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Reading Time 12 mins
November 1, 2020
Overture
“This is my place, every West Indian place/Regardless to class, creed, or race.
Listen, Uncle Sam, we want back we land…We want back Chaguaramas.”
Nap Hepburn, “We Want Back Chaguaramas,” 1959
“I’m Trini to the bone and Caribbean to the core.” Sunity Maharaj
“Now Grenada being my birthplace/ Trinidad being the land I know
My obligation is to Trinidad/But I owe Grenada also.”
Valentino, “Namesake”
At a time when Donald Trump, the would-be medieval king, is hell-bent on compromising the sovereignty of Caribbean nations, it’s an appropriate time to reflect on how the calypso has educated civilians and politicians alike on issues about social responsibility and what it means to be a Caribbean patriot have been of significant concern.
To be sure, the political directorate has not acknowledged such grassroots popular education–read as conscious awareness. Perhaps only Grenada in the 1979-1983 period welcomed this form of indigenous knowledge flowing through people’s lived experiences when a concerted attempt was made to integrate the popular arts, the calypso particularly, into the framework of mass public education. Thus, calypso pedagogy, a bulwark against Yankee imperialism, has remained hidden in plain sight of the ‘irresponsible elite.’
Nevertheless, the calypso serves both as a transmitter and molder of public opinion by encapsulating the popular will of the mass public, often in opposition to the ideas of traditional scholarship and politicians, as they often overlook the wisdom of our grassroots philosophers. Still, has the political directorate ever learned or benefitted from the free and public education emanating from the calypso and popular culture? Vibes, in Chalkdust’s estimation, “the mouthpiece of the people,” also oppose any foreign interference in national affairs. Have leaders been listening?
Indeed, such silencing/obstruction of the rich educative potential of the calypso in the governmental chambers provides a bridgehead. Such practice makes it easier for those –refashioning Black Stalin’s ‘headhunters’ refrain — including the Trump bandwagon, to subvert Caribbean sovereignty and foment discord in the region, especially around Venezuela’s right to exist free of fear from the dictates of the American hegemon.
Towards this end, the Administration’s most vulgar attempt is its cooptation of leaders, most dramatically with Guyana’s People’s Progressive Party, a leadership that suffered at the hands of the CIA in the 1950s but today is an apparent enabler of Trump’s illegal sanctions in its attempt to overthrow the duly elected Venezuelan government. But, interestingly too, Trump’s morality doesn’t stop at the water’s edge, for not even in today’s America is the president willing to concede what he so assiduously pushes for in the Caribbean — respect for democracy and the wishes of the electorate.
From President Roosevelt in Colombia, a long history of US interventions shows that the current president isn’t the only one disdainful of sovereignty in the region. Arbenz in Guatemala, Allende in Chile, and, even closer to home, Grenada in 1983 are just a few instances of an updated big-stick policy weaponized as ‘gunboat diplomacy.‘ Indeed, the combination of Trump’s bombastic antics and actions prompts the recall of Gaddafi’s quip in response to the US invasion of Grenada to “restore democracy.” The Libyan leader mused; perhaps the world should get together to invade the US and restore democracy. How prescient? Today, one wonders if such thinking may be necessary after November 3, 2020, or if the Carter Center should be called to monitor Tuesday’s elections.
Suppose Caribbean leaders paid closer attention to the literature of our indigenous scholars; these decision-makers might get a better handle on presenting and preserving a united front in defense of Caribbean sovereignty and self-determination. Instead, there’s no connecting with knowledge dispensed by our popular artists; hence the gulf has not been more evident than in some of our “leaders'” tepid and gullible response to the boldface attempts by the Trump administration to bring about regime change in Venezuela, even in the midst of Covid-19.
I. What Dignity?
“Am I an immigrant, or am I a new slave
Made for old brutality?”
David Rudder, “The Immigrants”
Few would have thought that some sixty-something years after Dr. Eric Williams spoke out against Trinidad and Tobago and the Caribbean being continually relegated to being mere “hewers of wood and drawers of water for… foreign… overlords [to prolong] the island’s arrested development,” that so many of our ‘leaders’ would sacrifice such foundational principles — patriotism, defense of sovereignty, and anti-imperialism — for narrow political advantage and a mere pottage of fake gold. Indeed, the actions of T&T’s opposition and its leader in the run-up to last August’s election passed the unpatriotic test. Such activities prompted the T&T Express (May 4, 2020) not only to call it an “act of disgrace” but to editorialize: “Our differences with each other could never be so extreme that we are willing to throw our country and its people under the armada of a superpower.”
