Speaker 1: All the media.
Speaker 2: Hello and welcome. Take it happen here. I'm Andrew Sage,
Speaker 2: your host, and I'm joined by James again.
Speaker 3: Excited to be here again. I enjoyed the last episode.
Speaker 2: Yes, another host of a canappen near. There are two
Speaker 2: of us, So James's American British or British American kind
Speaker 2: of and how we want to order that? And I'm Trinidadian.
Speaker 2: As you may or may not be able to tell,
Speaker 2: but in Trinidad there are actually a lot of Grenadians
Speaker 2: and descendants of Grenadians. Between our islands has been a
Speaker 2: lot of population exchange, mostly in one direction. But we're
Speaker 2: here to talk about a notable point in the history
Speaker 2: for my neighbor in Ireland, Grenada. If you missed part one,
Speaker 2: you should go and give it a listen. The gist
Speaker 2: is that, after drawn out efforts to gain independent nuns,
Speaker 2: Grenada finally did so in nineteen seventy four, but unfortunately
Speaker 2: under the rule of Eric Gary, an oppressive fixture of
Speaker 2: politics that the people want it out. The underdog, the
Speaker 2: New Jewel Movement led by Maurice Bishop, pulled off a
Speaker 2: blood less coup while Gary was at a un meeting
Speaker 2: in New York, and thus the People's Revolutionary Government was formed,
Speaker 2: led by Prime Minister Marie Bishop. The manaches stay in
Speaker 2: power from nineteen seventy nine to nineteen eighty three. So
Speaker 2: today we're talking about what they did in that time
Speaker 2: and what happened next, including the infamous US invasion that
Speaker 2: is so often a footnote of history and its aftermath
Speaker 2: on the people of Grenada that lasts up to this day.
Speaker 2: Once again, the research for this episode leans on Grenada
Speaker 2: Revolution and invasion by Pati Lewis at Al along with
Speaker 2: None Should Escape by Joseph Edwards aka fundly so Fresh
Speaker 2: the victory of the New Jewel movement. The temperature of
Speaker 2: the populace was varied but excited. You had people who
Speaker 2: had genuine revolutionary aspirations, people who were passionately anti imperialists,
Speaker 2: and then the people who just wanted better health care
Speaker 2: and education and didn't really care where who it came from.
Speaker 2: And on that note, I would say that it's something
Speaker 2: that often flies under the radar or escapes awareness in
Speaker 2: the discourse because the most passionate, the most invested, the
Speaker 2: most prominent voices all that we tend to hear the
Speaker 2: vast majority of people pretty much go with the flow.
Speaker 2: You know, they keep their heads down, their focus tends
Speaker 2: to be on their immediate needs, their immediate interests. And
Speaker 2: you have the idea logues in every camp, but of
Speaker 2: every persuasion who are aiming to push the country in
Speaker 2: a particular direction. But at least at this point in time,
Speaker 2: there was an ambivalence towards the how, the political how
Speaker 2: much of the population. They just needed to see the results.
Speaker 2: And for a lot of people in the present day,
Speaker 2: the change, the revolution, or whatever you want to call it,
Speaker 2: isn't it going to come from an ideological transformation, well
Speaker 2: worded argument or arrangement of you know, prose. It's going
Speaker 2: to come from a lived experience where their life has
Speaker 2: improved in some way, in some form of fashion, by action,
Speaker 2: by a project that actually puts the change into practice.
Speaker 2: And so that's really what the New Dual Movement had
Speaker 2: been about from the beginning, being part of the community,
Speaker 2: being part of the people taking part in you know,
Speaker 2: supporting them, which is why they had the popular mandate.
