A friend sent me this article as a 'Thing of interest' so thought why not share it with you all.
This article is a couple years old and was published by MICHAEL LA ROSE in JULY 2004 and originally
Submitted to Joseph Charles Media Publishers of Soca News - Notting Hill Carnival edition of Carnival Grooves.
But the history of NHC is so very interesting....enjoy the read :)
40 YEARS OF THE NOTTING HILL CARNIVAL:
AN ASSESSMENT OF THE HISTORY AND THE FUTURE
The Notting Hill Carnival has survived 40 years. This fact alone is a testament to the men and women who have stood up for Caribbean culture and established the Notting Hill Carnival against fearsome odds. It was clear that the British establishment was aggressively against this two day “occupation” of part of the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea (RBKC) and the Borough of Westminster in the heart of London. The Metropolitan Police, members of Parliament, Home Secretaries, Fleet Street newspapers, TV programmers, the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea and some local white residents all wanted Carnival stopped, off the streets, banned or imprisoned in a park. As late as the 1980s, a Carnival chairperson was invited to the House of Commons and offered limitless amounts of money if the Notting Hill Carnival could be re-located to Brixton and out of the Royal Boroughs. Despite all of this what has been achieved at Notting Hill Carnival is a festival of popular culture unsurpassed anywhere in Europe. It is an explosion of Black cultural creativity and organisation in Britain.
Boy, Ah don’t know how we reach, but we reach!
By the time I first attended Notting Hill Carnival in 1973, the festival was nearly 10 years old. But what did I care, I was just happy jumping up behind Ebony Steelband on the Harrow Road. We were all chipping, my brother, my mother and my cousins from Brooklyn. It was exciting, it was intoxicating, it was freedom, it filled us all with pride. Carnival was ‘we ting’. Caribbean culture at its most creative and expressive. As we wined, chipped and jumped - up, the inhospitable streets of London were ours. We looked in the faces of the English spectators and saw amazement, confusion, wonder and admiration. Our hearts filled with pride. This was ours. This was how we did things!
Yes, we are 40 years old and the history of Notting Hill Carnival and its future can be summed up in a joke my brother Keith and I make about a rough air flight from London to Port-of-Spain; “Boy. Ah doh know how we reach, but we reach!”
The 40-year history of the Notting Hill Carnival is complex and is an example of our cultural resistance. Where did the Caribbean Carnival in Notting Hill come from? The answer is in the mass migration of Caribbean people from all over the Caribbean to England in the 1950s. They came to make a better life and to answer the call of Britain’s economy that was desperate for workers after the ravages of the Second World War. We came on invitation, we were recruited. This fearless Caribbean generation brought with them in their heads the fantasy of the Caribbean mas (masquerade) tradition, in their hands the steelpan beating art, in their blood the pulsating Caribbean rhythms and dance, on their lips the calypso and in their hearts and souls the organisation, commitment and love for Caribbean Carnival culture.
Caribbean Roots
The author of the iconic history of Carnival “The Trinidad Carnival ; mandate for a national theatre “(New Beacon Books), the late Errol Hill , memorably described Carnival as ‘The theatre of the streets’ But the Caribbean Carnival had to be fought for in Britain. So it was with Carnival in the Caribbean. Let us look at the history of the most developed Carnival in the Caribbean, Trinidad Carnival.
After the ending of slavery in 1834, ex-slaves, descendants of Africans forcibly brought to Trinidad, acted out the Canboulay (French Cannes brulées - burning cane) a night procession with call and response singing, drumming, dancing, stick fighting, and the carrying of lighted torches. This procession drew on their African ritual and masquerade traditions and was their commentary on their survival and therefore victory over the slave system. The ex-slaves implanted the Camboulay in to the white planters’ Mardi Gras Carnival celebrations. The white planters had abandoned the Mardi Gras Carnival straight after emancipation. The ex-slaves immediately claimed this new creative space and transformed the European Mardi Gras Carnival forever into the Caribbean Carnival, which drew on their African artistic roots.
Ironically, the European Mardi Gras Carnival celebrations were adopted by the Roman Catholic church from pagan Spring festival traditions borrowed from the previous Roman and Greek
civilisations who got their cultural guide to the Carne vale (Latin - farewell to the flesh) pre lent festival from the Ancient Egyptians in Africa!
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