Any ques­tions about whether the coun­try’s po­lit­i­cal and so­cial cli­mate would have damp­ened an­nu­al Car­ni­val cel­e­bra­tions were an­swered re­sound­ing­ly over the last few days—the Mer­ry Monarch reigned supreme.

For a year that start­ed off with a State of Emer­gency, fol­lowed by the sus­pen­sion of the Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er, and with the un­cer­tain­ty tied to the Prime Min­is­ter’s pend­ing re­tire­ment be­fore the gen­er­al elec­tion, there were suf­fi­cient rea­sons to be scep­ti­cal about the suc­cess of the Car­ni­val.

How­ev­er, what was seen on the roads over the last two days was the lay­ing aside of all con­tentious is­sues for an out­burst of colour, mu­sic, joy and uni­ty, once again demon­strat­ing our re­silience and cos­mopoli­tan beau­ty.

The mu­sic led the way.

Whether it was Bun­ji Gar­lin’s Car­ry It, high­light­ing the strength of the ground roots, the rhyth­mic melody of Yung Bred­da’s Great­est Bend Over, the heat­ing-up lyrics of Kees Di­ef­fen­thaller’s ear­ly fron­trun­ner Co­coa Tea, or Machel Mon­tano’s fete-dom­i­nat­ing Pardy, there was plen­ty to move us through­out the sea­son.

Cit­i­zens saw the cre­ativ­i­ty of big mas in the King and Queen of Car­ni­val com­pe­ti­tion, with Cur­tis Eu­stace ex­tend­ing his win­ning record to ten, while Rox­anne Oma­lo se­cured her fourth ti­tle.

Stick-fight­ing com­pe­ti­tions in rur­al com­mu­ni­ties were well at­tend­ed, as was the tra­di­tion­al Kam­bule reen­act­ment on Car­ni­val Fri­day.

We were giv­en a thrilling show at Ex­tem­po and Freestyle fi­nals, won by Black Sage and Preedy re­spec­tive­ly, and this year saw a re­turn of the so­ca in the Ul­ti­mate So­ca Cham­pi­on event, at­tract­ing the type of at­ten­tion we haven’t seen in a long time with Grena­di­an Blac­ka Dan walk­ing away with the $1 mil­lion top prize.

Squeezy Rankin’s Jus­tice res­onat­ed through­out the Car­ni­val, with lyrics high­light­ing the hypocrisy of the moth­ers of some crim­i­nals, which fit­ting­ly earned him the Young Kings ti­tle, and Machel Mon­tano en­ter­ing the Chut­ney So­ca Monarch com­pe­ti­tion for the first time and tak­ing the ti­tle, in col­lab­o­ra­tion with Dru­patee and La­dy La­va, was tes­ti­mo­ny to his ver­sa­til­i­ty.

Mon­tano’s Bet Meh, how­ev­er, was not enough for him to de­fend his Ca­lyp­so Monarch crown, as Helon Fran­cis took this year’s ti­tle with his sol­id po­lit­i­cal com­men­tary To Whom It May Be.

Ex­o­dus’ vic­to­ry in the Na­tion­al Panora­ma com­pe­ti­tion was al­so a sweet one for the band’s play­ers and sup­port­ers af­ter a two-decade wait to re­gain the tro­phy.

Their spon­ta­neous cel­e­bra­tion on the stage in­fect­ed more than just those who love the band.

All that was left af­ter the big com­pe­ti­tions was the two-day Pa­rade of the Bands on Mon­day and Tues­day, an erup­tion of hap­pi­ness and free­dom, but which was sad­ly marred by two se­ri­ous in­ci­dents—a shoot­ing in St James that left one per­son dead and three in­jured, and the death of a mas­quer­ad­er in San Fer­nan­do af­ter be­ing run over by a mu­sic truck. Our hearts go out to the fam­i­lies of the vic­tims of these two trag­ic in­ci­dents.

Those cas­es aside, this year’s Car­ni­val was a suc­cess when mea­sured up to pre­vi­ous ones, with a sig­nif­i­cant re­duc­tion in crime and few­er road in­ci­dents than we’ve been ac­cus­tomed to.

With the coun­try now en­ter­ing a pe­ri­od of po­lit­i­cal di­vi­sions in the ex­er­cise of its democ­ra­cy, we were warmed by the uni­ty we saw on the streets.

We’ve en­dured much in re­cent times and no doubt will face oth­er chal­lenges this year.

If on­ly for those rea­sons alone, we most cer­tain­ly de­served this “pardy.”