Speaker 2: And then once they got into power, a lot of
Speaker 2: their efforts were focused on indeed trying to actually put
Speaker 2: into place and alternatives for all the flaws that it
Speaker 2: may have had, and get to that shortly, and that
Speaker 2: they did. You know, they organized the Center for Popular Education,
Speaker 2: They organized teacher training, sought to make secondary schools and
Speaker 2: colleges more accessible to people. They introduced maternity leave for women, yes,
Speaker 2: although notably party members who were women were pressured to
Speaker 2: come back to work maybe after having children. So again
Speaker 2: we'll get to those flaws. There was still inequality in
Speaker 2: pay between men and women, but the Usual Movement did
Speaker 2: make efforts to mandate equal pay and to engage in
Speaker 2: some changes toward addressing the inequality between men and women
Speaker 2: in the country. However, a revolution was still needed within
Speaker 2: the revolution, as it has tended to be across these revolutions,
Speaker 2: you know, across these years Usual stuff, women were still
Speaker 2: doing the most of the housework, and both sexes were
Speaker 2: expected to take part in political engagement. So you had
Speaker 2: women in the party in the Udual movement, but it
Speaker 2: was a sort of an expectation of equality in some respects,
Speaker 2: like yeah, come out to work even though you just
Speaker 2: had children, because everybody else is coming on to work.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: And yet it was like, oh, yeah, I can keep
Speaker 2: on doing the housework. We're not gonna take on hour
Speaker 2: load there.
Speaker 3: Yep, that's funny. I finished my book recently. But they
Speaker 3: have a chapter on gender, and there's just a communist
Speaker 3: militant in Spain who was fighting at the front line.
Speaker 3: But also they were saddled with that double burden, right
Speaker 3: because women were expected to be the ones amongst, especially
Speaker 3: amongst the communists, who cooked and cleaned in addition to fighting.
Speaker 3: But she has this famous line where she says, I
Speaker 3: didn't join the military to die with a dish cloth.
Speaker 2: In my hand.
Speaker 3: Which that's great. Yeah, it's a good one. I like
Speaker 3: it a lot.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, But flaws with engaging with gender aside. There will,
Speaker 2: of course, other things the utual movement was doing that
Speaker 2: was positive. You know, they encouraged agricultural diversification and local
Speaker 2: food production, moving away from that sort of exclusive or
Speaker 2: ne exclusive dependence on nutnet production that had defined the
Speaker 2: colonial period. You know, they got rid of the old
Speaker 2: Westminster style parliamentary system in favor of a one party
Speaker 2: system with some elements of mass democracy. Now the degree
Speaker 2: to which that democracy actually empowered people is debatable, but
Speaker 2: there were, you know, efforts on the record. You know,
Speaker 2: they organized public meetings to discuss the national budget. They
Speaker 2: set up workers and youth and women's and farmers organizations,
Speaker 2: and unfortunately, even though Bishop was influenced by c LR James,
Speaker 2: he continued to pursue the sort of hierarchical leadership common
Speaker 2: in Caribbean politics. And so even with these alternative organizations,
Speaker 2: you had that kind of hierarchy. But I think that
Speaker 2: is to be expected from any movement besides anarchism. Yeah,
Speaker 2: so I can't say I'm surprised. They closed the independent
Speaker 2: newspaper Torchlights after an article highlighting erastopian protest against lack
Speaker 2: of representation in government. So there were efforts to ensure
Speaker 2: that Greator moved towards secularism, but freedom of the press
Speaker 2: was not something that was particularly high in the priorities,
Speaker 2: and there were still prejudices against religious groups and movements
Speaker 2: like the Rastaferians that had yet to be addressed. You know,
Speaker 2: these things aren't dealt with overnight. But I think when
Speaker 2: all you have is a hammer, everything can sort of
Speaker 2: look like a nail. Yeah, they didn't do anything too
Speaker 2: drastic in the economics. Spe for the most part, they
Speaker 2: left people's private businesses alone. They implemented some state enterprises,
Speaker 2: and they implemented some cooperative enterprises, so a fairly standard
Speaker 2: mixed economy, a mixed economy that interverean extents be found
Speaker 2: throughout the Caribbean, whether they had a revolution or not.
