Culture – Go Lean…Caribbean

Tag: Culture

The Caribbean – A People or A Place?

Posted on December 22, 2018 in Ethos, Social

Go Lean Commentary

Is your Caribbean homeland “a People or a Place?

Let’s deliberate…

If you love your homeland and you are a proud citizen, your allegiance should continue even though you no longer live there, right? This is the argument that your Caribbean homeland is a people, not just a place.

But place/terrain is of utmost importance to our culture; think: beaches, mountains (i.e. Pitons in St. Lucia), etc:

Song:
Oh, island in the sun
Willed to me by my father’s hand
All my days I will sing in praise
Of your forest, waters, your shining sand
– “Island in the Sun” – Harry Belafonte – AZLyrics.com

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VIDEO – Song: “Island in the Sun” – https://youtu.be/Oi8fS0jkX84

Published on Dec 8, 2008 – 1957 hit song of Harry Belafonte.

Licensed to YouTube by: SME, WMG, Golden Dynamic (on behalf of ToCo Asia Ltd); Abramus Digital, CMRRA, SOLAR Music Rights Management, UBEM, BMG Rights Management, AdRev Publishing, Reservoir Media (Publishing), ASCAP, EMI Music Publishing, União Brasileira de Compositores, ARESA, and 11 Music Rights Societies

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Even the name of our region comes from the 1,063,000 square miles of the Caribbean Sea.

Don’t get it twisted! Ours is the best address on the planet. The “place” is paramount to our identity.

This question “A People or A Place?” was asked of many Caribbean people. Here are their responses:

Caribbean Quotations
Is your Caribbean homeland “a People or a Place”?

Bahamas – Dr Donald McCartney, Educator: The Bahamas is a place, but its essence is found in the people who inhabit the place. In this regard, The Bahamas is both the place and the people. On the other hand, if the saying, a house is not a home is accepted, then one can conclude that The Bahamas, as place, cannot be construed to be a people. In the final analysis, The Bahamas is both the people and the place.

Bahamas – Anonymous – Diaspora – California Resident: In my personal opinion, the Bahamas is a place. Yes, i am a Bahamian, a proud one…It is a place where people with their culture reside, however the Bahamas is not a place that embrace and celebrate many of it’s people. Gays for one, and the poor is another… My allegiance will only go so far. My country does not accept my sexuality, for me that’s a big deal because my sexuality is a part of my life and I should not be discriminated against, in any form on a national level because of it. As a result, if I have an opportunity to seek citizenship elsewhere, of which I am pursuing I will embrace it. Although there are aspects of my background I want to continue throughout my life wherever I go, there are also aspects that I want to be a distant memory or forgotten.

Haiti – Louby Georges – Bahamian Resident of Haitian heritage: My personal take is the country should be a people. But for persons of other descendency, this country of the Bahamas has the characteristic that the culture is more of a place than it is the people. This country has it bad; they make it hard for anyone with an apparent foreign ancestry; they treat them like they do not belong, because they are not from this place. So the country has a warp sense that “home” is only for the people with long lineage of this place. So for me, I am forced to accept the realistic view that the Bahamas is a place.

Barbados – Florence Cheeks, Diaspora Member Pennsylvania Resident It’s both; it’s a place in that it identifies my spot on this earth, it’s also a people in that it expresses a history and a way of experiencing life. Barbados is my home. Even though I don’t live here, Barbados inhabits my psyche and I am always looking for opportunities to contribute to the continued growth of the nation. Ironically, I am writing this from my sister’s home in Barbados.

Jamaica – Pauline James, Diaspora Member Florida Resident: Jamaica is a people. Whenever you go in the world and Jamaicans are there, they are a force to be reckoned with. We do not hide the fact that we are Jamaican. “When we are good we are very good; when we are bad, we are very bad”.

Puerto Rico – Anonymous – Legacy – Florida Resident I would say PR is a place. I do have family there and they say Commonwealth and want all the benefits from the USA without wanting to become a State. I do not consider myself Puerto Rican since I do not live there. I consider myself North American. I can only claim that I have family from PR.

This is more than just an academic question. There is an actuality associated with the people of the Caribbean. The book Go Lean…Caribbean – available to download for free – addresses the reality of the Caribbean Diaspora (Page 26), identifying that when people continue to abandon their communities, the Diaspora pool gets bigger and bigger.

Ways to Impact the Future – Need People Too – Not All About Money, or is it?
The quality of life for the citizenry is very important, otherwise, people leave, and take their time, talents and treasuries elsewhere. Family, cultural pride is more important than economics, and yet when the economics are bad, people leave. This is evident by the large Caribbean Diaspora in foreign lands – where they re-assembled their culture and civic pride.

The Go Lean book laments this status quo but considers the Diaspora as stakeholders in the Caribbean experience, though they are not physically in the homeland. The hope of the Go Lean movement is to reduce the Diaspora and dissuade future societal abandonment. This is pronounced in the opening Declaration of Interdependence (Pages 13) with these statements:

xix. Whereas our legacy in recent times is one of societal abandonment, it is imperative that incentives and encouragement be put in place to first dissuade the human flight, and then entice and welcome the return of our Diaspora back to our shores. This repatriation should be effected with the appropriate guards so as not to imperil the lives and securities of the repatriated citizens or the communities they inhabit. The right of repatriation is to be extended to any natural born citizens despite any previous naturalization to foreign sovereignties.

There are many opportunities to engage the Diaspora population in more and better ways. This quest was also an original motivation for the Go Lean book and for the proposed Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU). The Declaration of Interdependence continues:

xx. Whereas the results of our decades of migration created a vibrant Diaspora in foreign lands, the Federation must organize interactions with this population into structured markets. Thus allowing foreign consumption of domestic products, services and media, which is a positive trade impact. These economic activities must not be exploited by others’ profiteering but rather harnessed by Federation resources for efficient repatriations.

The Go Lean book serves as a roadmap for the introduction and implementation of the technocratic CU Trade Federation, for the elevation of Caribbean society – for all member-states. This CU/Go Lean roadmap has these 3 prime directives:

Optimization of the economic engines in order to grow the regional economy to $800 Billion and create 2.2 million new jobs.
Establishment of a security apparatus to ensure public safety and protect the resultant economic engines.
Improve Caribbean governance to support these engines, including a separation-of-powers between the member-states and CU federal agencies.

The Go Lean book provides 370-pages of turn-by-turn instructions on “how” to adopt new community ethos, plus the strategies, tactics, implementations and advocacies to execute so as to reboot, reform and transform the societal engines of Caribbean society. Dynamics of the Diaspora have been elaborated in previous blog-commentaries; see Appendix A below.

To stop the brain drain and abandonment, we must fix the Caribbean homeland. This is the only way to improve our bad emigration trends, but despite being heavy-lifting, “Yes, we can“…make our homeland a better place to live, work and play. 🙂

Download the free e-book of Go Lean … Caribbean – now!

Sign the petition to lean-in for this roadmap for the Caribbean Union Trade Federation.

