Carnival, Memory and Identity

The carnival of Trinidad and Tobago is a performative ritual of cultural resistance and awakening, claiming a space and celebrating freedom from any kind of oppression. The history of this ritual is strictly connected to the process of cultural decolonization and political independence of the Caribbean country from the mother(is)land; it is in carnival and for carnival that Trinbagonians have successfully fought colonialism to gain their freedom. Imported in the Caribbean by French planters, as a ritual of amusement and temporary freedom, through the encounter with other rituals such as African masquerade and canboulay, Trinidad Carnival became, for the first time in the world, the instrument to earn an actual and non-temporary freedom, and the space for the celebration of a new interethnic national identity, obtained through the ritual itself. The present of carnival is divided between the memory of this past, and a reality of “bikini and beads” costumes, ironically very close to the “pretty mas” that was imported from colonizers, and to the better-selling Brazilian carnival. The ritual that more than anything else shaped the national memory and the identity of this country, is now pulled by two ends. Past, present and future have to be discussed together for a real understanding of the relationship between carnival, memory and identity in Trinidad and Tobago