Speaker 2: But they did establish cooperative and friendly relations with Cuba,
Speaker 2: which was a real thorn on the side of the
Speaker 2: United States.
Speaker 3: Yeah, he didn't like them.
Speaker 2: And now this is I would say from nineteen seventy
Speaker 2: nine to nineteen eighty so their first two years in power,
Speaker 2: people were nervsited, you know, they were hopeful of the
Speaker 2: genuine declonization and positive change taking place. But the excitement
Speaker 2: part of the NEUVA site started to die down. By
Speaker 2: nineteen eighty one. The People's Revolutionary Government PRG became increasingly
Speaker 2: militaristic as time went on. They organized militias and armed people.
Speaker 2: They were essentially preparing for a Geary counter coup, but
Speaker 2: also potential Cie involvement. The police were replaced with military personnel.
Speaker 2: And I think this is the trap that a lot
Speaker 2: of these projects end up falling into. This concern about
Speaker 2: the enemy within and the enemy without leads these revolutionaries
Speaker 2: to cannibalize themselves, you know. The revolutionary potential and excitemes
Speaker 2: GE's curtailed because there's so much fail dominating that some
Speaker 2: enemy is going to attack, some violence is going to
Speaker 2: take place that they need to prepare for, and so
Speaker 2: you over your militarize, your militarize, and you stare the
Speaker 2: course of the project away from its original intentions to
Speaker 2: a point where it's not even recognizable to the people
Speaker 2: who initiated it. Yeah, you know, I'm not saying that
Speaker 2: they weren't right to be wary of US intervention. History
Speaker 2: has demonstrated as much. But it was something that the
Speaker 2: people of the country were becoming increasingly concerned about because
Speaker 2: it's a small country, and it's uncommon, you know, it's
Speaker 2: it's strange as unusual. It's unnerving to see militia's marching
Speaker 2: on your street. Now, the Mutual movement was starting to
Speaker 2: become more focused on establishing a vanguard corps, the more
Speaker 2: they oriented themselves toward Marxism lending as well. So, like
Speaker 2: I mentioned before, they were making this shift away from
Speaker 2: the sort of popular mass democracy that people like see
Speaker 2: Lar James was talking about. The more they read and
Speaker 2: they studied the works of Marxism lenders and there were
Speaker 2: people within the party who became more and more convinced. Again,
Speaker 2: remember the end positions of power this point in time.
Speaker 2: So you're in positions of power, and you're reading theoretical
Speaker 2: justifications for why you need to be in power. You
Speaker 2: know that you will stand by those theoretical justifications because
Speaker 2: it lines up with your interests, your self interests to
Speaker 2: you know, further your position of power, and the continuation
Speaker 2: of your role as an authority, as a leader. And
Speaker 2: so this vanguard call that they were pursuing, it ended
Speaker 2: up creating a hierarchy of in group and out group.
Speaker 2: You had the people who were in the vanguard, the
Speaker 2: people who were out of the vanguard, who didn't get picked,
Speaker 2: who didn't make the cut, you know, who felt snubbed.
Speaker 2: And this was facilities and it was fostering this an
Speaker 2: air of secrecy that people in the country were beginning
Speaker 2: to resent and lose trust in, because imagine you go
Speaker 2: in from this sort of popular engagement with the people
Speaker 2: as you, you know, take part in these efforts to
Speaker 2: push Gary out of power. Then you have this sort
Speaker 2: of secrecy, you have this sort of militarism. They're starting
Speaker 2: to remind people a bit of the exact Geary government
Speaker 2: that they wanted out. When two major events took place
Speaker 2: in nineteen eighty one. There was a bombing under the
Speaker 2: stage of a rally that killed some utes, and there
Speaker 2: was a car ambustion as well. Both of these incidents
Speaker 2: were blamed on counter revolutionaries in the country that famous buzzworth,
Speaker 2: that famous catchphrase, that famous justification for any and every response. Yeah.