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Appendix A – Previous Go Lean commentaries on the Diaspora:

https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=15126	‘Time to Go’ – States must have ‘population increases’ This is part 11-of-11 of a long series urging the Caribbean Diaspora to consider repatriating. There are solid arguments that the “grass is not greener on the foreign side”. It will take less effort to reform and transform the Caribbean homeland than to make a better life abroad.
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=14911	Art Imitating Life – Was ‘Thanos’ Right? Its a fallacy to think that if a society suffers from famine and poverty, then by eliminating half of the population that there will be plenty of resources left for the remaining people. The Caribbean situation has proven this again and again. With our Diaspora gone, our population resemble half, yet still we are failing. Truthfully, we need more, not less!
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=14746	Calls for Repatriation Strategy There are some in Caribbean governance that “see the light”. They know that the region have suffered from acute societal abandonment and there is the need to reverse the trend and urge people to return, to repatriate.
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=13472	Future Focused – College, Caribbean Style College is good and college is bad! if a person emigrates while in college abroad, all the micro and macro benefits from advanced education transfer to the new country. We must therefore try to deliver college-education within the region.
· https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=13438 ·https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=13288 ·https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=13105 ·https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=13040 ·https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=12911 ·https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=10657	· Grenada Diaspora – Not the Panacea · Dominica Diaspora – Not the Panacea · Haiti Diaspora – Not the Panacea · Jamaica Diaspora – Not the Panacea · Bahamas Diaspora – Not the Panacea · St. Lucia Diaspora – Not the Panacea
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=12369	Canada @ 150 – Happy Canada Day There are many Caribbean people in Canada; it is the Number 3 destination for our Diaspora (behind the US and the UK). Why do they live in Canada and what can we learn from that experience?What can we gather for the Pros and Cons of Canadian life?There are “push and pull” reasons why Caribbean citizens have emigrated to places like Canada. We must lower these factors.
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=11989	The Dynamics of Diaspora Voting Many in the Diaspora would still like to vote in their abandoned homeland, even though they may no longer be contributing to the society. That is “representation without taxation”. Once people divorce the homeland, it is hard to still try and dictate its governance.
· https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=11420 · https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=8099	· ‘Black British’ and ‘Less Than’ · Caribbean Image: ‘Less Than’?
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=11244	‘To Live and Die in L.A.’ … This has always been a subject of sharp debate and contrast. Is it better to live “fast & furious”, even though there might be a shorter mortality, or is it better to go slow and last longer, as far away from risky propositions as possible? Shockingly, this is also a Caribbean debate: is it better to emigrate to L.A., New York, Miami, Toronto, London, Paris or any other foreign destination for faster success, or prosper where planted in the Caribbean homeland? If only we can prosper where planted in the Caribbean.
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=10820	Miami: Dominican’s ‘Home Away from Home’ One-fifth of the population of those with Dominican heritage live in the US. There appears to be no progress in any movement for repatriation to the island, rather there is progress in movement to the South, to Florida. Of the Top 7 US states that the Dominican Diaspora lives in, Florida is the only one in the Sunbelt. The tropical landscapes in Greater Miami is reminiscent of the DR for many people.
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=10654	Stay Home! Immigration Realities in “foreign lands” This 3-part series relates that many foreign lands, like the US, have societal defects of “Institutional Racism” and “Crony-Capitalism“. These societal defects create a ‘Climate of Hate‘ that causes people to haze and blame-game the “Black-and-Brown” immigrants from the Caribbean.
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=9352	Courting Caribbean Votes – ‘Jamericans’ Caribbean people leaving their homeland is like the “genie leaving the bottle” – there is no returning. Now we see the ‘Jamaican-Americans’ doubling-down on this legacy, even trying to influence US federal elections for more liberal immigration policies to bring more “homies“. This is part 2 of 3 from this series: · Part 1 – Courting the Caribbean Votes – Puerto Ricans · Part 3 – Courting the Caribbean Votes – Cuban-Americans
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=2547	Miami’s Success versus Caribbean Failure Greater Miami area has benefited from societal failures in the Caribbean region. Miami has increased in population, economy, culture and prestige while the Caribbean states have limped along.
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=1433	Caribbean loses more than 70 percent of tertiary educated to brain drain According to the analysis by the Inter-American Development Bank, the people in the “Caribbean 6” countries of Bahamas, Barbados, Guyana, Jamaica, Suriname, and Trinidad & Tobago have wasted money on educating their populations, especially tertiary education. This is due to the fact that after the citizens leave, very little comes back fro the societal investments.

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Mortimer Candies … Thriving at 90

Posted on September 13, 2018 in Ethos, Industries, Social

Go Lean Commentary

Candy is good … for you!

At least here at Mortimer’s Candy Kitchen in Nassau, Bahamas*.

This establishment is now celebrating 90 years of continuous operations; that’s 90 years of smiles. These sweet confections are more than just hard manifestation of sugar; no, this is manifestation of Bahamian excellence.

That’s right. This is bigger than candy. This is the manifestation of the unique Bahamian culture and identity.

This is the focus of this movement behind the book Go Lean…Caribbean – available to download for free. We examine and exclaim dimensions of Caribbean society and culture – good and bad! Mortimer Candies – despite the underlying presence of sugar – is all good! One can taste the 90 years of love and pride in every concoction.

Here’s to 90 more years!

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VIDEO – Behind the sweets at Mortimer’s Candy – https://youtu.be/9kZRMOVbwRA

BahamasLocal
Published on Jul 29, 2010 – Bahamas Local got to watch the pros at Mortimer’s Candy mix a batch of hard candy at their shop at the top of East Street. Check out our video to see how they get all those colors in your favorite candies.

Category: Entertainment

The Go Lean book serves as a roadmap for the introduction and implementation of the technocratic Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU), for the elevation of Caribbean society – for all member-states. The purpose of the book is not culture, it is economics, security and governance. But the book clearly supports the notion that the Caribbean is the greatest address on the planet – not because of the terrain, fauna and flora – but because of culture, festivals, food, music, dance, rum, cigars and our unique history. We have a fusion of African, Amer-Indian, European and Asian influences that cannot be found anywhere else on the planet.

Yes, candy is food! So Bahamian candy is part of the unique Bahamian culture.

The importance of our culture is why we work so strenuously to improve our societal engines. In fact, these 3 prime directives is the focus of this CU/Go Lean roadmap, though on a regional basis:

Optimization of the economic engines in order to grow the regional economy to $800 Billion and create 2.2 million new jobs.
Establishment of a security apparatus to ensure public safety and protect the resultant economic engines.
Improve Caribbean governance to support these engines.

The Go Lean book stresses that preserving Caribbean culture is a heavy-lift task; there are global forces trying to assimilate Caribbean people to conform to foreign cultural influences (think: American & European), instead of promoting our local cultures. We must not be molded by these global influences; rather we must project a positive image to the world and declare that we are not ‘Less Than‘.

This quest requires that we firstly, “fix what is broken”, that is reform and transform our societal engines. So this is a quest to defend our specific Bahamian image and the overall Caribbean image. This effort is a Big Deal that requires regional collaboration. This regionalism effort was an early motivation for the roadmap, as pronounced in the opening Declaration of Interdependence (Pages 12 – 14):

xi. Whereas all men are entitled to the benefits of good governance in a free society, “new guards” must be enacted to dissuade the emergence of incompetence, corruption … and cronyism at the peril of the people’s best interest. The Federation must guarantee the executions of a social contract between government and the governed.

xvi. Whereas security of our homeland is inextricably linked to prosperity of the homeland, the economic and security interest of the region needs to be aligned under the same governance. Since economic crimes … can imperil the functioning of the wheels of commerce for all the citizenry, the accedence of this Federation must equip the security apparatus with the tools and techniques for predictive and proactive interdictions.

xxiv. Whereas a free market economy can be induced and spurred for continuous progress, the Federation must install the controls to better manage aspects of the economy: jobs, inflation, savings rate, investments and other economic principles. Thereby attracting direct foreign investment because of the stability and vibrancy of our economy.

xxxii. Whereas the cultural arts … of the region are germane to the quality of Caribbean life, and the international appreciation of Caribbean life, the Federation must implement the support systems to teach, encourage, incentivize, monetize and promote the related industries for arts and music in domestic and foreign markets. These endeavors will make the Caribbean a better place to live, work and play.

The Go Lean book provides 370-pages of turn-by-turn instructions on “how” to adopt new community ethos, plus the strategies, tactics, implementations and advocacies to execute so as to reboot, reform and transform the societal engines of Caribbean society. While we want to change our communities, we do want to preserve our treasured culture.

Cultural preservation is a familiar subject for this Go Lean roadmap; there have been a number of previous blog-commentaries by the Go Lean movement that explored dimensions of Caribbean culture. As follows is a sample of those previous blog-commentaries:

https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=15376	Preserving and Monetizing Caribbean Culture
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=12304	Caribbean Festival of the Arts – Past, Present and Future
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=9860	Forging Change Thru Arts & Artists
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=9712	Forging Change Thru Panem et Circenses (Food & Festivals)
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=5098	Forging Change Through Food and Culture

In summary, on a national basis, our Bahamian culture is important to our Bahamian identity. As we meld with the rest of the world, our unique culture must shines through. But we are part of a bigger family – our Caribbean region. On the regional basis, our Caribbean culture is important to the Caribbean identity.

