EDITOR, The Tribune.

Kindly permit me space in your valuable columns to comment on the scheduled Junkanoo-Carnival.

The term is a perfect oxymoron, a figure of speech that is self-contradictory.

Carnival refers to festivities held during the period before Lent in Roman Catholic countries, especially Trinidad, Brazil and islands south of us. Its flavour and origin appear Latin.

Junkanoo, on the other hand, is distinctly African and intuitively tribal.

Are we again playing copycats at the expense of an invaluable Bahamian cultural treasure?

To date, I see colourful advertisements reminiscent of Trinidad, where individuals pay tidy sums to secure flimsy feathered and beaded costumes to play.

Why can’t we market and profitably promote Junkanoo in the same fashion and with the same intense passion, drawing on enterprising local entrepreneurs to provide colourful Junkanoo costumes and headsets?

Why foist Carnival over Junkanoo? We would be better served promoting our own cultural identity and leaving a lasting memory on the incoming tourists that they were in The Bahamas, not Trinidad, Brazil or anywhere else!

W LESTER BOWLEG

Nassau,

February 5, 2015.

P.S. As an aside, you don’t hear Bahamian music or culture highlighted in Trinidad, Jamaica or Brazil! Who the hell are we?