Brand New Caribbean Revolution — Martin Felix [November 3, 2018]

Reading Time 10 mins

Big Drum Nation’s co-editor, Martin Felix’s presentation to the 2nd Annual Symposium on the Grenada Revolution, John Jay College, Department of Anthropology, Friday, October 19, 2018.

Big Drum Nation (BDN) focuses on writers, artists, books – the stories of our people. So we welcome this opportunity once again to be part of this annual symposium, the proceedings of which are being published here. We want to thank Professor Rougier (aka Bro Atiba) of the Department of Anthropology at John Jay College for his commitment and consistency in pulling off this series, which is now becoming etched on the political calendar. We hail the fact that the post-revolution generation is helping to preserve our memory. Building monuments (memories), intellectually and otherwise is an integral part of nation-building.

Brand New Caribbean Revolution

I know that the topic I have been asked to present on is the role of CARICOM in the Grenada invasion. I am asking the audience to allow me some liberty as I find this too limiting. Instead, I will attempt to examine the following more important questions: How did Grenada Revolution impact regionalism and what is the legacy of the reversal of the Grenada Revolution on the region? 

One of the favorite songs of the Grenada Revolution was Brother Valentino’s Ah Wo” aka “Brand New Revolution. In this song the self-described ‘people’s calypsonian’ envisioned Grenada-like changes spreading throughout the Antilles.

I quote from his lyrics:

Watch out Nevis
St. Kitts, Anguilla
St. Vincent, St. Lucia
And Dominica
Another pillar crumbles
Down comes the Prison Walls
Another leader tumbles
And another tyrant will fall
Coming up a brand-new revolution
Spreading through the West Indies
[he goes on to name all the countries of the Caribbean archipelago]
…
Colonialism dying by degrees
Imperialism dying by degrees
Dem say communism putting on the squeeze
Dem people shouting socialism if you please (circa 1979).

The song may be reminiscent of another important text at another juncture in history – Karl Marx’s and Frederick Engles’ The Communist Manifesto in which Marx and Engels waxed as eloquently as Bro Val did about a specter haunting Europe. Both of these texts – Bro Val’s “Ah Wo” and Karl Marx’s may have been a bit over-optimistic (considering the conditions that still obtain today) but they are good snapshots of these moments that were pregnant with change – Marx reflecting on the revolutions that were birthing in Europe in the mid-nineteen century and the vision that the oppressive societies of the day would eventually be replaced by socialism.

For Brother Val, it was a reflection on self-determination and the sense of progressive self-determination that the Grenada Revolution ushered in for the mini-states of the region. But also it was the optimism of a moment when revolutions were sweeping the developing countries in general – Angola, Afghanistan, Mozambique, South Africa, Pakistan, etc.

While not everyone shared Brother Valentino’s enthusiasm/optimism, he was echoing the broad support the revolution had enjoyed within the region. There was a progressive nationalism with socialist content that was sweeping through the region centered around the Grenada Revolution and wide regional support it was enjoying internationally, especially regionally.

This region-wide support was expressed in multiple ways. But its most concrete expression was the scores of regional and global supporters (internationalists) who had migrated to Grenada from virtually every single Caribbean territory. Sister Lambert talks about Dionne Brand and there were scores (if not hundreds) of other prominent figures like St Lucian Didacus Jules (the current Director General of the Organization of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS) who spearheaded the Center for Popular Education, the controversial Don Rojas who became one-time editor of Free West Indian, my Jamaican managers at the Marketing and National Importing Board, brilliant St Lucian Journalist Earle Bousquet, Dominicans, Barbadians, Guyanese, Trinidadians, Vincentians – poets, development enthusiasts, not to mention the hundreds of Cubans invited by Grenada that were working in various capacities.

US socialist/Black Power activist Angela Davis in Grenada

But perhaps the deepest concrete manifestation that this regional solidarity, this expression of ‘one-ness’, took was when in September 1979 leaders of St. Lucia, Dominica, and Grenada met in St Georges for the Declaration of St Georges, in which the leaders of these three countries (Oliver Seraphine, Allan Louisy and his radical deputy George Odlum) signed an agreement of solidarity. The St Georges Declaration  was a joint statement of objective and aspirations outlined by the governments embracing a socialist orientated path of development. In this declaration, a number of initiatives suggesting a radical orientation was laid out for the development of the sub-region. 

