WEBVTT - Grenada with Andrew, Pt. 2 0:00:01.800 --> 0:00:04.960 All the media. 0:00:06.440 --> 0:00:09.479 Hello and welcome. Take it happen here. I'm Andrew Sage, 0:00:09.520 --> 0:00:13.440 your host, and I'm joined by James again. 0:00:14.160 --> 0:00:16.320 Excited to be here again. I enjoyed the last episode. 0:00:16.520 --> 0:00:19.040 Yes, another host of a canappen near. There are two 0:00:19.040 --> 0:00:27.280 of us, So James's American British or British American kind 0:00:27.320 --> 0:00:32.480 of and how we want to order that? And I'm Trinidadian. 0:00:33.159 --> 0:00:34.640 As you may or may not be able to tell, 0:00:35.280 --> 0:00:38.839 but in Trinidad there are actually a lot of Grenadians 0:00:38.840 --> 0:00:42.640 and descendants of Grenadians. Between our islands has been a 0:00:42.640 --> 0:00:48.000 lot of population exchange, mostly in one direction. But we're 0:00:48.040 --> 0:00:51.120 here to talk about a notable point in the history 0:00:51.360 --> 0:00:54.600 for my neighbor in Ireland, Grenada. If you missed part one, 0:00:54.640 --> 0:00:57.000 you should go and give it a listen. The gist 0:00:57.080 --> 0:01:00.400 is that, after drawn out efforts to gain independent nuns, 0:01:00.440 --> 0:01:04.560 Grenada finally did so in nineteen seventy four, but unfortunately 0:01:04.640 --> 0:01:08.200 under the rule of Eric Gary, an oppressive fixture of 0:01:08.200 --> 0:01:12.399 politics that the people want it out. The underdog, the 0:01:12.520 --> 0:01:15.800 New Jewel Movement led by Maurice Bishop, pulled off a 0:01:15.840 --> 0:01:19.119 blood less coup while Gary was at a un meeting 0:01:19.280 --> 0:01:23.400 in New York, and thus the People's Revolutionary Government was formed, 0:01:23.800 --> 0:01:27.640 led by Prime Minister Marie Bishop. The manaches stay in 0:01:27.680 --> 0:01:31.600 power from nineteen seventy nine to nineteen eighty three. So 0:01:31.640 --> 0:01:33.800 today we're talking about what they did in that time 0:01:33.880 --> 0:01:37.760 and what happened next, including the infamous US invasion that 0:01:37.920 --> 0:01:41.800 is so often a footnote of history and its aftermath 0:01:42.000 --> 0:01:45.760 on the people of Grenada that lasts up to this day. 0:01:46.520 --> 0:01:49.280 Once again, the research for this episode leans on Grenada 0:01:49.520 --> 0:01:53.200 Revolution and invasion by Pati Lewis at Al along with 0:01:53.320 --> 0:01:59.800 None Should Escape by Joseph Edwards aka fundly so Fresh 0:02:00.160 --> 0:02:03.120 the victory of the New Jewel movement. The temperature of 0:02:03.160 --> 0:02:06.920 the populace was varied but excited. You had people who 0:02:06.960 --> 0:02:12.760 had genuine revolutionary aspirations, people who were passionately anti imperialists, 0:02:13.200 --> 0:02:15.239 and then the people who just wanted better health care 0:02:15.280 --> 0:02:18.680 and education and didn't really care where who it came from. 0:02:19.400 --> 0:02:21.840 And on that note, I would say that it's something 0:02:21.880 --> 0:02:25.400 that often flies under the radar or escapes awareness in 0:02:25.440 --> 0:02:30.799 the discourse because the most passionate, the most invested, the 0:02:30.880 --> 0:02:34.400 most prominent voices all that we tend to hear the 0:02:34.480 --> 0:02:38.600 vast majority of people pretty much go with the flow. 0:02:40.080 --> 0:02:43.080 You know, they keep their heads down, their focus tends 0:02:43.080 --> 0:02:47.520 to be on their immediate needs, their immediate interests. And 0:02:47.600 --> 0:02:50.680 you have the idea logues in every camp, but of 0:02:50.720 --> 0:02:54.480 every persuasion who are aiming to push the country in 0:02:54.520 --> 0:02:58.760 a particular direction. But at least at this point in time, 0:02:58.800 --> 0:03:03.000 there was an ambivalence towards the how, the political how 0:03:03.440 --> 0:03:07.200 much of the population. They just needed to see the results. 