THE EDITOR: As much as I could have written about the uniqueness of our Christmas celebrations, all in its diversity, some with song and dance, some with a sense of the solemnity of the occasion, many with a mix of both, so too is our Carnival.

For many it's the greatest show on Earth, with pan in its astounding newness, and our creativity in its various forms equally so, the showcasing of our beautiful women and the generation of a kind of gay abandon which puts the rest of the world to shame.

Elsewhere in the world the guns are real and so too is the blood, unlike the mimicry for show which characterises ours, and instead of a moment in time which is to savour tomorrow and in retrospect, theirs is a fatalistic resignation to a demise that seems sure as death.

But we as a people are by no means perfect. Some among us frown on Carnival as the devil's playground because theirs is the domain of the divine at this time. For me, however, that is a subjective stance which detracts from the infinite diversity we represent as a people, some finding sustenance in gay abandon, if only for a while because the moment is beautiful in its own way, allowing you to put behind you the cares of the world, while others with precisely the same objective are trying to find equal solace and beauty in devotion to the divine.

In both instances it is a matter of providing sustenance to the human spirit, albeit in different ways.

For Carnival lovers and revellers it's a 'morality' which points to a kind of positive self-realisation, as much as ritual and devotion to the divine are, and no subjective or judgemental way of seeing either mode can change that.

This intellectualising of different modes of experience in a diverse society such as ours is hardly within the province of the average individual, but he must be made to know that he should feel no sense of guilt or shame for his moment of positive self-realisation to which all of us are entitled.

DR ERROL N BENJAMIN

via e-mail

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