Today, I conclude my experience of Desperadoes’ re-assertion of their right to make music unhindered by banditry. The concert on the Hill was of such quality that I attended it again the following evening when it was performed at the St James Amphitheatre.

As previously mentioned, one of Despers’ hallmark pieces is the ’Overture to Orpheus in the Underworld’. This work has been in their repertoire for many years. Orpheus went into the Underworld, having been given an opportunity to recover his beloved Eurydice; but he lost her again when, contrary to the terms of his permission to enter, he looked back at her while they were exiting the Underworld.

This well-known item of ancient Greek mythology was re-interpreted in an Afro-Brazilian context in the movie Black Orpheus, which tells the story of Orpheus and Mira and the dalliance of Orpheus with his neighbour’s cousin. The movie is set in a favela of Rio and the complicated plot is played out against the background of Brazil’s carnival.

Like the Greek Orpheus, the Brazilian Orpheus was a superb musician. It was said of the Greek Orpheus that when he played his lyre, the rocks and the trees danced. In the case of the Brazilian Orpheus the children believed that it was his guitar that caused the sun to rise.

In the movie, after the death of Orpheus, the children pick up his guitar and play so that the sun may rise again. And so it is that Despers played for Laventille to rise again, intending to use the considerable power of their music to bring the community back from its decline.

It is because of the almost irreparable damage that violent crime has caused to many communities comprised of all creeds and races that I make my reference to putting MJ to rest. This reference is to our National Security Minister, Martin Joseph, who needs a rest. My namesake is a very decent man. I have no wish to hurt him. However, his ministerial role is visibly affecting him. This is obvious from his demeanour and it is nothing short of cruel for him to be required to continue in the role of punching bag for the failure of the Government, of which he is only one part, to deal with violent crime.

I have been at pains to emphasise that the opinion that the Despers-based community is in decline is held by those deeply embedded in the community. I have done so to gainsay the suggestion that concern for the threat to pan presented by its encirclement by violent crime is an opinion held from the outside.

It is also to be emphasised that the re-building of broken communities in Trinidad and Tobago goes way beyond the singular portfolio of National Security. It is the failure on the part of the Government as a whole to grasp this, or to find the will to acknowledge its failure, that has left the Minister of National Security marooned, and doomed to be the main butt of public revulsion at the ravages of violent crime. Much of the intelligent commentary about the pan movement and its inextricable bonds to its community is to be found in the tireless work of Trinis resident abroad, such as in the commentaries posted on When Steel Talks Everybody Listens-Global SteelPan News, a site to which I was introduced by the late Terry Joseph.

Khalick J Hewitt is one such commentator on pan. In a piece published one month after the death of Clive Bradley in 2005, entitled The Last Institution on the Hill, Hewitt posed four questions: ’How did a community go from being a livable and productive place to becoming a killing field where its residents live in daily fear of facing death?

How did a community become a place where no one dares to venture into because all semblance of civility seems to have broken down? How did a community that gave the world one of its most cherished musical institutions, Desperadoes Steel Orchestra, become a place where the future seems to be non-existent?’

To answer those questions Hewitt traces the abuse of project work and the gang wars that ensued over such work, the advent of cocaine use and benign neglect. He then reverts to the role of pan and concludes that: ’In some societies an important institution as the Desperadoes Steel Orchestra would be used as a catalyst to enroll the young people of Laventille in job creation projects to effect social changes.’ I have so often expressed a similar conclusion in stating the case for pan as an instrument of social engineering.

Unfortunately, this Government has effectively stated that it will not listen to anyone who is not a member of the Manning-style PNM. On account of such bigotry, many good communities will continue to perish and many more deadly events will occur.