Our quest is simple: to promote and preserve our culture. The success of this effort allows us to make our homeland a better place to live, work and play. 🙂

Download the free e-Book of Go Lean … Caribbean – now!

Sign the petition to lean-in for this roadmap for the Caribbean Union Trade Federation.

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References: * This author is from the Bahamas.

Get more info at this link: http://mortimercandies.com/

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Industrial Reboot – Culture 101

Posted on July 25, 2018 in Economics, Government, Industries, Social, Strategy

Go Lean Commentary

Every Caribbean member-state has a Cabinet-level official that spearheads the tourism effort:

Minister of Tourism
Secretary of Tourism
Executive Director, Tourism Agency/Company

There is no doubt that Tourism Stewards are Revenue Officers, as tourism is the primary economic activity in the Caribbean region. This is also true for other countries in other regions. Paris, France is a case in point, as that city enjoys 25 million tourists annually.

Why do people visit Paris?

Not for sun, sand or surf. No, the answer is culture. Parisian culture is responsible for Parisian economic engines.

“Economy and culture: it’s the same fight!” – Jack Lang, 2-time Minister of Culture (1988 – 1992; 1981 – 1986), Republic of France; (under President François Mitterrand)

In some Caribbean countries, “Tourism and Culture” are administered by the same agency, i.e. Ministry of Tourism Sports and Culture in St. Vincent and the Grenadines; (see photo here). Now the BIG country of China is embarking on the same model, as reported in this recent news article:

Title: China Creates Ministry of Culture and Tourism
The Chinese government has officially inaugurated the Ministry of Culture and Tourism, which will help to boost the work culture in China and also helps to increase the work efficiency.

Former Chinese minister of culture Luo Shugang was elected as the new Minister of Culture and Tourism, and Li Jinzao was appointed Vice Minister.

It is as part of a widespread institutional reshuffle, China forms this new department to boost the cultural part in the country.

Huang Kunming, member of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee and head of the Publicity Department of the CPC Central Committee, attended the inauguration ceremony.

While addressing a symposium Sunday, Huang Kunming said that the establishment of the Ministry of Culture and Tourism would strengthen the Communist Party of China’s overall leadership over the work of culture and tourism. This is a new move by the Government of China to promote the country’s culture in international hemisphere.

Huang Kunming called on the Ministry of Culture and Tourism to hold the new era, assume new missions, and have more confidence in the Chinese culture. Huang also asked the ministry to realize the policies and decisions made by the CPC Central Committee.
Source: Posted April 10, 2018; retrieved July 24, 2018 from: https://www.caribbeannewsdigital.com/en/noticia/china-creates-ministry-culture-and-tourism

There are benefits to be derived for the Caribbean member-states to prioritize their culture as a revenue product. This would mean providing a structure for the world to enjoy our culture, through the visitations and explorations of tourism and/or through media productions. So the goal here is to better explore the industrialization of culture.

This is the urging of the movement behind the book Go Lean…Caribbean; the book asserts (Page 218) that Caribbean culture must be preserved and protected. While we want to be a member of global society, we strongly want to maintain what makes our cultural influences special and unique. The book supports the notion that the Caribbean is the greatest address on the planet, not just because of the terrain, fauna and flora; but also for the culture, festivals, food, music, dance, rum, cigars and our unique history. We have a fusion of African, Amer-Indian, European and Asian influences that cannot be found anywhere else on the planet; see Appendix VIDEO.

Plus, we have 21 UNESCO World Heritage Sites in our neighborhood. 🙂

Despite these synergies, our societal engines (economics, security and governance) are dysfunctional. The Go Lean book posits that the unique cultural dynamism of the region has not being fully explored; especially not regionally. Instead of competing in tourism and culture, this book urges that all regional member-states coordinate, collaborate, cooperate and confederate. Our whole, will be more than the sum of our parts. This is the dynamic of regional leverage.

We must reboot the industrial landscape, around our cultural dynamism, in order to create new economic opportunities, like jobs. We need such a new economic landscape because the current one is in shambles! This is due to the primary driver in the region – Tourism – being under assault. For example, more and more visitors shift from stay-overs to cruise arrivals. In addition to these visitors not having much time to embrace the local culture, the communities also suffer an economic blow to the local markets, as less spending is noticed.

So as a region, we must reboot our industrial landscape around our culture so as to add more cultural explorations, which will also mean more participation from all relevant stakeholders. The Go Lean book explains that doubling-down on the different areas of culture – events, music, arts, historic heritage sites – can result in more jobs. See here:

Direct jobs for Festivals and other event staff at Fairgrounds: 9,000

Direct jobs for managing music industry and media consumption: 2,900

Direct jobs (production, cast & crew) for film, TV and internet streaming: 2,000

Direct jobs for managing artist/exhibition & media consumption: 700

Direct jobs for managing, promoting UNESCO World Heritage Sites: 1,000

The Go Lean book prepares the business model for these expressions of culture in the Caribbean region. Yes, business model refers to jobs, entrepreneurial opportunities, trade transactions, etc. In addition to these 15,600 industry jobs; there is also the reality of indirect jobs – unrelated service and attendant functions – at a 3.75 multiplier rate would add another 58,750 jobs.

This constitutes an industrial reboot! The book Go Lean…Caribbean – available to download for free – serves as a roadmap for the introduction and implementation of the technocratic Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU); this is a confederation of all 30 member-states to execute a reboot of the Caribbean economic eco-system. This CU/Go Lean roadmap has these 3 prime directives:

Optimization of the economic engines in order to grow the regional economy to $800 Billion & create 2.2 million new jobs.
Establishment of a security apparatus to ensure public safety and protect the resultant economic engines.
Improvement of Caribbean governance to support these engines, including a separation-of-powers between the member-states and CU federal agencies.

The Go Lean book stresses that reforming and transforming the Caribbean economic engines must be a regional pursuit. This was an early motivation for the roadmap, as pronounced in the opening Declaration of Interdependence (Pages 13 – 14):

xxiv. Whereas a free market economy can be induced and spurred for continuous progress, the Federation must install the controls to better manage aspects of the economy: jobs, inflation, savings rate, investments and other economic principles. Thereby attracting direct foreign investment because of the stability and vibrancy of our economy.

xxvi. Whereas the Caribbean region must have new jobs to empower the engines of the economy and create the income sources for prosperity, and encourage the next generation to forge their dreams right at home, the Federation must therefore foster the development of new industries, like that of ship-building, automobile manufacturing, prefabricated housing, frozen foods, pipelines, call centers, and the prison industrial complex. In addition, the Federation must invigorate the enterprises related to existing industries like tourism, fisheries and lotteries – impacting the region with more jobs.

xxxii. Whereas the cultural arts and music of the region are germane to the quality of Caribbean life, and the international appreciation of Caribbean life, the Federation must implement the support systems to teach, encourage, incentivize, monetize and promote the related industries for arts and music in domestic and foreign markets. These endeavors will make the Caribbean a better place to live, work and play.

This is the vision of an industrial reboot! This transformation is where and how new jobs can be created in the Caribbean. Accordingly, the CU will also facilitate an eco-system for Self-Governing Entities (SGE), an ideal concept for artist colonies, educational institutions and entertainment zones with the exclusive federal regulation/promotion activities. Imagine bordered campuses or urban districts – with theaters, film sound-stages, artists studios and exhibition halls.

The focus for the Go Lean roadmap is to recognize the economic benefits of fostering the arts. See here, how this subject is further elaborated on in the Go Lean book (Page 218) with the French example (debate) of Cultural Mandates -vs- Free Market Adherences:

The Bottom Line on French Cultural Mandates

The French cultural endeavors are effectively managed by the government’s Ministry of Culture; which is in charge of national museums & monuments; managing the national archives and regional culture centers, and promoting & protecting the arts (visual, plastic, theatrical, musical, dance, architectural, literary, televisual & cinematographic) in France and abroad. The Ministry is also charged with maintaining the French identity. The cabinet post was created by President Charles de Gaulle in 1959 with the goal of realizing the right to culture, incorporated in the French constitution and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948). De Gaulle’s aim was to democratize access to culture and elevate the “grandeur” of post-war France.