0:03:07.639 --> 0:03:10.919 And for a lot of people in the present day, 0:03:11.560 --> 0:03:14.320 the change, the revolution, or whatever you want to call it, 0:03:14.360 --> 0:03:20.320 isn't it going to come from an ideological transformation, well 0:03:20.360 --> 0:03:27.000 worded argument or arrangement of you know, prose. It's going 0:03:27.080 --> 0:03:31.640 to come from a lived experience where their life has 0:03:31.880 --> 0:03:35.520 improved in some way, in some form of fashion, by action, 0:03:35.840 --> 0:03:39.880 by a project that actually puts the change into practice. 0:03:40.040 --> 0:03:42.600 And so that's really what the New Dual Movement had 0:03:42.600 --> 0:03:45.880 been about from the beginning, being part of the community, 0:03:45.880 --> 0:03:49.000 being part of the people taking part in you know, 0:03:49.080 --> 0:03:51.960 supporting them, which is why they had the popular mandate. 0:03:52.640 --> 0:03:54.880 And then once they got into power, a lot of 0:03:54.920 --> 0:03:58.920 their efforts were focused on indeed trying to actually put 0:03:59.640 --> 0:04:04.200 into place and alternatives for all the flaws that it 0:04:04.280 --> 0:04:07.360 may have had, and get to that shortly, and that 0:04:07.440 --> 0:04:11.240 they did. You know, they organized the Center for Popular Education, 0:04:12.000 --> 0:04:15.040 They organized teacher training, sought to make secondary schools and 0:04:15.080 --> 0:04:20.159 colleges more accessible to people. They introduced maternity leave for women, yes, 0:04:20.560 --> 0:04:26.120 although notably party members who were women were pressured to 0:04:26.520 --> 0:04:31.200 come back to work maybe after having children. So again 0:04:31.240 --> 0:04:35.440 we'll get to those flaws. There was still inequality in 0:04:35.520 --> 0:04:38.760 pay between men and women, but the Usual Movement did 0:04:38.800 --> 0:04:43.480 make efforts to mandate equal pay and to engage in 0:04:44.440 --> 0:04:48.719 some changes toward addressing the inequality between men and women 0:04:49.400 --> 0:04:53.840 in the country. However, a revolution was still needed within 0:04:53.880 --> 0:04:57.919 the revolution, as it has tended to be across these revolutions, 0:04:58.000 --> 0:05:02.000 you know, across these years Usual stuff, women were still 0:05:02.040 --> 0:05:05.320 doing the most of the housework, and both sexes were 0:05:05.360 --> 0:05:08.400 expected to take part in political engagement. So you had 0:05:08.440 --> 0:05:12.000 women in the party in the Udual movement, but it 0:05:12.120 --> 0:05:16.960 was a sort of an expectation of equality in some respects, 0:05:17.000 --> 0:05:19.279 like yeah, come out to work even though you just 0:05:19.320 --> 0:05:22.040 had children, because everybody else is coming on to work. 0:05:22.200 --> 0:05:22.719 Yeah. 0:05:22.760 --> 0:05:25.400 And yet it was like, oh, yeah, I can keep 0:05:25.440 --> 0:05:28.680 on doing the housework. We're not gonna take on hour 0:05:28.760 --> 0:05:29.240 load there. 0:05:29.680 --> 0:05:33.760 Yep, that's funny. I finished my book recently. But they 0:05:33.800 --> 0:05:37.040 have a chapter on gender, and there's just a communist 0:05:37.320 --> 0:05:40.880 militant in Spain who was fighting at the front line. 0:05:41.360 --> 0:05:43.840 But also they were saddled with that double burden, right 0:05:43.880 --> 0:05:47.440 because women were expected to be the ones amongst, especially 0:05:47.480 --> 0:05:52.000 amongst the communists, who cooked and cleaned in addition to fighting. 0:05:52.800 --> 0:05:54.520 But she has this famous line where she says, I 0:05:54.520 --> 0:05:56.720 didn't join the military to die with a dish cloth. 0:05:56.440 --> 0:05:56.960 In my hand. 0:05:58.800 --> 0:06:02.880 Which that's great. Yeah, it's a good one. I like 0:06:02.920 --> 0:06:03.320 it a lot. 0:06:03.839 --> 0:06:09.000 Yeah, yeah, But flaws with engaging with gender aside. There will, 0:06:09.040 --> 0:06:11.599 of course, other things the utual movement was doing that 0:06:11.760 --> 0:06:16.080 was positive. You know, they encouraged agricultural diversification and local 0:06:16.080 --> 0:06:20.640 food production, moving away from that sort of exclusive or 0:06:20.680 --> 0:06:24.080 ne exclusive dependence on nutnet production that had defined the 0:06:24.120 --> 0:06:26.880 colonial period. You know, they got rid of the old 0:06:26.920 --> 0:06:30.880 Westminster style