Article A1 · Book 1 · Scrapbook page p.1
Priest tells why Cedros will play mas'
Page 4. SUNDAY GUARDIAN, January 25, 1970
The last time Cedros was in the news — really in the news that is — was in the thirties when a hurricane devastated the area.
Just recently it has been catching the headlines again, what with Venezuelans accusing Cedros fishermen of poaching and now the startling news that a Roman Catholic parish priest down there is to lead a carnival band.
The priest is Trinidad-born Fr. Michael Pascall of the Holy Ghost Fathers who spent many years of his missionary life in Biafra, Nigeria. At his Presbytery in Cedros last week Fr. Pascall answered questions put to him by Sunday Guardian writer, Therese Mills.
Question: Fr. Pascall is this going to be another case of the Preacher in the Band? Are you really going to play mas' on Carnival Monday with a band from Cedros?
Fr. PASCALL — Most emphatically no! I can understand your reporter's eagerness to sensationalise the news of a Roman Catholic priest's involvement in a carnival band. But I am sorry that he missed the main issue here.
The angle
This is not a case of Pascall playing mas' for Pascall won't be playing mas.' I am indeed organising the band but I won't be in the band on carnival Monday at all. I will be in Cedros.
This is not because I think the public would be scandalised by the idea of a priest in a band (I don't think there is anything wrong in playing carnival) but if I did the news cameramen would take the angle of a priest in the band. Presumably because it is unusual it makes good reading.
Turning their cameras on the priest would defeat the whole point of the exercise. What is the main point of the exercise?
The band is being called "This is Our Neglected Cedros." Its purpose, therefore, is to focus attention on Cedros as a forgotten area of Trinidad. The various sections will highlight the problems the people down there are experiencing and perhaps this way we will attract the eyes of some people who can help us.
Whose idea was it to mount a protest in the form of a carnival ole mas' band?
Whose idea does not really matter. But you must admit it was a good one. Can you think of a better way than using the stage, as it were, of the national fiesta to stage a demonstration? At carnival everyone is in a watching mood and it is more than likely that the point we are trying to make will reach a very wide audience.
You could call the whole project Mas' with a Mission. The Mission is twofold: to get those in high places to realise something must be done about Cedros and to get the people of Cedros themselves to co-operate for their own good. Organising a band is giving them one opportunity to work together.
In the ocean
Could you eleborate on the Mission angle?
As things stand at the moment we in Cedros are asking ourselves whether or not we are a part of Trinidad. Geographically the answer is yes. Socially we are drifting somewhere outside in the ocean, almost an off-shore island of Venezuela.
Nobody seems to care what happens in Cedros, yet this area provides a great deal of the country's wealth via its three industries, fishing, coconuts and oil, so on the one hand there is official neglect and on the other a lack of community feeling, and this again in an area that once produced a first class cricket team and came second in a Best Village competition.
After living for many years in Africa where the spirit of community life is so important it was a bit of a shock discovering that the only things that were common to all in Cedros were mauvais langue jealousy and criticism. Clearly something needed to be done to get them thinking collectively again, to shock the village back to life, to arouse their concern again for proper schooling and health facilities, better roads etc.
I found myself a parish priest in a decaying village and I think the only thing I could do was try to help. Carnival seemed a good moment to start it.
What are the areas in need of development?
Unemployment is, of course, the big problem. Employment is only available through the fishing or estate industries. If you aren't interested in these and have any other talent to develop you have got to leave. One result of this is that over the years Cedros has been going through a brain drain. And as more people leave the sense of defeatism has descended like a fog.
For example, there was a hospital here. There was talk of closing it down. Cedros people did nothing — until they found themselves without a hospital then they started to complain.
There has been no resident doctor in the whole of the area for the last two years. The schools are in a deplorable condition. The Ministry of Education seems only to be concerned with keeping the toilets in order, as if that is all education is about.
Deplorable
The church is also very much to blame, having shown no initiative. No parish priest wants to go to Cedros. Roads into Cedros are deplorable, too. Yet the area has the most marvellous sea-bathing and there is much tourism potential. Cedros is 80 miles from Port-of-Spain but you would believe it was 800!
Cedros fishermen seem to be having a little difficulty these days with the Venezuelan authorities. Would you like to comment on this?
Only to say that a lot that has been going on just recently is, as we say here, pure gran-charge. So the Venezuelans accuse Cedros fishermen of poaching. The problem is not going to be solved by Ministers and Ambassadors coming down here on tours.
Neither will individual effort by fishermen achieve anything. The Cedros fishermen have to organise themselves into a co-operative in order to purchase large trawlers so that instead of skirting the Venezuelan coast they could really go after the big fish.
You said that one of the
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reasons behind this band is to get the people of Cedros involved in a community effort. What has been the response?
Oh, there has been much enthusiasm. From our main village of Bonasse we are getting 200, with 50 or so from Icacos and a similar number from Fullerton. The two small steelbands
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from Icacos and Boisbourg are coming together for the occasion which is a good thing.
How is the band getting to Port-of-Spain?
We have been able to book some buses and the band will leave Cedros at 4 a.m. to assemble at a quiet point in the Savannah.
Finally would you tell us what sort of place you would like Cedros to be?
I would like to see it become a village where people have jobs to survive on. Where people are interested in themselves and feel a part of the village. At the moment Cedros is only existing.