LAWRENCE ARJOON
As Michael B Jordan gets ready to make some millions off his (et al’s) beautifully-packaged J’Ouvert Rum, I have a few thoughts on the matter that disrupted people’s peace under weekend curfew.
Louis Ryan Shaffer’s US trademarking of the word noted that it has “no meaning in a foreign language.”
The meaning and origins of said word are then used in the product packaging.
Leave it to capitalism to rewrite entire histories, reshape experiences, and beautify the bits and pieces that those with the power and influence see fit for profit. That is, after all, how the system works. Anyways, the “Party Start,” so lewwe jam.
Language, patois and profit
J'Ouvert/Jouvay is derived from French patois and means "daybreak." Most colonising and oppressing cultures don’t care much about acknowledging the importance of patois – pidgins, creoles, dialects, or vernaculars – of colonised and oppressed people because the entire engine of colonialism is fuelled by seeing people as less than, less important, or as a means to profit and profitability.
[caption id="attachment_896423" align="alignnone" width="1024"] Mud mas at the J'Ouvert 2019 competition, South Quay, Port-of-Spain. US actor Michael B Jordan has been accused of cultural appropriation by Trinidadians with the launch of his new rum named J’Ouvert. -[/caption]
The colonised and oppressed are only seen as valuable or having worth for what can be taken from them to be monetised for the benefit of the coloniser or oppressor. I mean, we’re still seeing the impact of this ideology today in many ways. But, coming back to the point, some people with power somewhere (and here as well) decided that the languages developed by people forced together in a space to figure out their lives through and after forced or oppressive labour have no meaning or value. Despite calls from many Caribbean linguistics experts and people with these shared lived experiences, those with the power continue to say, nah, wine to side with that. So, alas, our meaning has no “real” value.
Canboulay, blood and tears of ancestors
If you haven’t realised by now that this is a bigger conversation than who trademarked what, this is me saying it explicitly.
[caption id="attachment_896426" align="alignnone" width="1024"] A scene from the Canboulay re-enactment held at Piccadilly Street, Port of Spain in 2020. -[/caption]
There are people way more qualified than me to give more detailed information about how we actually got to today’s Carnival and all the fetes, revelry, and niceness that have their origins deep in the backstories of J’Ouvert and Canboulay. These were protests, uprisings, rebellions, and retribution that are very much part of who we are today, and who many still try for us to forget. We have come from a dark and oppressive past that has yielded much magic and beauty through the literal blood, sweat, tears, and struggles of people who are the direct ancestors of very many people here today.