parliamentary system in favor of a one party 0:06:30.960 --> 0:06:35.679 system with some elements of mass democracy. Now the degree 0:06:35.720 --> 0:06:41.279 to which that democracy actually empowered people is debatable, but 0:06:42.160 --> 0:06:46.640 there were, you know, efforts on the record. You know, 0:06:46.640 --> 0:06:50.120 they organized public meetings to discuss the national budget. They 0:06:50.120 --> 0:06:53.760 set up workers and youth and women's and farmers organizations, 0:06:55.000 --> 0:06:59.760 and unfortunately, even though Bishop was influenced by c LR James, 0:07:00.440 --> 0:07:04.400 he continued to pursue the sort of hierarchical leadership common 0:07:04.640 --> 0:07:09.880 in Caribbean politics. And so even with these alternative organizations, 0:07:09.960 --> 0:07:13.040 you had that kind of hierarchy. But I think that 0:07:13.200 --> 0:07:18.280 is to be expected from any movement besides anarchism. Yeah, 0:07:19.000 --> 0:07:23.000 so I can't say I'm surprised. They closed the independent 0:07:23.080 --> 0:07:28.040 newspaper Torchlights after an article highlighting erastopian protest against lack 0:07:28.040 --> 0:07:32.960 of representation in government. So there were efforts to ensure 0:07:33.040 --> 0:07:38.560 that Greator moved towards secularism, but freedom of the press 0:07:38.760 --> 0:07:43.960 was not something that was particularly high in the priorities, 0:07:44.600 --> 0:07:49.680 and there were still prejudices against religious groups and movements 0:07:49.720 --> 0:07:55.040 like the Rastaferians that had yet to be addressed. You know, 0:07:55.080 --> 0:08:00.640 these things aren't dealt with overnight. But I think when 0:08:01.040 --> 0:08:03.800 all you have is a hammer, everything can sort of 0:08:03.840 --> 0:08:08.240 look like a nail. Yeah, they didn't do anything too 0:08:08.360 --> 0:08:11.680 drastic in the economics. Spe for the most part, they 0:08:12.160 --> 0:08:17.560 left people's private businesses alone. They implemented some state enterprises, 0:08:17.600 --> 0:08:21.360 and they implemented some cooperative enterprises, so a fairly standard 0:08:21.440 --> 0:08:25.600 mixed economy, a mixed economy that interverean extents be found 0:08:25.640 --> 0:08:29.120 throughout the Caribbean, whether they had a revolution or not. 0:08:29.920 --> 0:08:33.360 But they did establish cooperative and friendly relations with Cuba, 0:08:33.880 --> 0:08:36.400 which was a real thorn on the side of the 0:08:36.480 --> 0:08:38.000 United States. 0:08:38.600 --> 0:08:39.760 Yeah, he didn't like them. 0:08:40.480 --> 0:08:43.800 And now this is I would say from nineteen seventy 0:08:43.840 --> 0:08:47.200 nine to nineteen eighty so their first two years in power, 0:08:47.720 --> 0:08:51.840 people were nervsited, you know, they were hopeful of the 0:08:51.880 --> 0:08:57.800 genuine declonization and positive change taking place. But the excitement 0:08:57.960 --> 0:09:02.400 part of the NEUVA site started to die down. By 0:09:02.480 --> 0:09:06.840 nineteen eighty one. The People's Revolutionary Government PRG became increasingly 0:09:06.960 --> 0:09:11.440 militaristic as time went on. They organized militias and armed people. 0:09:12.080 --> 0:09:15.160 They were essentially preparing for a Geary counter coup, but 0:09:15.280 --> 0:09:20.480 also potential Cie involvement. The police were replaced with military personnel. 0:09:21.120 --> 0:09:24.319 And I think this is the trap that a lot 0:09:24.320 --> 0:09:28.640 of these projects end up falling into. This concern about 0:09:28.640 --> 0:09:35.160 the enemy within and the enemy without leads these revolutionaries 0:09:35.240 --> 0:09:41.840 to cannibalize themselves, you know. The revolutionary potential and excitemes 0:09:42.559 --> 0:09:47.560 GE's curtailed because there's so much fail dominating that some 0:09:47.800 --> 0:09:51.120 enemy is going to attack, some violence is going to 0:09:51.200 --> 0:09:53.080 take place that they need to prepare for, and so 0:09:53.120 --> 0:09:56.600 you over your militarize, your militarize, and you stare the 0:09:56.760 --> 0:09:59.400 course of the project away from its original intentions to 0:09:59.440 --> 