These included an independent and nonaligned foreign policy, opposition to colonialism, etc. Most importantly it expressed a commitment to put forward a “revised concept of the Organization of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS)”. The crucial factor of this revision was the stipulation that the three territories were in opposition to a conservative ideological orientation of the OECS. Part of this plan was an (earlier) effort to create regional defense force for the OECS (later to be realized as the present US-trained Regional Security System (RSS). The Declaration instead expressed support for a regional defense force that would serve, not as a device to prop up undemocratic regimes or to help keep a dictator in power but for the purposes of resisting external aggression, etc. It must be remembered that these were the key countries of the OECS at the time since the others were not independent as yet (St Vincent and the Grenadines, St. Kitts, Antigua subsequently got their independence). The importance of this declaration can only be fully realized when one considers the sinister role the OECS was pressured to play in the Grenada invasion almost four years later.

We should also recall that, although not a member of the OECS, the NJM’s relationship with Jamaica’s Michael Manley PNP government and that of Guyana’s Forbes Burnham (PNC), Cheddi Jagan’s People Progressive Party, etc were also very close – Jamaica and Guyana were the first two governments to recognize the Grenada Revolution. These developments were in addition to the many embryonic radical formation in various neighboring territories that rallied around the revolution, such as the National Joint Action Committee and other such groups in Trinidad and Tobago. 

At the same time, either in response to or in spite of these developments, there were also countervailing actions – US hostilities to Grenada continued to intensify, and some of the narratives of this hostility were actually framed in a manner that showed that this progressive regionalism was seen as a problem by the US. References were made by the US, for example, that Grenada was exporting revolution to the region.

The project of isolating the Grenada revolution placed unrelenting pressure on regional governments to distance and isolate Grenada. The Grenada Revolution was showing that contrary to the assumption of many of the region’s leaders that small size and economic underdevelopment were mitigating factors against the demand for sovereignty and self-determination, the quest for economic development was at the center of Grenada’s leaders preoccupation. This was shown by the many initiatives such as mass participation in national budget discussions, the new airport construction, etc. And Grenada inspired the region, especially since, in the case of the OECS, these were the tiniest of the Caribbean’s Small Island Developing States, were all of similar scale, demographics, and levels of development.

But unfortunately, these ‘Brand-New Revolutions’ were short-lived. Eventually Michael Manley will lose power in 1980 to the conservative Edward Seaga’s Jamaica Labor Party, the St Lucia Labor Party devolved and lost power in ’82 following a series of crises (much of which was the result of US pressure to keep the radical Odlum out of government), and O.J. Seraphine’s and his Dominica Labor Party will eventually lose the 1980 election to arch-conservative Eugenia Charles, who idolized Margaret Thatcher.

It was, however, Ronald Reagan’s ascendancy to office in the United States that posed the greatest threat to this birth of regional-wide progressive political thrust. Reagan campaigned heavily against the Grenada Revolution in the 1980 US election. His brand of aggressive neo-liberalism placed Grenada in its cross-hair and regional conservative forces – the Eugenia Charles, Thomas Adams of Barbados, Edward Seaga of the region were emboldened.

Ronald Reagan did not wait. In 1982, the US administration implemented the Caribbean Basin Initiative to “stem the tide of leftism in the region” by offering financial aid and development assistance with the caveat that Grenada be excluded. The pressure was also placed on the Eastern Caribbean Currency Union to exclude Grenada from the economic union. The Munroe Doctrine carrot and stick was in full effect – countries that were complicit in undermining Grenada benefitted. For example, the US had given Dominica a $10 million road repair deal. US award-winning journalist Bob Woodward, in his book Veil: The Secret Wars of the CIA, 1981-1987, quotes a report to the US Senate Intelligence Committee in which a Reagan administration official recounts a call from Eugenia Charles stating that he had his pencil in hand ready to deal with her requests. The official reveals that “[he] felt like the public-works manager as he micromanaged the thirty-mile $10 million roads.” The US also gave $2 million for Dominica schools and another $150,000 for river crossings.

Other speakers have spoken sufficiently about the specifics of the collapse of the Grenada Revolution. So I will cut through the chase. Suffice to say that the collapse of the Grenada Revolution followed the founding of the International Democrat Union (IDU) in a London hotel in June 1983. The group was founded as the umbrella organization for the conservative European Democrat Union (EDU), Caribbean Democrat Union (CDU), and the Asia Pacific Democrat Union (APDU), coalitions of the most extreme right-wing parties in the world. IDU was created from the instigation of archconservatives such as Konrad Adenauer Foundation, the then US Vice President and ex-CIA chief George H. W. Bush, Ronald Reagan, Margaret Thatcher, etc. The CDU itself was founded shortly before.