To be sure, one does not have to embrace the mantra, ‘my country right or wrong’ to appreciate that signaling the hegemon to ‘punish’ one’s own country for taking a principled stand in keeping with its tradition — reeks of opportunism — a kind that runs counter to Black Stalin’s contention that it’s precisely when the polis is under pressure that’s “the time to show we patriotism” This outlook is one that Louis Regis affirms thus, “deep within the belly of the Calypso there burns a vital eternal flame of love for the country” and repulsion, steeped in resistance, to outside interference.
This tendency is all the more perplexing as we listen, in David Rudder’s estimation, to “strange dogs… barking deep in the night” even as the irascible Yasin Abu Bakr declaims, “Patriotism in a sovereign nation especially in a time of crisis… requires that we pull together for the greater good.” Indeed, a profound fidelity to the nation runs deeply among many Trinbagonians and Caribbean citizens.
I’m reminded of a colleague who, one day after receiving his MBA in 1985, returned to the ‘Motherland’ without a firm job offer, perhaps anticipating David Rudder’s evocative line, “No place in this world, I’d rather be [than] sweet, sweet T&T.” The newly minted graduate justified his return thus, “Even if I have to start by picking up and selling bottles in Santa Cruz… I’m going home.” As a true patriot, he was committed to the national interest and, in the long run, contributing to the greater good of the nation and region.
_ _ _ _
Trumpian Trini
“I want to work. As a man of color… I don’t want a handout or free stuff,” filtered thru the WhatsApp message (of May 5). The unmistakable Trinbagonian voice, highlighting two of the nation’s three watchwords “…discipline, tolerance, and production” — as memorialized in Bryner’s calypso — drew me in. The speaker continued, “I am originally from T&T [and] our small island… is flooded by Venezuelans because of socialism.”
I was somewhat puzzled by the speaker’s luck to be selected by a US media outlet to re-present an immigrant’s view on the pandemic raging through America. By celebrating two Trumpian fixations, deep skepticism about the coronavirus, and opposition to ‘socialism’ in Venezuela, the speaker pledged his allegiance to the president. Such bravado of this ostensibly proud and patriotic Trinbagonian, among a gang of Trumpers — who could quickly have passed as members of Jim Jones 1978 cult–at a Michigan rally, made me wonder.
Such unflinching adoration and support for the president’s insistence on the early reopening of America when both good sense and the scientists disagreed pushed me to reflect on electioneering moves at the time in T&T by the opposition to goad the US to impose sanctions on T&T for selling oil to Venezuela contravening America’s diktat. Indeed, such action by today’s opposition mirrored the US “covert campaign against [Premier Eric] Williams and in support of the opposition DLP [Democratic Labor Party]” in the run-up to the 1958 Federal Elections and the opposition’s denouncement of Williams’ “adventurism” in insisting on the return of Chaguaramas. (1) This realization and the juxtaposition of these two seemingly unrelated events prompted me to forward the clip (WhatsApp message) to Kim Johnson, a T&T colleague and a prolific writer and commentator on society.
Within two minutes, Johnson responded with an article he wrote in 2003, titled “This Is My Land” — samplin’ a line from Sniper’s classic calypso — a treatise on what it means to be a true nationalist. In the article, Johnson called out those who would serve up their nation to foreign imperialists powers either for personal or narrow political gain. He noted, “It deeply saddens me the alacrity with which some Trinidadians seek to wash our dirty linen in public for party political purposes.” Viewed against the backdrop of the T&T opposition leader’s groveling to the US, I began reflecting, against the backbeat of the calypso, on the intersectionality of national pride, identity, and defense of sovereignty in our region.
