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The Sonic Architects of a New Babel 147

belonged, according to Clarke, for none stood outside the irresolvable
dialectic of Calypso and Christianity.
I had sat in last week during Clarke’s radio programs where like the
Shadow he, too, employed Calypso to critique the political order and school
his public in the ambivalence of life. In that program he stated that reincar-
nation is a farce. Death is the ultimate limit. But he quickly then stated that
Hindus were partially right, for there was a breed of people who did reincar-
nate, namely, the politicians. All religions had some truth to them. He then
called the name of three unsuccessful but verbally strong fringe politicians,
known for their autochthony politics, which he claimed were reincarnated
souls. God had asked them what they would like to come back as. The first
two answered as a dog and a butterfly. God complied, for in these incarna-
tions no one would vote for them. SXM people might pet them, and even
considerer them cute, but would never put their future in their hands: “A
dog is man’s best friend, never he master.” The third politician, the most
avidly antinewcomer of the three, asked an almost impossible the request.
He asked to return as a jackass. Clarke said that God laughed and said: “but
you can’t take on the same identity twice.”
He continued by stating that though the more successful politicians on
SXM caused all kinds of confusion, people should not criticize them too
harshly for God was ultimately in charge. And He had a weak spot for
these politicians as they reminded him so much of our common grandfa-
ther Adam. Clarke then greeted the lieutenant governor and said that he
was an honest man, only to add that he was still waiting for the governor
to process the residence permit of his mira, his Columbian mistress.
After this lesson in the inseparableness of morality and immorality,
with the latter having the upper hand, he played a Calypso classic called
Politicians Prayer by Ellie Matt and the GI Brass where politicians accom-
panied by an intoxicating beat were asking God to forgive their former
corruptions and help them rig the coming elections. As the song ended he
stated that the politician’s prayer resembles the prayer of all SXMers:
“Forgive us our trespasses Lord, so that we can have it better than we
neighbor.”
Raised in the Dutch Caribbean, Clarke’s lesson on the inseparableness

of morality and immorality, and using this knowledge to get ahead in a
largely immoral world, was not new for me. It was experiential knowledge
that lay dormant since I was living in the mainland West where morality
seemed divorced from the immoral. It took my conversations with him, and
sitting in during his programs, to consciously remind me of how I had
been socialized to see and live life.
The contrapuntal relationship between the text and music played a vital
role in this socialization of embracing moral ambivalence as the basis of