Speaker 2: So it further pushed the country and really the whole
Speaker 2: society into this culture of suspicion and repression and also
Speaker 2: resent month for the New Dual movement. The New Jeral
Speaker 2: movement wasn't responsible for the bombans, but you can imagine
Speaker 2: people were probably saying when they were at the parlor
Speaker 2: by the grocery, you know, out by the bar down
Speaker 2: the street, they're saying, you know, at least didn't have
Speaker 2: any bombings under Gary. You know, at least the didn't
Speaker 2: have these combitions under Gary. Gary wasn't nice, but we
Speaker 2: didn't have terrorist attacks. And the sort of transparency and
Speaker 2: engagement people were accustomed to were starting to evaporate. The
Speaker 2: Neudual movement was starting to be seen by some as
Speaker 2: a secret society. And if your society is already small, right,
Speaker 2: just about one hundred thousand people. Yeah, having a secret
Speaker 2: society within that small society where everybody knows everybody, that's
Speaker 2: not good, especially when the revolution is so new, so nationed.
Speaker 2: You need people's trust and especially as well, because people
Speaker 2: were not ideologically for Marxism Leninism, most of them, that is,
Speaker 2: they were ideologically for Marxism Leniness and they were ideologically
Speaker 2: nudual movement advocate. They just wanted Eric Gary out and
Speaker 2: they wanted to improve once they're living conditions. They didn't
Speaker 2: have a particular political ideology. They were committed too. And
Speaker 2: in this time, you know, the Caribbean is part of
Speaker 2: the rest of the world. The Cribbean is paying attention,
Speaker 2: has to pay attention to what's happening in the rest
Speaker 2: of the world, and especially within northern neighbor the United
Speaker 2: States of America, and it's very influenced. At that point
Speaker 2: in time. We're talking in the late seventies early eighties
Speaker 2: cold war rhetoric that people are getting in the media.
Speaker 2: The American media was still very and continues to be
Speaker 2: very prominent in terms of what Cribean people consume. Because
Speaker 2: we are English speaking, the Americans are English speaking and
Speaker 2: they have far more resources, so their media comes to us,
Speaker 2: and a lot of the narratives that Caribbean people get
Speaker 2: come in at recent part from American narratives. So these
Speaker 2: Cold War era narratives about communism as a scare word
Speaker 2: was something that had yet to be addressed through actual
Speaker 2: demonstration of what communism could actually be for people. You know,
Speaker 2: people weren't one over on communism yet, it was still unfamiliar,
Speaker 2: and in this time you really needed people who were open,
Speaker 2: who are accommodating, who were showing people what it meant
Speaker 2: in practice, who were you know, sort of disarming these
Speaker 2: notions that could serve us obstacles towards people's buying into
Speaker 2: the struggle. I'm saying this as a non Marxist lendness.
Speaker 2: I'm putting myself in those shoes. If I'm trying to
Speaker 2: get people invested in as convinced of this, that sort
Speaker 2: of secrecy it doesn't push things in a postive trajectory.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's easy for the population to perceive that you've
Speaker 3: replaced one elite with another elite, right, especially in post
Speaker 3: colonial movements, when we do this exactly so, it's a
Speaker 3: transparent word for one, you know.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean not to say that people didn't see
Speaker 2: the differences. Yes, correct, they went away the nuances. They
Speaker 2: could tell the difference between an Eric Arey and a Mauricepisial.
Speaker 2: They can tell the difference between you know, one form
Speaker 2: of politics and another. It's not that they were just
Speaker 2: ready to turn court immediately. I mean some of them
Speaker 2: still had the fresh wounds of the trauma being inflicted
Speaker 2: by eric Arey. Yeah, but it's because of that trauma,
Speaker 2: so they were also sensitive to the potential of new traumas.
Speaker 2: Call it paranoia, call it eunistan and right thinking suspicion.
Speaker 2: But they were wary of what was taking place, and
Speaker 2: you know, it didn't help. It didn't help that. Okay.