A follow-up meeting of the CDU at the White House shortly thereafter saw the likes of Edward Seaga, and his government’s Minister of National Security, Thomas Adams of Barbados, Eugenia Charles, but also Herbert Blaize, Bruce Golding, etc. Much of the details of the IDU and CDU plans are not public but what even the little historical details available show that script for the reversal of the Grenada revolution was being laid out by the IDU, at least in part, and with regional complicity (through the CDU) being an integral aspect.

US propaganda slogans during occupation of Grenada 1983

Eventually, Eugenia Charles, in her capacity then as chair of the Organization of Eastern Caribbean, States who was used by the US State Department to appeal to the United States, in complicity with Jamaica and Barbados to invade Grenada. Eugenia Charles appeared on television with U.S. president Ronald Reagan supporting the invasion. Bob Woodward has reported that the US paid millions of dollars to the Dominica Government, some of which was regarded by the CIA as “a ‘payoff’ [Mrs. Charles’s support] for the US invasion.”

Even if we were to put Grenada’s sovereignty aside for a second, the arguments of the architects of the invasion held on to spider thin thread and did not stand up to the scrutiny of international law as can be seen in the almost unanimous UN vote against invasion.

Proponents of the invasion argued steadfastly using Organization of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS) charter (Article 8, 1981) which calls in its quasi-collective security provision for unitary self-defense in accordance with Article 51 of the UN charter. The trouble with the argument was that the OECS specifically calls for unanimity of members in coming to such decisions. And, since three of the OECS treaty members – Grenada, St. Kitts – Nevis, and Montserrat – did not vote on the matter (for a variety of different reasons), the ‘legality’ argument was rather feeble at best.

In any case, the fact of a successful regional counter-revolution attests to the reality today that the CDU remains the most organized and successful regional political grouping. Many of the embryonic leftist parties have receded into history. Unlike the conservative CDU and its member parties, there is no region-wide progressive movement as such.

The CDU’s success is indicated by the fact that its member parties, including Keith Mitchell’s NNP, have been the most successful political parties in the region – just in terms of electoral successes, and political dominance. Ably supported by their parent organization (the IDU), they share resources, conduct election training of their members, have youth arms, women arms, have regular conferences, provide technical support for each other’s efforts, etc. And they are, with the IDU, part of a network of 73 conservative full and associate members from 63 different countries worldwide, perhaps the largest political grouping in world politics.

Grenada’s most successful politician, Dr. Keith Mitchell, has served both as an officer in the IDU as well as Chairman of the Caribbean Democratic Union. Ms. Joan Gordon-Webley (of the Jamaica Labor Party), Dr. Keith Mitchell’s chief political strategist in the 1995 election which saw him win the election by one seat and a landslide in the 1999 election – taking all the seats in Parliament – is an erstwhile Vice President of the International Democratic Union (IDU).

The question is who does this ascendancy of the Caribbean right benefit? Is the Caribbean better off with the success of the neo-liberal agenda as advocated by the IDU and its cohorts? Is Grenada better off?

Some individuals have been better off for sure. One of the symbolic actions that ushered in this neo-liberal agenda in the moment of the invasion of Grenada was the deliberate looting of the Spice Island Industries agro-industrial plant and transferring much of the equipment directly to Dominica as a personal gift to Eugenia Charles! This can be viewed as purposeful undisguised political symbolism because part of the neo-liberal agenda is to ruthlessly sell off state assets and usher in a privatization agenda.

The Grenada invasion and the way in which internal and regional fissures were used to amplify our natural differences, should be instructive to future generations. It also reminds us of the need to be the caretakers of our own history and a warning that our interests are never served by those that have historically stymied our development as a nation and region in the first place.

There are wide bodies of studies on the impact of global neoliberalism on ideals of the sovereignty of the independent nation-state, and of particular mini-states. The work of Joseph Tennyson, particularly his work “Decolonization in St. Lucia: Politics and Global Neoliberalism, 1945–2010” is key to understanding the impact of global neoliberalism on the OECS and the wider Caribbean groups of mini-states. We should also welcome Bernard Coard’s latest book, Forward Ever: Journey to A New Grenada.

The Brand New Caribbean Revolutions were trampled by forces larger that the capacities of these collections of the world’s tiniest micro-states, but the memories and lessons loom large in the imaginations of the region’s people. This is evident by the volumes of artistic and literary reflections of the period.  Bernard Coard’s latest release, Forward Even: Journey to a New Grenada, is one of a slew of Grenadian writers that are finally reflecting on the Grenada Revolution and its legacy. Coard’s book is invaluable as it provides a unique vantage point of a complex and multifaceted story.