Under President François Mitterrand the Minister of Culture, Jack Lang, showed himself to be far more open to popular cultural production, including jazz, rock and roll, rap music, graffiti art, cartoons, comic books, fashion and food. His famous phrase “economy and culture: it’s the same fight” is representative of his commitment to cultural democracy and to active national sponsorship and participation in cultural production. Under Minister Jacques Toubon (1993 – ‘95), a number of laws were enacted for the preservation of the French language, both in advertisements and on the radio (80% of songs in French), ostensibly in reaction to the presence of English. – Wikipedia

… versus …

Allowing the Free Market
As digital multimedia evolves and emerges as both a business and creative opportunity, France’s culture of subsidy guarantees that it will always be more important for the artistes to be French first and creative second. As industrial policies go, that is hardly a recipe for success. For example, France has actually had a deputy cultural minister in charge of funding development of French rock ‘n’ roll. But American Top 40 radio stations never had to worry about a French Invasion.Also, the French had poured billions of francs into Groupe Bull – the state-supported computer company – in a desperate bid to keep France in the forefront of digital hardware and software systems. While Bull did OK in France; in the rest of the world – in the global marketplace – it failed miserably.

Why do the French think the results will be any better with their cultural policy? The answer is simple: arrogance and a total misunderstanding of market forces. What really galls the French elite, of course, is that while the bourgeoisie and proletariat always choose with their ballots to preserve French culture, they always overwhelmingly vote for American pop culture with their francs. American television shows consistently kick the stuffing out of French shows in terms of popularity. Steven Spielberg does better box office than Jean-Jacques Beneix. – Wired Magazine May, 1994

The Go Lean movement (book and blogs) details the principles of SGE’s and job multipliers, how certain industries are better than others for generating multiple indirect jobs down the line (or off-campus) for each direct job on the SGE’s payroll. The arts hold the same promise. Plus with the beauty of the arts, it is time, talent and treasuries well-spent just in the execution of this business model.

Any time spent singing and dancing … is not a waste!

The Go Lean book provides 370-pages of turn-by-turn instructions on “how” to adopt new community ethos, plus the strategies, tactics, implementations and advocacies to execute so as to reboot, reform and transform the societal engines of Caribbean society. One advocacy in rebooting the industrial landscape is to work to preserve the cultural heritage of the regional member-states; consider the specific plans, excerpts and headlines from the book on Page 206 entitled:

10 Ways to Preserve Caribbean Heritage

1	Lean-in for the Caribbean Single Market This regional re-boot will allow for the unification of the region into one market, thereby creating a single economy of 30 member-states, 42 million people and a GDP of over $800 Billion. The CU will assume the primary coordination for the region’s economy and image, because “economy and culture is the same fight”. Despite the legacies of 4 European cultures and the ubiquity of the American neighborhood, a CU mission is to preserve Caribbean heritage and culture.
2	Media Priorities (See *Appendix W on Page 311: “Mediating as French Culture and Economics Collide“)* Like the French, this region may have to impose a system of quotas and subsidies for domestic production – in order to preserve “diversity” and an important Caribbean industry. As France is insisting on excluding such subsidies from a proposed EU-USA free-trade agreement, the CU may need to follow suit with such a policy to ensure local programs.
3	Mitigate Human Flight As the “Dodo” bird became extinct, cultural extinction occurs too. Many aboriginal cultures have vanished from the New World, like the Aztec and Caribe tribes; (though some Taino influence remains). Human flight has the negative impact of assimilating a people in their new homelands. A CU mission is to mitigate this threat, and spur repatriation.
4	Legacies – Less Caribbean
5	Festivals
6	Music
7	Art – Public Places
8	Properties – Historical Preservation
9	Turn-around Strategies
10	Natural Resources (Fish, Animal Species)

Cultural preservation is not a new subject for this Go Lean roadmap; there have been a number of previous blog-commentaries by the Go Lean movement that referenced the economic opportunities embedded in the exposé of Caribbean culture. These submissions have highlighted what an industrial expression of culture can achieve:

https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=14211	Enjoy Carnival and Be Safe!
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=12304	Caribbean Festival of the Arts – Past, Present and Future
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=9860	Forging Change Thru Arts & Artists
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=9712	Forging Change Thru Panem et Circenses (Food & Festivals)
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=7685	Joy. Pain. Sunshine. Rain. – A Message of Happiness
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=3641	‘We Built This City …’ on Art, Music and Culture
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=866	Bob Marley: A Caribbean Cultural Legend Lives On!

In summary, our Caribbean region needs a better job-creation capability to make our homeland better. In fact, one of the reasons why so many Caribbean citizens have emigrated away from the homeland is the job-creation dysfunction. Creating a new economic landscape will require rebooting the industrial landscape.

Yes, we can … do this! We urge all Caribbean stakeholders to lean-in to this roadmap for economic empowerment. We urge everyone to explore and exploit our great Caribbean culture; this could help to make our homeland a better place to live, work and play. 🙂

Download the free e-Book of Go Lean … Caribbean – now!

Sign the petition to lean-in for this roadmap for the Caribbean Union Trade Federation.

—————-

Appendix VIDEO – Here’s how the Caribbean became the most Racially Diverse Region in the World – https://youtu.be/fAZBLzWCUbU

Masaman

Published on May 1, 2017 – This is how the Caribbean became the most racially diverse region on the planet, after having it’s ancestry and genetics permanently altered through European colonialism and migration.

In this video, I’m going to give the rundown for several Caribbean countries such as Cuba, Haiti, Jamaica, the Dominican Republic, Trinidad and Tobago, along with many others. We will look at the demographic history, and just what spawned the drastic fluctuations in the racial makeup of the region.

We’re also going to touch on many of the surrounding areas such as Central America, the Gullah coast, as well as the Guianas of South America.

Please let me know your thoughts on my analysis, especially if you live in, or have ancestry from the region. Videos over the latter regions will be released soon. Thanks for watching!

Category: Comedy

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Culture, Jobs, Model, Transform

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Caribbean Festival of the Arts – Past, Present and Future

Posted on June 27, 2017 in Ethos, Government, Industries, Planning, Social

Go Lean Commentary

Picture this: A Multi-disciplinary Arts Festival promoting the best of the best of Caribbean art and artists – musicians, authors, visual artists, dancers, actors, and craftsmen. This is the Caribbean Festival of the Arts or CARIFESTA, an ongoing concern since 1972 with its 13^th rendition this summer – see Appendix A below.

With this being the 13^th, considering the previous 12 renditions; surely CARIFESTA events are deemed successful.

Surely … but first, there is the need to define success …

Return on Investment? Then the answer is No.
Patron-Visitor-Tourist Traffic? No!
Continuation and growth of the event? No!
Acknowledgement that art is important for the promotion of Caribbean culture? Yes.

Why such a duplicitous gauge of success?

In the 45 years since the inaugural event in 1972, CARIFESTA has only been held sporadically and periodically. This year’s event (August 17 – 27, 2017 in Barbados) is only the 13^th one in the 45 year history. See the full list of events here:

Carifesta	Date	Host
Carifesta I	August 25 – September 15, 1972	Guyana
Carifesta II	July 23 – August 2, 1976	Jamaica
Carifesta III	1979	Cuba
Carifesta IV	July 19 – August 3, 1981	Barbados
Carifesta V	August 22 – 28, 1992	Trinidad & Tobago
Carifesta VI	August, 1995	Trinidad & Tobago
Carifesta VII	August 17 – 26, 2000	Saint Kitts & Nevis
Carifesta VIII	August 25 – 30, 2003	Suriname
Carifesta IX	September, 2006	Trinidad & Tobago
Carifesta X	Cancelled	The Bahamas
Carifesta X	August 22–31, 2008	Guyana
Carifesta XI	Cancelled	The Bahamas
Carifesta XI	August 16–26, 2013	Suriname
Carifesta XII	August 21–30, 2015	Haiti
Carifesta XIII	August 17 – 27, 2017	Barbados

CARIFESTA is a microcosm of what is wrong in the Caribbean: greatest address on the planet in terms of terrain, culture and talent, but deficient in economics, security and governance.

Enough already! Here comes change!