Speaker 2: So you know some people they read like one or
Speaker 2: two theory books and they start walking around like their
Speaker 2: head is three times bigger than it is they started
Speaker 2: walking around. It's kind of inflated sense of self importance.
Speaker 3: Yes, I'm very familiar with that kind of person.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Unfortunately, that's exactly what started taking place among some
Speaker 2: members of the party. They're reading all these books, all
Speaker 2: these thick books from Russia and Germany and Marx and
Speaker 2: learnin and all these people and it's starting to carry
Speaker 2: themselves in a particular way. Yeah, with a level of
Speaker 2: arrogance and nowhere to illness. And you know, and this
Speaker 2: is we're sit in a society. We remember, we are
Speaker 2: fresh out of colonialism, if you know, none of our
Speaker 2: independent nations or even one hundred years old. Yet much
Speaker 2: of the population still remember that colonial period. And much
Speaker 2: of the population, like I mentioned before, needed changes the
Speaker 2: education system because they didn't have educational opportunities. So you
Speaker 2: had this vast educational inequality, right, and then you have
Speaker 2: this new Joe movement and some of its members are
Speaker 2: talking to you like you're stupid because you didn't get
Speaker 2: to go to primary school. You didn't read all the
Speaker 2: thick books that they read, or you didn't get to
Speaker 2: go to secondary school, or you didn't get to go
Speaker 2: to university, and so you don't know all the big
Speaker 2: words and you haven't read all the thick texts that
Speaker 2: they have read. And it could rub people the wrong way.
Speaker 3: Yes, right, Yeah, there can be too much theory. I
Speaker 3: think that often is too much theory, especially when it
Speaker 3: creates this idea, right that reading is what distinguishes one
Speaker 3: as a revolutionary, right as opposed to doing or just
Speaker 3: knowing and caring, and it's a downfall of many movements.
Speaker 2: Indeed, I think if you're coming from the background that
Speaker 2: some of these Mutual Movement members were coming from, you
Speaker 2: need to put in that extra effort not to dumb
Speaker 2: things down, per see, you still want to respect people's intelligence,
Speaker 2: but you have to be aware of the dynamic. It's
Speaker 2: something that I myself have to work on, you know,
Speaker 2: because I think it's a sort of curse of knowledge
Speaker 2: where you read so much that you take for granted
Speaker 2: and what you know, you know, you read to a
Speaker 2: point where you almost forget that this is not common
Speaker 2: knowledge or this word may be unfamiliar to a lot
Speaker 2: of people, and you already have to be cognizant of it,
Speaker 2: especially as you're approaching people, and make sure you're talking
Speaker 2: to them in their language. They don't feel as though
Speaker 2: they're carrying yourself too big favorites.
Speaker 3: Yeah, definitely, Like the people who write the thick books
Speaker 3: can't be your like milieu, you know, they can't be
Speaker 3: there refused the stupid word, but like if those are
Speaker 3: the people with whom you're sort of conversing in your head,
Speaker 3: and then you begin to to speak in that language.
Speaker 3: To people who aren't familiar with it, it just sounds weird. Yeah,
Speaker 3: like it's yeah, as you said, you get too big
Speaker 3: for your bridges, and you some pompous if you're not.
Speaker 2: Careful exactly exactly, And so for the you know, big
Speaker 2: shot lawyer again all the time, and she kind of
Speaker 2: as I say this, for big shot lawyer thats like
Speaker 2: Marie Bisher and a big shot economics like like Bernard
Speaker 2: Chord and some of the other folks that had been
Speaker 2: part of the core of the party. They had to
Speaker 2: approach to people in a particular way, and they were
Speaker 2: successful in doing so under Eric Garry and as they
Speaker 2: were part of the opposition. But things were shifted also
Speaker 2: the two of the eighties, we had a lot of
Speaker 2: moves again, suspected counter revolutionaries, imprisonment without trial. To imagine again,
Speaker 2: people are thinking, this is what the monk who's gang
Speaker 2: two point zero? Yeah, the fair was starting to overtake,
Speaker 2: the society was starting to become cannibalizing, as I said.