0:10:01.960 a point where it's not even recognizable to the people 0:10:02.000 --> 0:10:06.320 who initiated it. Yeah, you know, I'm not saying that 0:10:06.600 --> 0:10:13.160 they weren't right to be wary of US intervention. History 0:10:13.200 --> 0:10:18.480 has demonstrated as much. But it was something that the 0:10:18.520 --> 0:10:21.640 people of the country were becoming increasingly concerned about because 0:10:21.679 --> 0:10:27.120 it's a small country, and it's uncommon, you know, it's 0:10:27.160 --> 0:10:33.000 it's strange as unusual. It's unnerving to see militia's marching 0:10:33.080 --> 0:10:36.880 on your street. Now, the Mutual movement was starting to 0:10:36.880 --> 0:10:40.839 become more focused on establishing a vanguard corps, the more 0:10:40.960 --> 0:10:45.440 they oriented themselves toward Marxism lending as well. So, like 0:10:45.520 --> 0:10:48.080 I mentioned before, they were making this shift away from 0:10:48.120 --> 0:10:51.000 the sort of popular mass democracy that people like see 0:10:51.040 --> 0:10:53.720 Lar James was talking about. The more they read and 0:10:53.760 --> 0:10:57.839 they studied the works of Marxism lenders and there were 0:10:57.840 --> 0:11:01.840 people within the party who became more and more convinced. Again, 0:11:01.880 --> 0:11:04.520 remember the end positions of power this point in time. 0:11:04.920 --> 0:11:08.240 So you're in positions of power, and you're reading theoretical 0:11:08.360 --> 0:11:12.080 justifications for why you need to be in power. You 0:11:12.080 --> 0:11:15.080 know that you will stand by those theoretical justifications because 0:11:15.559 --> 0:11:19.360 it lines up with your interests, your self interests to 0:11:20.400 --> 0:11:23.640 you know, further your position of power, and the continuation 0:11:23.920 --> 0:11:27.719 of your role as an authority, as a leader. And 0:11:27.800 --> 0:11:32.400 so this vanguard call that they were pursuing, it ended 0:11:32.480 --> 0:11:37.360 up creating a hierarchy of in group and out group. 0:11:37.679 --> 0:11:39.880 You had the people who were in the vanguard, the 0:11:39.880 --> 0:11:42.160 people who were out of the vanguard, who didn't get picked, 0:11:42.200 --> 0:11:44.840 who didn't make the cut, you know, who felt snubbed. 0:11:45.600 --> 0:11:48.559 And this was facilities and it was fostering this an 0:11:48.640 --> 0:11:52.240 air of secrecy that people in the country were beginning 0:11:52.240 --> 0:11:55.240 to resent and lose trust in, because imagine you go 0:11:55.280 --> 0:11:58.360 in from this sort of popular engagement with the people 0:11:58.640 --> 0:12:01.640 as you, you know, take part in these efforts to 0:12:01.640 --> 0:12:05.000 push Gary out of power. Then you have this sort 0:12:05.000 --> 0:12:07.720 of secrecy, you have this sort of militarism. They're starting 0:12:07.760 --> 0:12:11.200 to remind people a bit of the exact Geary government 0:12:11.240 --> 0:12:14.720 that they wanted out. When two major events took place 0:12:14.760 --> 0:12:17.160 in nineteen eighty one. There was a bombing under the 0:12:17.160 --> 0:12:20.520 stage of a rally that killed some utes, and there 0:12:20.559 --> 0:12:23.840 was a car ambustion as well. Both of these incidents 0:12:23.840 --> 0:12:29.240 were blamed on counter revolutionaries in the country that famous buzzworth, 0:12:29.320 --> 0:12:35.920 that famous catchphrase, that famous justification for any and every response. Yeah. 0:12:36.040 --> 0:12:38.400 So it further pushed the country and really the whole 0:12:38.440 --> 0:12:43.720 society into this culture of suspicion and repression and also 0:12:43.800 --> 0:12:46.959 resent month for the New Dual movement. The New Jeral 0:12:47.000 --> 0:12:50.240 movement wasn't responsible for the bombans, but you can imagine 0:12:50.280 --> 0:12:53.079 people were probably saying when they were at the parlor 0:12:53.120 --> 0:12:56.800 by the grocery, you know, out by the bar down 0:12:56.840 --> 0:13:00.079 the street, they're saying, you know, at least didn't have 0:13:00.120 --> 0:13:02.960 any bombings under Gary. You know, at least the didn't 0:13:02.960 --> 0:13:07.000 have these combitions under