The book Go Lean…Caribbean – available to download for free – asserts that the sponsors of the CARIFESTA event, CARICOM or Caribbean Community, is the problem. This regional body, though possessing good intentions, is a failure in its execution of any plan to elevate Caribbean society. The book declares that it is past time to retire CARICOM and replace it with a new, better expression for regional integration. CARICOM has been successful in only one area: getting the region to accept the merits of regional integration and collaboration.

The Go Lean book on the other hand, serves as a roadmap for the introduction and implementation of the technocratic Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU), ; this is the alternative regional plan for the elevation of Caribbean society – this time for all 30 member-states and the 4 language groups (Dutch, English, French and Spanish).

Within the Go Lean roadmap, there is a mission to apply technocratic efficiencies to better promote and manage events.

Addressing all that is wrong with CARIFESTA, this CU/Go Lean roadmap has these 3 prime directives:

Optimization of the economic engines in order to grow the regional economy to $800 Billion and create 2.2 million new jobs.
Establishment of a security apparatus to ensure public safety and protect the resultant economic engines.
Improve Caribbean governance to support these engines, including a separation-of-powers between the member-states and CU federal agencies.

The book stresses that reforming and transforming the Caribbean societal engines must be a regional pursuit. This was an early motivation for the roadmap, as pronounced in the opening Declaration of Interdependence (Pages 12 – 14):

xi. Whereas all men are entitled to the benefits of good governance in a free society, “new guards” must be enacted to dissuade the emergence of incompetence, corruption, nepotism and cronyism at the peril of the people’s best interest. The Federation must guarantee the executions of a social contract between government and the governed.

xxi. Whereas the preparation of our labor force can foster opportunities and dictate economic progress for current and future generations, the Federation must ensure that educational and job training opportunities are fully optimized for all residents of all member-states, with no partiality towards any gender or ethnic group. The Federation must recognize and facilitate excellence in many different fields of endeavor, including sciences, languages, arts, music and sports. This responsibility should be executed without incurring the risks of further human flight, as has been the past history.

xxiv. Whereas a free market economy can be induced and spurred for continuous progress, the Federation must install the controls to better manage aspects of the economy: jobs, inflation, savings rate, investments and other economic principles. Thereby attracting direct foreign investment because of the stability and vibrancy of our economy.

xxxii. Whereas the cultural arts and music of the region are germane to the quality of Caribbean life, and the international appreciation of Caribbean life, the Federation must implement the support systems to teach, encourage, incentivize, monetize and promote the related industries for arts and music in domestic and foreign markets. These endeavors will make the Caribbean a better place to live, work and play.

The Go Lean book provides 370-pages of turn-by-turn instructions on “how” to adopt new community ethos, plus the strategies, tactics, implementations and advocacies to execute so as to reboot, reform and transform the societal engines of Caribbean society. One mission of the Go Lean/CU roadmap is the plan to remediate the eco-system for the arts and artists in the Caribbean. The book considers best-practices from around the world in formulating an economic model for funding…

… there are many multi-disciplinary arts festivals around the world that have a consistent (annual) successful event. How do they fund their operations? Consider one example … in the White Paper highlighted in Appendix B below.

The Go Lean roadmap seeks to foster best-practices for the business eco-system for the arts. This quest has been addressed in many previous Go Lean commentaries; see sample here:

https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=10910	Day of Happiness – Music-style
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=9897	Art Walk – It’s a ‘Real Thing’ in Wynwood
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=9883	Art Basel 2016 – A Testament to the Business of the Arts
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=9860	Forging Change: Arts & Artists
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=9151	The New Smithsonian African-American Museum
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=6310	Media Arts Case Study: Farewell to ‘Sábado Gigante’
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=5251	Post-Mortem of Inaugural Bahamas Junkanoo Carnival
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=4145	The African Renaissance Monument in Dakar, Senegal, Africa
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=2726	Caribbean Artist Role Model – Oscar De La Renta – RIP
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=2415	How ‘The Lion King’ roared into Show-Business history

While this commentary is a rebuke of previous governing oversight for the last 12 events over the 45 years, the movement behind this Go Lean roadmap wishes nothing but the greatest success for this 13^th rendition of CARIFESTA later this summer. According to the Related Articles in Appendix C, good progress is being made in preparation for this year’s event.

Hopefully CARIFESTA organizers have learned lessons and applied best-practices for the execution of this year’s event. Caribbean artists deserve every opportunity to foster their talents. They deserve an optimized business eco-system both locally and regionally. Then there are the patrons (visitors, attendees and spectators), these ones too deserve every opportunity to fully explore the best of the best of Caribbean arts and artists.

The Go Lean roadmap demands a better future for regional artists and artistic events; here is a sample list – from the book – of the many community ethos, strategies, tactics, implementation and advocacies for better events:

Community Ethos – People Respond to Incentives	Page 23
Community Ethos – Return on Investments	Page 24
Community Ethos – Cooperatives	Page 25
Community Ethos – Ways to Impact the Future	Page 26
Community Ethos – Ways to Foster Genius – Performance Excellence	Page 27
Community Ethos – Ways to Improve Sharing	Page 35
Community Ethos – Ways to Promote Happiness	Page 36
Community Ethos – Ways to Impact the Greater Good	Page 37
Strategy – Customers – Business Community	Page 47
Strategy – Customers – Visitors / Tourists	Page 47
Strategy – Competitors – Event Patrons	Page 55
Separation of Powers – Emergency Mgmt.	Page 76
Separation of Powers – Tourism Promotion	Page 78
Separation of Powers – Sports & Culture Administration	Page 81
Separation of Powers – Fairgrounds Administration	Page 83
Separation of Powers – Turnpike Operations	Page 84
Steps to Implement Self-Governing Entities	Page 105
Ways to Foster Cooperatives	Page 176
Ways to Improve Intelligence Gathering	Page 182
Ways to Improve [Service] Animal Husbandry	Page 185
Ways to Enhance Tourism	Page 190
Ways to Impact Events	Page 191
Ways to Promote Fairgrounds	Page 192
Ways to Impact Hollywood [& Media Industry]	Page 203
Ways to Improve Transportation – Elaborate Ferry Network	Page 205
Ways to Preserve Caribbean Heritage	Page 218
Ways to Improve the Arts	Page 230
Ways to Promote Music	Page 231

Now is the time to lean-in for this roadmap to reform and transform the Caribbean; we can make our homeland a better place to live, work and play for all stakeholders, artists and art lovers alike. 🙂

Download the free e-Book of Go Lean … Caribbean – now!

Sign the petition to lean-in for this roadmap for the Caribbean Union Trade Federation.

———–

Appendix A – Caribbean Festival of Arts Wiki Page

Caribbean Festival of Arts, commonly known as CARIFESTA, is an international multicultural event organized on a periodic basis by the countries of the Caribbean. The main purpose is to gather artists, musicians, authors, and to exhibit the folkloric and artistic manifestations of the Caribbean and Latin American region.

History

The first Caribbean Festival of Arts took place in 1972. This event was organized by Guyana’s then President Forbes Burnham, based on a similar event that took place in Puerto Rico in 1952. He held a number of conferences with Caribbean artists and writers that eventually led to the first Carifesta.

CARIFESTA was conceived out of an appeal from a regional gathering of artists who were at the time participating in a Writers and Artists Convention in Georgetown, Guyana, in 1970 and which coincided with Guyana’s move to Republican status.

The three main considerations with regard to the

The Festival should be inspirational and should provide artists with the opportunity to discuss among themselves techniques and motivations
It should be educational in that the people of the Caribbean would be exposed to the values emerging from the various art forms and it should relate to people and be entertaining on a scale and in a fashion that would commend itself to the Caribbean people
The regional creative festival was first held in Georgetown, Guyana in 1972, attracting creative artistes from over 30 Caribbean and Latin American countries.

It is a celebration of the ethnic and racial diversity which separately and collectively created cultural expressions that are wonderfully unique to the Caribbean.