II. “In Nobody’s Backyard.”
“They land troops in [Grenada] just so without an invitation.“
Black Stalin, “Cry of the Caribbean”
Fortunately for the Caribbean, only one aspect of the dual pandemics — Covid-19 and the Trump presidency, still plaguing America — is poised to decimate our region, and it’s not necessarily the coronavirus. Nevertheless, by discerning the virility of the coronavirus from the outset, Caribbean governments locked down from early, and this may well have led to the “relative success in the fight against the multifaceted challenges posed by the pandemic,” which is surging in America, even today.
Yet, a recalcitrant and irresponsible section of the Trinidad elite was intent on unleashing the wrath of President Trump on Trinbago at a time when there was much uncertainty about the trajectory of the deadly Covid-19 in Trinidad and the region. [Interestingly, like the US president, the opposition leader even embraced Trump’s baseless and dangerous claim that “sunlight will kill the virus“].
Perhaps not since Eugenia Charles — about whom Black Stalin noted, “Peter, Peter look the woman/Who bring foreign troops in the Caribbean/ Burn she, burn she”— paved the way for the US invasion of Grenada as a Caribbean leader acted in such a gullible way to the USA as the T&T opposition leader, who was begging the Trump administration to intervene in the internal affairs of T&T, by imposing sanctions for the government’s alleged sale of oil to Venezuela. Indeed, the Trump administration appears even more obsessed with removing President Maduro, perhaps as a distraction from its internal woes–the mishandled pandemic and the possibility of losing the upcoming election.
To be sure, a recurring feature of T&T’s foreign policy under the PNM [People’s National Movement] was most visibly displayed by its refusal to rubber-stamp the 1983 ‘US-led’ invasion of Grenada, which was illegal both in form and as policy. This cowardly act prompted Valentino’s lamentation in “Saga of the PRA,” “They [the counterrevolutionaries] orchestrated a crucifixion that led to a Yankee invasion.” It is against this backdrop of America’s insistence on imposing its will, despite the pain inflicted on the region, which fuels the US’s displeasure with CARICOM’s commitment to a “policy of non-intervention in the internal affairs of Venezuela,” which is in stark opposition to the Trump administration’s push to remove the legally-constituted Venezuelan government. Ironically an administration with mass support of the type lacking in America for the last four years.
On reflection, one wonders if, by tapping into widespread discontent– championed in Nap Hepburn’s “We Want Back Chaguaramas” and particularly captured in the Lord Invader speaking out against the “American social invasion”— the Williams-led march on Chaguaramas with rain-drenched marchers singing Nap Hepburn’s chorus “Uncle Sam, we want we land back” was a declaration of autonomous self-determination. Not unlike the radicalism of Cheddie Jagan, in 1953 British Guiana, asserting a right to choose one’s ideological orientation, these positions can be viewed as the first salvo in attempts by committed regionalists to challenge US domination and steer an independent course of Washington’s imperialistic designs.
As to be expected, Jagan’s and Williams’ positions were viewed as anti-American. But to civilians and calypsonians alike, it was primarily a matter of defending one’s UN enshrined right of self-determination buttressed by a well-grounded nationalist spirit. Indeed, Chalkdust, in “Spare Our Children,” crystalized the nation’s quest for self-determination and a disdain — especially of citizens who were displaced without proper compensation by the Yankee’ invasion’ — for the rampant exploitation that ensued, thus:
“You came uninvited and took my peoples’ land
You established bases all over my island
Your men used to roam all over our mountains with weapons…
You made my people toil on lands you occupied.
You paid low wages, and you sucked the orange dry.”
In short, Chalkdust not only echoed Nap Hepburn’s “We want we land back” but joined those indigenous artists and activists who grounded the March to Independence/Self-Determination throughout the region with the battle cry provided by Nap Hepburn’s “Independence for one and all” in a deft rendering of Kaiso as transformative pedagogy.
Furthermore, actions in the wider Caribbean by leaders such as; Cheddi Jagan striving to steer an ideological path independent of the powerful interlopers as reflected in Forbidden Freedom and later putting The West On Trial; and Michael Manley’s championing of the New International Economic Order encapsulated in The Struggle in the Periphery; served as proto-skirmishes against US hegemony, in a region which America traditionally claimed as its backyard or ghetto in which it could dominate with immunity! Indeed, while these early challenges to the leviathan may well have provided the foundation for a more self-assertive Caribbean, King Short Shirt’s Viva Grenada, with its defiant lyrics…
“Stand up, Grenada
Stand up again, Grenadian
Don’t let nobody come in
and dictate your course of action…
Protect what you have
Don’t give in a single inch
Don’t retreat not even a pinch
Don’t compromise your revolution…“
…may well have anticipated if not laid the foundation for one of the boldest affirmations of Caribbean sovereignty echoed in Maurice Bishop’s speech, “In Nobody’s Backyard” with its stirring, “We are not in anybody’s backyard, and we are definitely not for sale”!