Gary. Gary wasn't nice, but we 0:13:07.040 --> 0:13:12.240 didn't have terrorist attacks. And the sort of transparency and 0:13:12.760 --> 0:13:18.160 engagement people were accustomed to were starting to evaporate. The 0:13:18.240 --> 0:13:21.160 Neudual movement was starting to be seen by some as 0:13:21.160 --> 0:13:25.440 a secret society. And if your society is already small, right, 0:13:25.520 --> 0:13:29.360 just about one hundred thousand people. Yeah, having a secret 0:13:29.360 --> 0:13:33.840 society within that small society where everybody knows everybody, that's 0:13:33.880 --> 0:13:39.400 not good, especially when the revolution is so new, so nationed. 0:13:40.080 --> 0:13:43.360 You need people's trust and especially as well, because people 0:13:43.400 --> 0:13:48.440 were not ideologically for Marxism Leninism, most of them, that is, 0:13:48.840 --> 0:13:52.120 they were ideologically for Marxism Leniness and they were ideologically 0:13:52.880 --> 0:13:57.400 nudual movement advocate. They just wanted Eric Gary out and 0:13:57.440 --> 0:14:00.920 they wanted to improve once they're living conditions. They didn't 0:14:00.960 --> 0:14:04.360 have a particular political ideology. They were committed too. And 0:14:04.600 --> 0:14:07.680 in this time, you know, the Caribbean is part of 0:14:07.679 --> 0:14:09.520 the rest of the world. The Cribbean is paying attention, 0:14:09.800 --> 0:14:11.719 has to pay attention to what's happening in the rest 0:14:11.720 --> 0:14:15.480 of the world, and especially within northern neighbor the United 0:14:15.520 --> 0:14:18.959 States of America, and it's very influenced. At that point 0:14:18.960 --> 0:14:21.160 in time. We're talking in the late seventies early eighties 0:14:22.160 --> 0:14:25.320 cold war rhetoric that people are getting in the media. 0:14:26.080 --> 0:14:28.480 The American media was still very and continues to be 0:14:28.560 --> 0:14:33.800 very prominent in terms of what Cribean people consume. Because 0:14:33.800 --> 0:14:35.880 we are English speaking, the Americans are English speaking and 0:14:35.920 --> 0:14:39.160 they have far more resources, so their media comes to us, 0:14:39.200 --> 0:14:41.840 and a lot of the narratives that Caribbean people get 0:14:41.920 --> 0:14:46.280 come in at recent part from American narratives. So these 0:14:46.320 --> 0:14:51.080 Cold War era narratives about communism as a scare word 0:14:51.520 --> 0:14:54.760 was something that had yet to be addressed through actual 0:14:54.760 --> 0:14:59.760 demonstration of what communism could actually be for people. You know, 0:14:59.760 --> 0:15:04.520 people weren't one over on communism yet, it was still unfamiliar, 0:15:05.000 --> 0:15:08.560 and in this time you really needed people who were open, 0:15:08.760 --> 0:15:12.080 who are accommodating, who were showing people what it meant 0:15:12.120 --> 0:15:16.600 in practice, who were you know, sort of disarming these 0:15:16.680 --> 0:15:21.320 notions that could serve us obstacles towards people's buying into 0:15:21.360 --> 0:15:24.920 the struggle. I'm saying this as a non Marxist lendness. 0:15:25.440 --> 0:15:27.440 I'm putting myself in those shoes. If I'm trying to 0:15:27.440 --> 0:15:31.240 get people invested in as convinced of this, that sort 0:15:31.240 --> 0:15:34.440 of secrecy it doesn't push things in a postive trajectory. 0:15:34.640 --> 0:15:37.880 Yeah, it's easy for the population to perceive that you've 0:15:37.920 --> 0:15:41.760 replaced one elite with another elite, right, especially in post 0:15:41.800 --> 0:15:46.040 colonial movements, when we do this exactly so, it's a 0:15:46.040 --> 0:15:47.800 transparent word for one, you know. 0:15:48.240 --> 0:15:50.160 Yeah, I mean not to say that people didn't see 0:15:50.160 --> 0:15:54.240 the differences. Yes, correct, they went away the nuances. They 0:15:54.240 --> 0:15:57.080 could tell the difference between an Eric Arey and a Mauricepisial. 