Speaker 2: So by the time we get to nineteen eighty three,
Speaker 2: we find ourselves with the people bereft of the early
Speaker 2: days of hope in a House divided, which famously cannot stand.
Speaker 2: Unbeknowns to the public, there were tensions between Maurice Bishop
Speaker 2: and Bernard coord since at least nineteen eighty two, and
Speaker 2: coord wasn't even part of the Central Committee of the
Speaker 2: Neutral Movement anymore for a while. But within the vanguard
Speaker 2: the party members still preferred Cord to Bishop. Cord was
Speaker 2: seen as more intellectually equipt to lead with his knowledge
Speaker 2: of theory. They started calling Bishop egotistics and counter revolutionary.
Speaker 2: And I have to say, I love the double edged
Speaker 2: sword of these kind of willingly thought to meet and
Speaker 2: cliches because they can be used by you and then
Speaker 2: they could be used against you in a snappy fingers.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it goes back to your fing about hammers and
Speaker 3: nails that you mentioned before.
Speaker 2: Indeed, so eventually the party decided to bring Cord on
Speaker 2: as co leader with Bishop. Originally Bishop agreed, but this
Speaker 2: started to create tensions. Things managed recently, but after a
Speaker 2: while Bishop was surtned to push back against the co
Speaker 2: leadership arrangement and the party started seeing it as him
Speaker 2: favoring his own ascendancy over the collective unity, and then
Speaker 2: he went to Germany. He left the country on a trip.
Speaker 2: Don't worry. There was none of the coolest time, at
Speaker 2: least not yet. When he went to journey on a
Speaker 2: trip came back, there was not a welcome party for him.
Speaker 2: Things were coming to a head. The party did not
Speaker 2: have his back anymore, he could feel it. But he
Speaker 2: did know that the people still had his back. Remember,
Speaker 2: he knows he's charismatic, he knows people love him. So
Speaker 2: all of a sudden, this is in nineteen eighty three,
Speaker 2: by the way, a rumor was swollen that Cord wanted
Speaker 2: to kill Bishop. Yeah, it's a dangerous rumor, you know.
Speaker 2: It shatters this facade of a united front that had
Speaker 2: carried the revolution, that had carried the government for so long.
Speaker 2: But since most people loved Bishop, as he rightfully assumed,
Speaker 2: in fact, they were of first name basis with him,
Speaker 2: that's cool. They weren't saying Prime Minister Bishop, your honorable
Speaker 2: Prime Minister Bishop. It was hey, Maurice, like that boy, Maurice.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's always a good sign. Like it's one of
Speaker 3: the positive marks of the revolution with Shava is that
Speaker 3: everyone is a friend, and everyone's referred to generally by
Speaker 3: their first name, and it's always kind of yeah, I've
Speaker 3: seen enough read enough about you know, revolutions opposing a
Speaker 3: revolutionary hierarchy. So that's always a good sign, I feel like.
Speaker 2: Yeah. So meanwhile, you had Cord who people didn't have
Speaker 2: the same kind of relationship with. Yeah, you know, as
Speaker 2: far as they're concerned, he's an enemino because of that rumor. Yeah,
Speaker 2: and the party actually suspected that it was Bishop that
Speaker 2: started the rumor. In fact, his own post our bodyguards
Speaker 2: suspected it, but Bishop himself denied it. Whether he did
Speaker 2: or did not start the rumor, we don't know. But
Speaker 2: the party was insulted by his movements and put him
Speaker 2: under house arrest. What what right now? But he did
Speaker 2: this shocked.
Speaker 3: Like a shocked peaka.