The cultural village life of CARIFESTA is intended to be a mixture of the States of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM); the wider Caribbean, Latin America; and a representation of Africa, Asia, Europe and North America It is a vision of the peoples with roots deep in Asia, Europe and Africa, coming together to perform their art forms and embracing literature inspired by the Caribbean’s own peculiar temperament; paintings drawn from the awe inspiring tropical ecology; and the visionary inheritance of our forefathers

Aims

According to the CARICOM Organisation, CARIFESTA aims^[1] to:

depict the life of the people of the region – their heroes, morale, myth, traditions, beliefs, creativeness, ways of expression.
show the similarities and the differences of the people of the Caribbean and Latin America
create a climate in which art can flourish so that artists would be encouraged to return to their homeland.
awaken a regional identity in Literature.
stimulate and unite the cultural movement throughout the region.

Described as something of an artistic and cultural “Olympics” observed by both regional and international states, the festival includes both a cultural opening and closing ceremony with many diverse events in between, including:

Drama – ranging from elaborate musical productions to comedy, fantasy, ritual, history, folk plays and legend.
Music – concerts, recitals and musical shows provide tantalising folk rhythms, soul-searching jazz, as well as pop, classics and ballet. There are Indian tablas, African drums, Caribbean steel pan, piano, violin, flute and guitar – in other words, music for every taste.
Visual Art – exhibitions of sculpture, graphics, paintings, drawings, and photographs are a visual testimony of each country’s art forms.
Literature – an anthology of new writing from the Caribbean region is produced for CARIFESTA, and authors often launch their works at the festivals. There are also poetry recitals and lecture discussions at universities and Conference centres.
Folklore – groups from over a dozen countries reveal the colour and the mystery of Caribbean and Latin American folklore and legend, among them the Conjunto Folklorico Nacionale of Cuba, the Ol’Higue and Baccos of Guyana, Shango dancers from Trinidad, Shac Shac musicians from Dominica.
Crafts – among the unusual events at CARIFESTA will be live demonstrations of ceramics, wood carving, painting and drawing.
Dance – this part of the programme is all-embracing and covers courtly Javanese dancing, intricate ballet, earthy folk plays, dramatic modern choreography, classical Indian movements, spontaneous improvisations and pop.
Heritage Exhibitions – host countries such as Guyana and Suriname that boast diverse heritage showcase cultural exhibits and anthropological studies of the indigenous people.
Family Life – CARIFESTA usually includes “Kid Zones” and family workshops to educate and entertain families.

…

Source: Wikipedia Online Encyclopedia – Retrieved June 26, 2017 from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caribbean_Festival_of_Arts

———–

Appendix B – Report Snippets: Multidisciplinary Arts: Approaches to Funding

A. INTRODUCTION

This report summarizes the findings of the International Federation of Arts Councils and Culture Agencies’ (IFACCA) 38th D’Art question on approaches to funding multidisciplinary arts, which was developed and conducted jointly by the Canada Council for the Arts (CC) and the Australia Council for the Arts(AC).1

The survey was distributed via IFACCA to approximately 75 international arts councils and related bodies in early March 2009. Twelve funding bodies responded fully to the survey, including 10 national funding bodies and two municipal funders for a response rate of 16%. Therefore this survey should only be considered as a sample or snapshot of approaches to funding multidisciplinary arts.

…

B. APPROACH AND METHODOLOGY

The consultants have based their analysis on the complete sample of responses to D’Art question 38. A total of 13 responses were received from public funders in 10 countries. …

The countries included in the analysis of this report therefore include: Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, England, Finland, Sweden, Cuba, Colombia. (A list of survey respondents is included in Annex 1).

…

C. ANALYSIS OF SURVEY RESPONSES

Summary

Overall, definitions of multidisciplinary arts are broad and inclusive, with an emphasis on the presence of more than one discipline, which may extend beyond the arts, in a single artistic process, product or a larger event. Some funders make a distinction between multidisciplinary arts activity that combines multiple disciplines in one activity, and interdisciplinary arts, typically describing an emergent practice, exploratory or integrative process.

Some funders are interested in developing sustainable communities, and encourage indigenous and community arts practices, such as Maori or Malay arts or circus arts.

Some funders internationally provide support to new media through separate programs, though most acknowledge that interdisciplinary artists may also use new media. In some countries, support for multidisciplinary arts extends as well to new critical practices, and to Aboriginal or other culturally diverse art forms.

Most funders responding to the survey indicated that they use peers to assess funding applications. Assessment criteria can be either specially tailored to multidisciplinary arts, or be more general, and may include artistic merit, viability, impact, artistic development and strategic considerations.

Among responders who reported on their resource allocations, resources earmarked for multidisciplinary arts range from 3% of total granting budgets to 11%.

…

Source: Posted by the International Federation of Arts Councils and Culture Agencies in November 2009; retrieved June 26, 2017 from: http://media.ifacca.org/files/D’Art38Multidisciplinary.pdf

———–

Appendix C – Related Articles

1. http://today.caricom.org/tag/carifesta-2017/

May 11, 2017 – Programme Manager for Culture and Community Development at the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) Secretariat, Dr. Hilary Brown, said that Barbados was “on a good track so far”, as it prepared to host the Region’s largest arts festival from August 17 to 27.

2. http://www.carifesta.net/

Bridgetown, Barbados, May 30, 2017 – Musicians from around the region will have the unique opportunity to display their talent for International buyers and promoters when the CARIFESTA XIII Music Showcase comes off at the Grand Market and Buyers Shopping Mall at the Lloyd Erskine Sandiford Centre (LESC) from August 19th to 26th 2017.

Another innovation for CARIFESTA XIII, this showcase offers the opportunity for Caribbean original works of music to be performed before a number of international music buyers who have been especially invited to the Festival to expose them to the vast array of talented musicians we have among us in this region.

3. https://www.facebook.com/carifestabarbados/photos/a.368801826824493.1073741828.367559130282096/438103509894324/?type=3&theater

June 13,2017 – 21 National Delegations are confirmed for Carifesta 2017; 17 Caricom, 1 Dutch Caribbean, 1 French Caribbean, 1 Central Latin American, 1 South American. We welcome Venezuela as the newest addition!

Anguilla
Antigua & Barbuda
Bahamas
Barbados
Belize
Bermuda
Cayman Islands
Curacao -Dutch Caribbean
Dominica
Grenada
Guadeloupe- French Caribbean
Guyana
Haiti
Jamaica
Montserrat
Nicaragua- Central American
St. Lucia
St. Vincent & the Grenadines
Trinidad & Tobago
Turks & Caicos
Venezuela

INDEPENDENT GROUPS from Antigua, St.Lucia, Trinidad & Tobago, USVI, and the Diaspora in Canada have also registered. See you from August 17-27! #CarifestaXIII #Barbados #summer2017 #thesummerofculture

See the promotional VIDEO here:

————-

VIDEO – CARIFESTA XIII Barbados Presentation & Welcome – https://youtu.be/xhiYLdsdM7g

Published on June 27, 2017 – CARIFESTA XIII Barbados Presentation and welcome from Caribbean Soca Queen Alison Hinds.

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Forging Change: Panem et Circenses

Posted on November 15, 2016 in Government, Social, Strategy

Go Lean Commentary

The dead language of Latin is alive-and-well for conveying some of the most intense perplexities.

Consider:

Habeas Corpus* = “There is a body…”
Carpe Diem = “Seize the Day”
Panem et Circenses = …

That last one is unfamiliar; the rough translation is “Bread and Circuses”. In all of these Latin expressions, there is more to the meaning than just the simple word-for-word translation. There is a deep thought-process underlying.

Bread and circuses or (more generally) food and entertainment, is regarded as typically satisfying the desires of the masses of people; hence used allusively of anything which pleases and pacifies the people, thus helping a government to further its political ends.

In other words, to some bad actors, they seek the opportunity to manipulate the public by first satisfying the shallow requirements of the populace – sustenance and amusement – while the actors pursue a more nefarious agenda; capitalizing on people’s selfishness that may ultimately provide for their own wider neglect.

That’s malevolence…

… there is also a benevolent strategy: First suffice the basic needs, a few social needs (amusement) and the approval of the people can be sought for heavy-lifting – to elevate all of society to a greater cause. (This alludes to Abraham Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs in which society’s needs are classified as elevating levels starting with #1-Biological, #2-Social/Security, #3-Belonging/Love … #8-Transcendence; see Appendix B below).