0:15:57.640 --> 0:16:01.120 They can tell the difference between you know, one form 0:16:01.160 --> 0:16:03.760 of politics and another. It's not that they were just 0:16:04.720 --> 0:16:06.680 ready to turn court immediately. I mean some of them 0:16:06.840 --> 0:16:10.240 still had the fresh wounds of the trauma being inflicted 0:16:10.280 --> 0:16:12.720 by eric Arey. Yeah, but it's because of that trauma, 0:16:12.800 --> 0:16:16.880 so they were also sensitive to the potential of new traumas. 0:16:17.400 --> 0:16:23.239 Call it paranoia, call it eunistan and right thinking suspicion. 0:16:24.480 --> 0:16:27.960 But they were wary of what was taking place, and 0:16:28.000 --> 0:16:30.840 you know, it didn't help. It didn't help that. Okay. 0:16:30.880 --> 0:16:34.080 So you know some people they read like one or 0:16:34.080 --> 0:16:38.680 two theory books and they start walking around like their 0:16:38.680 --> 0:16:41.760 head is three times bigger than it is they started 0:16:41.800 --> 0:16:44.720 walking around. It's kind of inflated sense of self importance. 0:16:45.000 --> 0:16:47.280 Yes, I'm very familiar with that kind of person. 0:16:47.920 --> 0:16:52.440 Yeah, Unfortunately, that's exactly what started taking place among some 0:16:52.520 --> 0:16:55.640 members of the party. They're reading all these books, all 0:16:55.640 --> 0:16:59.200 these thick books from Russia and Germany and Marx and 0:16:59.320 --> 0:17:03.040 learnin and all these people and it's starting to carry 0:17:03.080 --> 0:17:07.199 themselves in a particular way. Yeah, with a level of 0:17:07.359 --> 0:17:11.040 arrogance and nowhere to illness. And you know, and this 0:17:11.200 --> 0:17:14.919 is we're sit in a society. We remember, we are 0:17:14.960 --> 0:17:18.840 fresh out of colonialism, if you know, none of our 0:17:18.880 --> 0:17:22.960 independent nations or even one hundred years old. Yet much 0:17:22.960 --> 0:17:27.080 of the population still remember that colonial period. And much 0:17:27.080 --> 0:17:30.480 of the population, like I mentioned before, needed changes the 0:17:30.560 --> 0:17:35.080 education system because they didn't have educational opportunities. So you 0:17:35.119 --> 0:17:40.239 had this vast educational inequality, right, and then you have 0:17:41.000 --> 0:17:43.040 this new Joe movement and some of its members are 0:17:43.080 --> 0:17:45.960 talking to you like you're stupid because you didn't get 0:17:45.960 --> 0:17:48.159 to go to primary school. You didn't read all the 0:17:48.200 --> 0:17:49.520 thick books that they read, or you didn't get to 0:17:49.560 --> 0:17:51.359 go to secondary school, or you didn't get to go 0:17:51.400 --> 0:17:54.000 to university, and so you don't know all the big 0:17:54.040 --> 0:17:56.359 words and you haven't read all the thick texts that 0:17:56.400 --> 0:18:00.560 they have read. And it could rub people the wrong way. 0:18:00.640 --> 0:18:06.359 Yes, right, Yeah, there can be too much theory. I 0:18:06.359 --> 0:18:10.320 think that often is too much theory, especially when it 0:18:10.359 --> 0:18:13.399 creates this idea, right that reading is what distinguishes one 0:18:13.440 --> 0:18:18.080 as a revolutionary, right as opposed to doing or just 0:18:18.880 --> 0:18:23.359 knowing and caring, and it's a downfall of many movements. 0:18:23.800 --> 0:18:27.000 Indeed, I think if you're coming from the background that 0:18:27.119 --> 0:18:31.040 some of these Mutual Movement members were coming from, you 0:18:31.080 --> 0:18:33.680 need to put in that extra effort not to dumb 0:18:33.800 --> 0:18:37.199 things down, per see, you still want to respect people's intelligence, 0:18:37.840 --> 0:18:39.959 but you have to be aware of the dynamic. It's 0:18:40.000 --> 0:18:42.600 something that I myself have to work on, you know, 0:18:43.160 --> 0:18:46.160 because I think it's a sort of curse of knowledge 0:18:46.200 --> 0:18:48.200 where you read so much that you take for granted 0:18:48.240 --> 0:18:50.560 and what you know, you know, you read to a 0:18:50.600 --> 0:18:55.679 point where you almost forget that this is not common 0:18:55.680 --> 0:18:58.920 knowledge or this word may be unfamiliar to a lot 0:18:58.920 --> 0:19:02.280 of people, and you already have to be cognizant of it, 0:19:02.400 --> 0:19:05.000 especially as you're approaching people, and make sure you're talking 0:19:05.000 --> 0:19:07.040 to them in their language. They don't feel as though 0:19:07.520 --> 0:19:09.320 they're carrying yourself too big favorites. 