BASSETERRE, St. Kitts – SOCIAL commentaries by calypsonians who express their opinion and ideas, especially about current political issues, are always looked forward to and are expected by many lovers of the art form.
Two popular calypsonians, Sylvester ‘Socrates’ Hodge and Cecil ‘King Rockafella’ Rock, during a recent interview with this media house, gave their take on the controversial and much debatable topic of the land for debt swap issue.
King Rockafella is a known ardent supporter of the ruling Labour Party administration and is often seen wearing red shirts; red being the affiliated Party colour. Socrates, on the other hand, is a known supporter of the opposition party, People’s Action Movement (PAM).
‘Then Sell’ and ‘Land For Sale’ by Socrates and King Rockafella respectively are 2012 penned tunes pertaining to the land for debt swap topic.
King Rockafella is of the opinion that Prime Minister Dr. Denzil L. Douglas has gone “about it the right way”, while Socrates is of the firm belief that such decision is a “betrayal”.
Socrates revealed that the land swap issue was the most popular in the Legends Kaiso Tent, and when asked why he believes this is so, replied: “People feel a sense of betrayal because they know what historically we had to go through to reclaim the lands.
There has been no restitution for our people and, so with the thanks of Robert Bradshaw and Dr. Simmonds, we were able to have a sense of dignity and pride in owning our lands and nobody likes to hear that the land has been sold to quote unquote ‘foreigners’.”
He continued: “When you put that asset under the people’s reach in terms of cost, and when you see what’s happening when you look down at La Valle that is fenced and there has been no accountability, we know it is betrayal. So even those who support the party publicly and privately, they grumble about stuff like that.”
“The manner in which the Land Acquisition Act was done at almost midnight, it’s like going like a thief in the night. He knows what he was doing! And then to have a town hall meeting after, it’s a slap in the face”, Socrates opined.
Socrates showed this reporter the lyrics of his song and one of the lines used to convey his contention of betrayal reads, “...put us in de market stall.”
“I don’t see anything wrong with it. We are dealing with a crisis with our national debt. Every day you hear it on the radio, all over the place people keeping meetings about it that the national debt is high,” stated King Rockafella.
He went on to say: “Now the lands that they (the Labour Party) are swapping or selling; nobody can’t go with the lands. They are trying to develop the country and at the same time they are making some money to bring down the national debt. But if you notice during the 80s everybody was taking lands. I think the Prime Minister gone about it the right way. He went and he made an honest deal. There is no one who could take up the land and sell it to somebody else. When somebody purchases it, it stays purchased to that person.”
Asked what he would tell critics who would say it is expected that he would not say anything contradictory about the party he supports, King Rockafella remarked: “Well, they are entitled to their opinion. You will have critics anywhere you go, you understand me? When they were taking land and selling land and grabbing canefield and different things like that, there was nobody getting paid for it. Now they are selling the land and they are selling it for development. There are lots of them in the country who got ton loads of dollars and they have done nothing for this country; they wouldn’t spend it and they would just dead and leave the money right there. So I don’t see what the big deal about selling land to somebody (because) nobody can’t go with the land.”
“Look what happened to (Allen) Stanford. Stanford went and purchased a lot of land. Who it fall back in? It fall back in the government hand. The land and he building is in the government hand again. That’s everybody who want to go around and diss de PM and so on. They got dey personal thing with the PM but the PM stronger than them,” he added.
King Rockafella was questioned about the content of his tune called ‘Land For Sale’.
“Well the land for sale is that you know I am a man in and out of 1840 as a debtor. So government owes money and they want to bring down the debt. So, in order for them to bring down the debt and not banking up the country they selling the land.”
“They have to bring down the debt because they don’t want to go to the debtor jail to meet me,” King Rockafella jokingly added.