This is a recommended strategy by the movement behind the book Go Lean … Caribbean to forge change in Caribbean society: to satisfy the people’s needs for sustenance and amusement then urge the masses to adopt a new vision and new values.

So sustenance first. How do we ensure that the people have their means of survival – bread, food or sustenance – so that we can engage them further for higher level needs? This is a mission described in the Go Lean book (Page 162); there is an advocacy for food, its sourcing, supply and consumption:

10 Ways to Better Manage Food Consumption

The mechanics for this Change-Agent are already in place, with the Caribbean tradition of Carnival. In a previous blog-commentary, it was related that festivals/events are important; they empower economics – see VIDEO here – and fortify cultural pride. See a full encyclopedic reference to Carnival in Appendix A below. All in all, they make the Caribbean a better place to live, work, and play. This is also a mission described in the Go Lean book (Page 191) in this advocacy for events:

10 Ways to Impact Events

VIDEO – The Business of Carnival – https://youtu.be/H90AfmQoRI4

Published on Mar 3, 2014 – Rio de Janeiro’s Samba Schools Parade is billed as the greatest show on earth, but Carnival is also a multimillion dollar business that generates thousands of jobs and injects big money into the local economy. CCTV’s Lucrecia Franco has more.

The Go Lean book and movement serves as a roadmap for the introduction of the technocratic Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU). The CU is set to optimize Caribbean society through economic empowerment, yes, but there are security and governing dynamics as well. Therefore the Go Lean roadmap has 3 prime directives:

Optimization of the economic engines in order to grow the regional economy to $800 Billion & create 2.2 million new jobs.
Establishment of a security apparatus to ensure public safety and protect the economic engines.
Improve Caribbean governance to support these engines.

The Go Lean book presents a plan to reboot economic engines (jobs, educational and entrepreneurial opportunities), optimize the security apparatus (anti-crime and public safety) and accountable governance – through regional alliances – for all citizens (including many minority factions). The majority of the population must acquiesce and accept the new values in order to allow the societal empowerments – the new vision – to take hold.

All work and no play, makes Jack a dull boy. All play and no work makes Jack a dumb boy – Old Adage

Caribbean society have traditionally featured a preoccupation with fun and amusement: “Fun in the Sun”; have a great time; party!

No Problem, Mon
Don’t Worry, Be Happy – (Song has an island beat and rhythm).
Feeling Hot, Hot, Hot
Come to Jamaica and feel alright

The Go Lean roadmap seeks to forge change, to elevate the Caribbean’s societal engines, with a proper balance of work and play. We want to provide great options for meaningful and prosperous work (jobs); plus we want to have fun. The Go Lean quest is to make the region a better place to live, work and play. How do we forge this change?

The challenges and strategies for forging change have been identified in a series of previous Go Lean blog-commentaries over the past 2 years, this is the seventh submission. These were presented as follows, in reverse chronological order:

Forging Change – Panem et Circenses (Today)
Forging Change – Herd Mentality (October 11, 2016)
Forging Change – ‘Something To Lose’ (November 18, 2015)
Forging Change – ‘Food’ for Thought (April 29, 2015)
Forging Change – Music Moves People (December 30, 2014)
Forging Change – The Sales Process (December 22, 2014)
Forging Change – The Fun Theory (September 9, 2014)

This commentary is urging Caribbean stakeholders to work to please and pacify their people, then work – behind the scenes – to further the societal elevation goals. This strategy to forge change is not presented to be nefarious or malevolent, but rather to pursue the Greater Good. This is defined in the Go Lean book (Page 37) by Jeremy Bentham (1748-1832, a British philosopher, jurist, and social reformer) as …

… “the greatest good to the greatest number of people which is the measure of right and wrong”.

Why “behind the scenes”?

There must be the hard and heavy-lifting process of identifying and fostering those in the community with “genius” capability. A genius is different from everyone else, although they maybe fairly easy to spot, defining exactly what makes one person a genius is a little trickier.

Everyone who loves sausage, should not look at it being made; the process is ugly; but the end result is delicious. – Old Adage.

The Go Lean/CU roadmap asserts that forging change in the Caribbean will be a hard, heavy-lift of a process; many alternate strategies – the 7 from above – may have to be engaged. Any one person can make a difference and positively impact society; such a person can be a champion for any Caribbean cause, though the cause may be different from one champion to another. There are many different strengths among different people, many which may even be considered genius capability. While not everyone can be a genius in terms of mathematics or the sciences, many more do possess genius qualifiers in different endeavors. According to the Go Lean book (Page 27), some researchers & theorists argue that the concept of genius may be too limiting and doesn’t really give a full view of intelligence; they assert that intelligence is a combination of many factors; thereby concluding that genius can be found in many different abilities and endeavors.

This is the community ethos – fundamental character/spirit of a culture; the underlying sentiment that informs the beliefs, customs, or practices of society – of fostering genius. The Go Lean book explains (Page 20) that this and other community ethos are not easy to imbrue on a society. It likens the process to an individual attempting to quit smoking. Not only are there physiological challenges, but psychological ones as well, to the extent that it can be stated with no uncertainty that “change begins in the head”. In psycho-therapy the approach to forge change for an individual is defined as “starting in the head (thoughts, visions), penetrating the heart (feelings, motivations) and then finally manifesting in the hands (actions). This same body analogy is what is purported in this Go Lean book for how the Caribbean is to forge change – following this systematic flow:

Head – Plans, models and constitutions
Heart – Community Ethos
Hands – Actions, Reboots, and Turn-arounds

The Go Lean/CU roadmap involves doing this heavy-lifting “behind the scenes” with identifying and fostering genius, while the masses enjoy Panem et Circenses.

Employing – all of these 7 – strategies to forge change in the Caribbean will be worth it in the end. This is not nefarious nor malevolent. This only makes our homeland a better place to live, work and play.

The Go Lean book presented the roadmap to imbrue the Caribbean region with new community ethos, plus new strategies, tactics, implementation and advocacies to execute to forge change in the region. The following is a sample of these specific details from the book:

Community Ethos – Deferred Gratification	Page 21
Community Ethos – Economic Principles – People Choose	Page 21
Community Ethos – Economic Principles – People Respond to Incentives in Predictable Ways	Page 21
Community Ethos – Economic Principles – Economic Systems Influence Individual Choices	Page 21
Community Ethos – Economic Principles – The Consequences of Choices Lie in the Future	Page 21
Community Ethos – Governing Principles – Minority Equalization	Page 23
Community Ethos – Governing Principles – Lean Operations	Page 24
Community Ethos – Governing Principles – Cooperatives	Page 25
Community Ethos – Ways to Impact the Future	Page 26
Community Ethos – Ways to Help Entrepreneurship	Page 28
Community Ethos – Ways to Promote Intellectual Property	Page 29
Community Ethos – Ways to Impact Research & Development – Social Experiments	Page 30
Community Ethos – Ways to Bridge the Digital Divide	Page 31
Community Ethos – Ways to Impact Turn-Arounds	Page 33
Community Ethos – Ways to Promote Happiness	Page 36
Community Ethos – Ways to Impact the Greater Good	Page 37
Strategy – Vision – Confederate 30 Member-States	Page 45
Strategy – Mission – Celebrate the Music, Sports, Art and Culture of the Caribbean	Page 46
Tactical – Confederating a Permanent Union	Page 63
Tactical – Fostering a Technocracy	Page 64
Tactical – Separation-of-Powers – CU Federal Agencies versus Member-State Governments	Page 71
Implementation – Ways to Pay for Change	Page 101
Implementation – Ways to Deliver	Page 109
Planning – 10 Big Ideas for the Caribbean Region	Page 127
Planning – Ways to Make the Caribbean Better	Page 131
Planning – Reasons Why the CU Will Succeed	Page 132
Planning – Lessons from Omaha – College World Series Model	Page 138
Advocacy – Ways to Grow the Economy	Page 151
Advocacy – Ways to Create Jobs	Page 152
Advocacy – Ways to Better Manage the Social Contract	Page 170
Advocacy – Ways to Improve Communications – Community Messaging	Page 186
Advocacy – Ways to Improve Libraries	Page 187
Advocacy – Ways to Enhance Tourism	Page 190
Advocacy – Ways to Impact Events	Page 191
Advocacy – Ways to Promote Fairgrounds	Page 192
Advocacy – Ways to Preserve Caribbean Heritage	Page 218
Advocacy – Ways to Improve the Arts	Page 230
Advocacy – Ways to Promote Music	Page 231

The empowerments in the Go Lean book calls for permanent change. This is possible. The people of the Caribbean only want opportunities; they want to be able to provide for their families, and offer a future of modernity to their children. Plus they want amusement, entertainment, happiness and fun. They want Panem et Circenses. This is a feature of Caribbean culture.