III. Kaiso Pedagogy
“Can you hear a distant drum
Bouncing on the laughter of a melody…
It is a living vibration
Rooted deep in my Caribbean belly.“
David Rudder, “Calypso Music”
If, as Valentino has argued, “the calypsonian is the only true opposition,” are calypsonians and other indigenous artists, such as “genuine Rastafarians” who, St. Hope Earl McKenzie suggests “among the best examples of [philosophers] to be found in the Caribbean,” also the true discerners and carriers of the nationalist spirit and essence? And is it time for their dissertations to be required study for all prospective politicians throughout the region?
For it’s evident that Caribbean government officials are not attuned to the aspirations of the populace. Hence, deep immersion in our creative indigenous/folk arts is needed, which speak powerfully to our sense of being and encapsulate so much of our Caribbean essence.
It seems as if on entering parliament and government, bureaucrats and officials recant such indigenous knowledge. Little wonder that Williams mentioned just two calypsos in his autobiography — one that flattered him and the other on Federation. Referencing one of his early actions, a new tax initiative – which was criticized by the elite — Williams wrote: “The Pay As You Earn system gave rise to one of the best calypsos in Trinidad’s history, Sparrow’s ‘PAYE.'” Indeed, to many bureaucrats and politicians, calypso is only appreciated as window dressing to flatter egos. This self-serving certainly needs redress. Cultural literacy, then, should be a requirement for all.
Perhaps, it’s not too far-fetched to require aspiring parliamentarians, senators, and all who serve in a “high level” in government to attend and complete a diploma/degree in either UTT, Master of Arts in Calypso Studies; UWI Mona, Institute of Caribbean Studies and the Reggae Studies Unit!; UWI, Cave Hill, Faculty of Creative and Festival Arts; or UWI St. Augustine, Department of Creative and Festival Arts.
On a T&T radio program Kaiso Kafe ( Talk City 91.1 FM 10/18/2020), Dr. Anthony ‘Mighty Gabby’ Carter reflecting on the unifying and pan-Caribbean stream in the calypso and popular culture may have said it best: “The people of the Caribbean are together, but not the politicians.” A connection forged not just thru a love of liberty but from deep immersion in calypso as pedagogy.
Perhaps there’s no better note to end on than the one struck by King Short Shirt in 1979 on “Viva Grenada,” in which he confronts the historical farce of America’s democracy. Woody Guthrie, the “” founding father of American protest music.” who called out Donald Trump as a charlatan since “[Donald] was an understudy in his father’s real estate business — allegedly infested with KKK sensibilities — which apparently denied fair housing access to Blacks,” would undoubtedly endorse Short Pant’s sentiments. At a time when Trump’s attorney general–whom some may refer to as a “legislative criminal”– and his trumpets play a weird melody, Short Shirt’s lyrics still echo through time:
“some talk of legality
Constitutionality
But only to export their hypocrisy
For if you examine
The state of affairs in their land
You will find human rights violations
Total disregard for the constitution
Complex political persecution
And a wave of sanctioned violence
With the blessing of legislative criminals
And forced by sadistic gangs
Just like the mongoose one….”
Let’s continue to appreciate and unleash our native wit and imagination, often hidden in plain sight in the kaiso. Indeed, Kaiso is transformative pedagogy when deconstructed and sensitively dispensed!
Notes:
- Spencer Mawby,” Uncle Sam, We Want Back We Land” Eric Williams and the Anglo-American Controversy over the Chaguaramas Base, 1957–1961,” “Diplomatic History, Vol. 36, No. 1 (January 2012)
W. R. (troppy) Holder, an emancipated NYC public educator and a founding member of the Caribbean Awareness Committee (NY), is co-editor of BigDrumNation and the author of Classroom Calypso: Giving Voice to the Voiceless.