0:19:10.080 --> 0:19:13.399 Yeah, definitely, Like the people who write the thick books 0:19:13.400 --> 0:19:16.280 can't be your like milieu, you know, they can't be 0:19:16.320 --> 0:19:19.320 there refused the stupid word, but like if those are 0:19:19.359 --> 0:19:22.120 the people with whom you're sort of conversing in your head, 0:19:22.160 --> 0:19:25.520 and then you begin to to speak in that language. 0:19:25.600 --> 0:19:29.240 To people who aren't familiar with it, it just sounds weird. Yeah, 0:19:29.760 --> 0:19:33.240 like it's yeah, as you said, you get too big 0:19:33.240 --> 0:19:36.360 for your bridges, and you some pompous if you're not. 0:19:36.320 --> 0:19:51.480 Careful exactly exactly, And so for the you know, big 0:19:51.520 --> 0:19:53.879 shot lawyer again all the time, and she kind of 0:19:53.920 --> 0:19:56.000 as I say this, for big shot lawyer thats like 0:19:56.040 --> 0:20:01.160 Marie Bisher and a big shot economics like like Bernard 0:20:01.240 --> 0:20:03.760 Chord and some of the other folks that had been 0:20:03.840 --> 0:20:06.119 part of the core of the party. They had to 0:20:06.119 --> 0:20:07.960 approach to people in a particular way, and they were 0:20:07.960 --> 0:20:11.080 successful in doing so under Eric Garry and as they 0:20:11.080 --> 0:20:14.639 were part of the opposition. But things were shifted also 0:20:14.680 --> 0:20:17.359 the two of the eighties, we had a lot of 0:20:17.440 --> 0:20:23.720 moves again, suspected counter revolutionaries, imprisonment without trial. To imagine again, 0:20:23.760 --> 0:20:26.320 people are thinking, this is what the monk who's gang 0:20:26.400 --> 0:20:29.920 two point zero? Yeah, the fair was starting to overtake, 0:20:30.000 --> 0:20:33.280 the society was starting to become cannibalizing, as I said. 0:20:33.800 --> 0:20:35.600 So by the time we get to nineteen eighty three, 0:20:35.840 --> 0:20:38.160 we find ourselves with the people bereft of the early 0:20:38.240 --> 0:20:43.959 days of hope in a House divided, which famously cannot stand. 0:20:44.960 --> 0:20:48.000 Unbeknowns to the public, there were tensions between Maurice Bishop 0:20:48.040 --> 0:20:51.199 and Bernard coord since at least nineteen eighty two, and 0:20:51.359 --> 0:20:54.240 coord wasn't even part of the Central Committee of the 0:20:54.320 --> 0:20:57.760 Neutral Movement anymore for a while. But within the vanguard 0:20:58.240 --> 0:21:02.200 the party members still preferred Cord to Bishop. Cord was 0:21:02.240 --> 0:21:05.520 seen as more intellectually equipt to lead with his knowledge 0:21:05.520 --> 0:21:10.480 of theory. They started calling Bishop egotistics and counter revolutionary. 0:21:10.920 --> 0:21:13.680 And I have to say, I love the double edged 0:21:13.880 --> 0:21:17.359 sword of these kind of willingly thought to meet and 0:21:17.440 --> 0:21:20.760 cliches because they can be used by you and then 0:21:20.800 --> 0:21:24.760 they could be used against you in a snappy fingers. 0:21:25.280 --> 0:21:28.200 Yeah, it goes back to your fing about hammers and 0:21:28.320 --> 0:21:29.600 nails that you mentioned before. 0:21:30.520 --> 0:21:33.879 Indeed, so eventually the party decided to bring Cord on 0:21:34.080 --> 0:21:38.199 as co leader with Bishop. Originally Bishop agreed, but this 0:21:38.280 --> 0:21:42.440 started to create tensions. Things managed recently, but after a 0:21:42.480 --> 0:21:44.800 while Bishop was surtned to push back against the co 0:21:44.920 --> 0:21:48.400 leadership arrangement and the party started seeing it as him 0:21:48.480 --> 0:21:52.719 favoring his own ascendancy over the collective unity, and then 0:21:52.760 --> 0:21:55.960 he went to Germany. He left the country on a trip. 0:21:56.800 --> 0:21:58.479 Don't worry. There was none of the coolest time, at 0:21:58.560 --> 0:22:01.680 least not yet. When he went to journey on a 0:22:01.760 --> 0:22:07.880 trip came back, there was not a welcome party for him. 0:22:08.040 --> 0:22:11.080 Things were coming to a head. The party did not 0:22:11.200 --> 0:22:13.919 have his back anymore, he could