The Go Lean roadmap offers the technocratic execution of these deliverables. Imagine all the great cuisine and food options in the region. Imagine the rum options. Plus, imagine identifying and fostering the genius abilities of entertainers (singers, dancers, artists, musicians, performers, etc.). The end-product of their genius is good times, an elevation of Caribbean culture … to be consumed by all of the Caribbean stakeholders – residents and tourists alike. This is not a distraction; this is a business model. From the outset, the book recognized the significance of fun and festivities in this roadmap with these statements in the opening Declaration of Interdependence (Page 12 & 14):

Preamble: We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness …

xxi. Whereas the preparation of our labor force can foster opportunities and dictate economic progress for current and future generations, the Federation must ensure that educational and job training opportunities are fully optimized for all residents of all member-states, with no partiality towards any gender or ethnic group. The Federation must recognize and facilitate excellence in many different fields of endeavor, including sciences, languages, arts, music and sports. This responsibility should be executed without incurring the risks of further human flight, as has been the past history.

xxxii. Whereas the cultural arts and music of the region are germane to the quality of Caribbean life, and the international appreciation of Caribbean life, the Federation must implement the support systems to teach, encourage, incentivize, monetize and promote the related industries for arts and music in domestic and foreign markets. These endeavors will make the Caribbean a better place to live, work and play.

Success from the Go Lean roadmap on the Caribbean will not make it unique in the business model of fun and festivities. There are many other communities that have flourished in this strategy; think Carnival/Mardi Gras in Rio De Janeiro, New Orleans even the Caribbean member-state of Trinidad. By extension, the Caribbean Carnival tradition have been exported to Diaspora cities: the largest examples being Caribana in Toronto and Notting Hill in London. The Go Lean roadmap wants to extend these initiatives and harvest even more economic benefits from events; we welcome the new Carnival tradition in the Bahamas – see photo here – and long for a resurgence of the Cuban tradition; see Appendix A below.

These Carnival-“Circenses” events are not presented as distractions, rather they are among the business model for a new Caribbean. The Go Lean book details that 9,000 jobs can be created from this strategy. There is even a role model for the Caribbean to emulate, that of the City of Sturgis in the US State of South Dakota. See Bottom Line details in the Appendix C below.

The movement behind the Go Lean book asks and answers the question: How to forge change in the Caribbean? There are many options; one is Panem et Circenses. The whole Caribbean region is urged to lean-in to this roadmap. Success in this regard is conceivable, believable and achievable. We can make the Caribbean a better place to live, work and play through “food and amusement”. 🙂

Download the book Go Lean … Caribbean – now!

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* Citation Reference – What is Habeas Corpus

https://ccrjustice.org/home/get-involved/tools-resources/fact-sheets-and-faqs/faqs-what-habeas-corpus

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Appendix A – Carnival

Carnival is a Western Christian festive season that occurs before the liturgical season of Lent.^[1] The main events typically occur during February or early March, during the period historically known as Shrovetide (or Pre-Lent). Carnival typically involves a public celebration and/or parade combining some elements of a circus, masks, and a public street party. People wear masks and costumes during many such celebrations, allowing them to lose their everyday individuality and experience a heightened sense of social unity.^[2] Excessive consumption of alcohol,^[3] meat, and other foods proscribed during Lent is extremely common. Other common features of carnival include mock battles such as food fights; social satire and mockery of authorities; the grotesque body displaying exaggerated features especially large noses, bellies, mouths, and phalli or elements of animal bodies; abusive language and degrading acts; depictions of disease and gleeful death; and a general reversal of everyday rules and norms.^[4][5]

The term Carnival is traditionally used in areas with a large Catholic presence. …

Rio de Janeiro‘s carnival is considered the world’s largest, hosting approximately two million participants per day. In 2004, Rio’s carnival attracted a record 400,000 foreign visitors.^[10]

Caribbean
Most Caribbean islands celebrate Carnival. The largest and most well-known is in Trinidad and Tobago. The Dominican republic, Guyana, Antigua, Aruba, Bonaire, Cayman Islands, Cuba, Curaçao, Barbados, Dominica, Haiti, Grenada, Guadeloupe, Jamaica, Saba, Sint Eustatius (Statia), Sint Maarten, Saint Lucia, Saint Kitts, Saint Thomas, U.S. Virgin Islands, Saint Vincent, and the Grenadines hold lengthy carnival seasons and large celebrations.

Carnival is an important cultural event in the Dutch Antilles. Festivities include “jump-up” parades with beautifully colored costumes, floats, and live bands as well as beauty contests and other competitions. Celebrations include a middle-of-the-night j’ouvert (juvé) parade that ends at sunrise with the burning of a straw King Momo, cleansing sins and bad luck. On Statia, he is called Prince Stupid.

Carnival has been celebrated in Cuba since the 18th century. Participants don costumes from the island’s cultural and ethnic variety. After Fidel Castro’s Communist Revolution, Carnival’s religious overtones were suppressed. The events remained, albeit frowned upon by the state. Carnival celebrations have been in decline throughout Cuba since then.
Source: Retrieved 11-15-16 from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carnival#Caribbean

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Appendix B – Quotation: Bottom Line on the Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs

Models of human behavior have been undisputedly cataloged by Abraham Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. The hierarchy, shown as a pyramid, is a visual representation of the order in which humans are innately drawn towards fulfilling personal needs. At the bottom, or base level, are basic, survival elements (food, water, shelter and security/safety). As these are obtained, there are natural urges for emotional stability (belongingness, self-esteem, social acceptance) and, according to Maslow’s 1943 version, the top level of the pyramid was defined as complex understanding (beauty, justice, realizing one’s full potential). Maslow later revised his original work (1967) and subsequently added “transcendence” to the pyramid’s peak, which is to help others to achieve self-actualization. – Book: Go Lean … Caribbean, Page 231.

The full list is as follows:

Level 1 – Biological and Physiological needs
Level 2 – Security/Safety needs
Level 3 – Belongingness and Love needs
Level 4 – Esteem needs
Level 5 – Cognitive needs
Level 6 – Aesthetic needs
Level 7 – Self-Actualization needs
Level 8 – Transcendence needs

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Appendix C – Quotation: Bottom Line on the Sturgis, South Dakota
Sturgis is a city in Meade County, South Dakota, United States. The population was 6,627 as of the 2010 census. It is the county seat of Meade County and is named after General Samuel D. Sturgis. Sturgis is famous for being the location of one of the largest annual motorcycle events in the world, which [started in 1938 and] is held annually on the first full week of August. Motorcycle enthusiasts from around the world flock to this usually sleepy town during the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally. The focus of a motorcycle rally was originally racing and stunts. Then in 1961, the rally was expanded to include the “Hill Climb” and Motocross races.^[145]

The attendance was tallied in excess of 600,000 visitors in the year 2000. The City of Sturgis has calculated that the Rally brings over $800 million to South Dakota annually. (The City of Sturgis earned almost $270,000 in 2011 from just selling event guides and sponsorships). Rally-goers are a mix of white-collar and blue-collar workers and are generally welcomed as an important source of income for Sturgis and surrounding areas. The rally turns local roads into “parking lots”, and draws local law enforcement away from routine patrols. [The City frequently contracts with law enforcement officers from near-and-far for supplemental support-enforcements during the rally]. (See Appendix J of Sturgis City Rally Department’s Statistics [in the Go Lean book on Page 288]).

[Sturgis generates a lot of media attention]. Annual television coverage of the festival by the [cable TV network] VH1 Classic includes interviews and performances as well as rock music videos. Also, the Travel Channel repeatedly shows two one-hour documentaries about Sturgis.

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