Speaker 2: And that's that's that's how the people feeling it, Like
Speaker 2: what a prime minister arrested? You could do that, that's
Speaker 2: the thing.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: So you see, the Vanguard, with all that secrecy at
Speaker 2: this point in time, was operating on information that was
Speaker 2: not made available to the people, and the people who
Speaker 2: are pissed at the party. Now, the cracks in this
Speaker 2: political arrangement with essentially a secret society on top, were
Speaker 2: starting to show. The people generally speaking regardless of what
Speaker 2: the party wanted wanted Maurice Bishop. They wanted the boy Maurice,
Speaker 2: but the party was not interested in what people wanted.
Speaker 2: The day is nineteenth of October nineteen eighty three. The
Speaker 2: pro Maurice Bishop usual movement, leaders, government ministers, and a
Speaker 2: mass demonstration of people roll up to Bishop's house to
Speaker 2: set him free. There were gods, of course, assigned to
Speaker 2: keep him in house arrest, but it was God stood down.
Speaker 2: They refused to shoot at the people. To the crowd
Speaker 2: of people walked to Fort Rupert. Now Fort Rupert wasn't
Speaker 2: always Fort Rupert used to be Fort George. Fact, after
Speaker 2: the revolution ended it again became known as Fort George,
Speaker 2: but Fort Rupert was named Fort Rupert after Maurice Bishop's father,
Speaker 2: who was killed by Eric Garry, as you may recall.
Speaker 2: So they get there, but the majority of the Udual movement,
Speaker 2: who were, like I said, backers of Bernard Cord, were
Speaker 2: at another fort nearby. Then boom, three armored trucks pull
Speaker 2: up from the Fort of Cord to Rupert's Fort Fort Rupert,
Speaker 2: Bratata Da. They start firing into the crowd. People running
Speaker 2: all over the place. Who one people died who one
Speaker 2: of people scattered. This event as a trauma for Grenadians
Speaker 2: even to this day. By the way, so the Cord
Speaker 2: loyalists pull up and line up Bishop Unison Whiteman, who
Speaker 2: was the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Nor Spain, who was
Speaker 2: the Minister of Health and was actually not part of
Speaker 2: the neutral movement, and Jacqueline Kraft, who is the Minister
Speaker 2: of Education. They lined them up against the wall and
Speaker 2: shot them summary execution. Others including trade unionists, businessmen, and
Speaker 2: high schoolers who were also killed at Fort Rupert. Right
Speaker 2: after this, the military curfew was announced on radio. Guinigains
Speaker 2: were told to lock their doors. Violators of curfew were
Speaker 2: to be shot on site. A couple of days later,
Speaker 2: as people more wanted their dead, the news came that
Speaker 2: the United States will invade Grenada. If this was a
Speaker 2: HBO series, I feel like that would be the end
Speaker 2: of the pronouncement episode. So just to give you a
Speaker 2: bit of context on the US's position, the United States
Speaker 2: did not like the way that Cuba and the Soviets
Speaker 2: and Grenada were becoming close, even though Grenada was technically
Speaker 2: non aligned, like much of the world, was trying to
Speaker 2: stay out of the hairs of the US and the
Speaker 2: USSR in their cold law. Yeah, but Grenada and Grenadians
Speaker 2: represented a serious risk. They were black, that's a big risk.
