| Anguilla appears to be filled with festivals these days. The main one, of course, which really attracts hundreds of people to the island for a week of cultural displays featuring music, dancing, singing, band competitions, beauty shows, boat-racing and feasting, is the annual Summer Festival. Reports have indicated that travel to the island is a challenge due to the number of bookings at this time, and so, perhaps, will be the departures with the air and seaports continuing to be beehives of activity. |
| The carnival events, in particular, have their early beginnings in the emancipation of slavery with August Monday being the pivotal time of celebration. It is all part of the very rich and diverse cultural historyof Anguilla now captured to a large extent in book and more recently film form, literary works that should not only make the authors and producers proud, but all the Anguillian people as well. Aside from the merry-making historical part of the festival, is its importance to the island’s tourism industry. As a matter of fact, the real emphasis now appears to be a marketing tool for Anguilla and this has proven to be a tremendous success over the years. It can be understood, therefore, why our hotels, guest houses, villas and other places of accommodation experience much profitable business during this period when the normal tourism season is virtually long over. Tourism is the life-blood of Anguilla’s economy and the livelihood of a high percentage of our people who work in the industry to sustain themselves and their families. It is also the main marketing factor that keeps our island at the top end of the travel trade and has created for us an enviable reputation for fine dining, relaxation, hospitality at its best,and a safe and enjoyable destination. We cannot afford to tarnish that reputation. That is why there are so many appeals by the Police and community organisations for a peaceful Summer Festival, where the ugly head of crime and violence does not manifest itself and lies subdued or better still, crushed. Gang warfare and other forms of deviant and violent behaviour have no part in an event which so well re-enacts and perpetuates our proud cultural past and creates a platform for the promotion of our up-market tourism industry. So important is the festival to our national cultural heritage and social and economic way of life, that the law should visit with full force those persons who may be irresponsible enough to disrupt any of the activitiesby committing demeaning acts of crime and violence. While it is expected that there may be some displays of unbounded enthusiasm or exuberance or a surrender of certain inhibitions by some participants in the summer festival, the principles of common decency and good behaviour must not be compromised. Clean and respectable participation by revelers on the streets, or performers on stage, will do much for the promotion, enhancement and enjoyment of the carnival activities by onlookers and reviewers. We can only hope that our many visitors, whom we warmly welcome to our shores, will find our Summer Festival a continuing attraction and an engaging pastime, and that it will be an enjoyable and safe period for all. We wish everyone all the best for a fun-filled Anguilla Summer Festival, 2011. |
