IF DI PROGRAMME DIS MISS LOU Mek mi tell unnu a story. Some time ago, a young teacher of theatre arts in a Jamaican high school shared with me his greatest frustration. He was discouraged and demoralised by the feeling that a certain key administrator at the school appears to have no genuine respect or regard for arts and entertainment generally, and therefore offers very little or no support to the performing arts programme. The young teacher opined that this administrator is an avowed sports enthusiast who'd more readily assign resources to a non-performing sports team than to a performing arts programme that has given several students a great sense of achievement and brought recognition and acclaim to the school.   innovative processes I advised him to take courage and continue working with what he got, because challenging situations usually force you to come up with more innovative processes and enhanced creative outputs. I also told him to take solace in the fact that, notwithstanding the exceptional performances of great sportsmen and sportswomen, two recurrent names when we ponder adding to our roster of national heroes (apart from political leaders) are the names Bob Marley and Louise Bennett. This should put to rest any notion about the arts being insignificant. If Marley and Miss Lou are important, then the arts vital and significant; ah so me see it. And if yu dis di culture, yu dis Miss Lou. So as we mark the 90th birthday of this outstanding cultural icon, I want to say a thing. Any programme that seeks to invalidate the importance of the creative arts as a contributor to social/educational advancement, economic growth and national identity, is effectively doing a 'dis' as in a disservice, to work of people like Miss Lou. Ah dat me a say.   making waves And here's another 'dis' that plenty people miss. A stage adaptation of Perry Henzell's classic Jamaican film The Harder They Come is currently making waves internationally, with sold-out houses and rave reviews in London. Toronto and now in the USA. As a Jamaican that makes me proud. Everybody I know who has seen it loves it. I still haven't been lucky enough to catch it yet. Thanks to the very wonderful Justine Henzell though, my family got tickets to the Toronto premiere. And they brought home the (printed) programme from the show, which I read meticulously. Now, I don't want to dis the programme, but I think that programme dissed Miss Lou. True, true! How? The programme has a section that seeks to explain some of the Jamaican words used in the show. And that section, titled 'How's Your Jamaican Patois?', makes the (arrogantly British) definitive and categorical declaration dat fi wi patwa "is not a language - it is English". How dem fi have dat inna di programme fi a Jamaican play that produce inna England and perform inna Canada? England, where Miss Lou beautifully and creatively countered that argument about our language in that memorable performance, 'Yes Mi Dear', at the Lyric Theatre in the early '80s, and Canada where she spent her last days as a beacon, icon and defender of the validity and integrity of this very language! Call it 'patois', 'creole' or whatever, Miss Lou says is a language! Now, the producers obviously disagree with this central thrust of the life work of our revered lady of culture. That's their right. But they could have said something like 'there are conflicting arguments about whether it is a language'. Instead, dem tek side; and choose di side that disregards and dismisses all that this great Jamaican has said so eloquently. Me think dem dis Miss Lou. How bout you? box-mi-back@hotmail.com ... it dissing me and you! http://jamaica-star.com/thestar/20090909/cleisure/cleisure1.html