretched state of our national governance.
Somebody cue calypsonian Merchant’s anguished “Pan in Danger.”