feel it. But he 0:22:14.000 --> 0:22:17.520 did know that the people still had his back. Remember, 0:22:17.600 --> 0:22:21.879 he knows he's charismatic, he knows people love him. So 0:22:21.960 --> 0:22:24.400 all of a sudden, this is in nineteen eighty three, 0:22:24.440 --> 0:22:28.520 by the way, a rumor was swollen that Cord wanted 0:22:28.560 --> 0:22:32.480 to kill Bishop. Yeah, it's a dangerous rumor, you know. 0:22:32.680 --> 0:22:35.480 It shatters this facade of a united front that had 0:22:35.520 --> 0:22:38.080 carried the revolution, that had carried the government for so long. 0:22:38.400 --> 0:22:41.719 But since most people loved Bishop, as he rightfully assumed, 0:22:41.720 --> 0:22:43.520 in fact, they were of first name basis with him, 0:22:43.760 --> 0:22:47.160 that's cool. They weren't saying Prime Minister Bishop, your honorable 0:22:47.280 --> 0:22:51.520 Prime Minister Bishop. It was hey, Maurice, like that boy, Maurice. 0:22:52.280 --> 0:22:55.879 Yeah, that's always a good sign. Like it's one of 0:22:55.920 --> 0:23:00.320 the positive marks of the revolution with Shava is that 0:23:00.359 --> 0:23:02.959 everyone is a friend, and everyone's referred to generally by 0:23:03.000 --> 0:23:06.920 their first name, and it's always kind of yeah, I've 0:23:06.920 --> 0:23:11.040 seen enough read enough about you know, revolutions opposing a 0:23:11.040 --> 0:23:13.760 revolutionary hierarchy. So that's always a good sign, I feel like. 0:23:14.400 --> 0:23:20.960 Yeah. So meanwhile, you had Cord who people didn't have 0:23:21.000 --> 0:23:24.320 the same kind of relationship with. Yeah, you know, as 0:23:24.320 --> 0:23:30.240 far as they're concerned, he's an enemino because of that rumor. Yeah, 0:23:30.280 --> 0:23:33.040 and the party actually suspected that it was Bishop that 0:23:33.160 --> 0:23:36.720 started the rumor. In fact, his own post our bodyguards 0:23:36.960 --> 0:23:41.440 suspected it, but Bishop himself denied it. Whether he did 0:23:41.560 --> 0:23:44.840 or did not start the rumor, we don't know. But 0:23:44.920 --> 0:23:47.919 the party was insulted by his movements and put him 0:23:48.040 --> 0:23:54.199 under house arrest. What what right now? But he did 0:23:54.280 --> 0:23:56.520 this shocked. 0:23:57.920 --> 0:23:58.760 Like a shocked peaka. 0:23:58.960 --> 0:24:00.760 And that's that's that's how the people feeling it, Like 0:24:00.760 --> 0:24:05.160 what a prime minister arrested? You could do that, that's 0:24:05.200 --> 0:24:05.520 the thing. 0:24:06.240 --> 0:24:06.480 Yeah. 0:24:07.359 --> 0:24:10.239 So you see, the Vanguard, with all that secrecy at 0:24:10.240 --> 0:24:13.240 this point in time, was operating on information that was 0:24:13.320 --> 0:24:16.800 not made available to the people, and the people who 0:24:16.800 --> 0:24:20.119 are pissed at the party. Now, the cracks in this 0:24:20.160 --> 0:24:24.560 political arrangement with essentially a secret society on top, were 0:24:24.600 --> 0:24:29.720 starting to show. The people generally speaking regardless of what 0:24:29.760 --> 0:24:34.240 the party wanted wanted Maurice Bishop. They wanted the boy Maurice, 0:24:35.480 --> 0:24:38.639 but the party was not interested in what people wanted. 0:24:39.280 --> 0:24:44.320 The day is nineteenth of October nineteen eighty three. The 0:24:44.520 --> 0:24:50.439 pro Maurice Bishop usual movement, leaders, government ministers, and a 0:24:50.440 --> 0:24:54.600 mass demonstration of people roll up to Bishop's house to 0:24:54.680 --> 0:24:57.560 set him free. There were gods, of course, assigned to 0:24:57.640 --> 0:25:00.880 keep him in house arrest, but it was God stood down. 0:25:01.640 --> 0:25:04.800 They refused to shoot at the people. To the crowd 0:25:04.800 --> 0:25:09.400 of people walked to Fort Rupert. Now Fort Rupert wasn't 0:25:09.400 --> 0:25:13.360 always Fort Rupert used to be Fort George. Fact, after 0:25:13.359 --> 0:25:16.960 the revolution ended it again became known as Fort George, 0:25:17.640 --> 0:25:22.320 but Fort Rupert was named Fort Rupert after Maurice Bishop's father, 0:25:22.920 --> 0:25:25.639 who was killed by Eric Garry, as you may recall. 0:25:26.359 --> 0:25:29.920