Speaker 2: They were English speaking. Yep, they were English speaking black
Speaker 2: people close to the border of the United States of
Speaker 2: America as African Americans were engaged in their own struggle
Speaker 2: for liberation in the US as our reach. Bishop noted,
Speaker 2: I mean that's the threat that there could be communication,
Speaker 2: collaboration between these groups, a demonstration of an alternative close
Speaker 2: to the United States with ease of communication with the
Speaker 2: United States. So the United States invasion was always a
Speaker 2: potential outcome, but here it was flexing power and its
Speaker 2: fair in its backyard. The Party rounded up a bunch
Speaker 2: of people to join them in defending the revolution. Most
Speaker 2: people were traumatized. They ran and they hid wherever they could. Some,
Speaker 2: regardless of whether they liked the mutual movement at that
Speaker 2: point in time or not, stood ready to defend their
Speaker 2: island from invasion. But anymore were hidden and scared. And
Speaker 2: there were also others who, out of revenge for the
Speaker 2: revolution that betrayed them, betrayed the revolution by expressing their
Speaker 2: support for the invasion. Now me personally, that's something I
Speaker 2: would never do. I don't care how much I disagree
Speaker 2: with any government that I'm under. I wouldn't co sign
Speaker 2: the invasion of my country by an empire. But I
Speaker 2: can understand the reasoning or the emotional because that some
Speaker 2: people were in at that point. So the US's claim,
Speaker 2: by the way, for the invasion was that they were
Speaker 2: there to rescue American students who were in Grenada. So
Speaker 2: the there to rescue these students from these communes. Perfect
Speaker 2: American students weren't ender any actual threat. Obviously, nobody was
Speaker 2: mining them or threatening them or anything. But they always
Speaker 2: have to have some kind of story, right, Yeah. So
Speaker 2: twenty fifth of October nineteen eighty three, America's boots land
Speaker 2: on the ground, joined later by the military personnel of
Speaker 2: Barbados and Jamaica. There were more deaths, mostly in Grenadians,
Speaker 2: but also some Cubans who were there working on the
Speaker 2: new International Airport, an airport that later became known as
Speaker 2: Maurice Bishop International Airport, an airport that just over a
Speaker 2: month ago the United States requested to use for its
Speaker 2: military operations in the region. The United States kept the
Speaker 2: media out of the island for two days after the invasion.
Speaker 2: They were sure to curate an image of the communist threat.
Speaker 2: They wanted to pay into picture for the media to
Speaker 2: tell us story back at home about how yeah, they
Speaker 2: were actually preparing to work with the Soviets as a
Speaker 2: stage in ground to attack the United States. So this
Speaker 2: invasion was the first overt as opposed to covert use
Speaker 2: of force since Vietnam. The party in power at the
Speaker 2: time needed an easy win, so party members this is usual.
Speaker 2: Movement party members were imprisoned, an interim government was established
Speaker 2: by Grenadians living abroad, and the revolution was over a
Speaker 2: stock aftermath, the fall of the Utual movement and the
Speaker 2: People's Revolutionary Government of Grenada led to the disintegration of
Speaker 2: the Worker's Party of Jamaica. It destroyed cara Com the
Speaker 2: Caribbean community as a united bloc, as Jamaica and Trindad
Speaker 2: decided with the US and the invasion, while countries like
Speaker 2: Trindad stood against the invasion. That was a split in
Speaker 2: cara Comb that took years to recover from, and I
Speaker 2: think most crucially, the fall of the Neudual movement led
Speaker 2: to the death in all but name of the Caribbean
Speaker 2: left from distrust from inviting and from this resolute enforcement
Speaker 2: of the new colonial model. For all the flaws of
Speaker 2: the revolution, had it was a representation, have an alternative,
Speaker 2: that something else could be done besides business as usual.
Speaker 2: And that alternative first felt in fighting, and then its
Speaker 2: fate was sealed by a belligerent invasion. Yeah, and so
Speaker 2: the Caribbean left not say it, it's actually entirely dead.
Speaker 2: There are still figures from that era, there are still
Speaker 2: people who carry progressive or evolutionary politics, but it's had
Speaker 2: it's goal and age is no more. And that is
Speaker 2: in part as a result of that US invasion. And
Speaker 2: within Grenado, the bodies of those killed were never found.
Speaker 2: In some cases, the families of those killed or of
Speaker 2: department members may even still be divided to this day.
Speaker 2: You know, you can imagine how they must feel, these
Speaker 2: sort of social and police to call divisions that came
Speaker 2: out of that kind of action. Who sided with Cord,
Speaker 2: who sided with Bishop, who sided with the US? Who
Speaker 2: stood against who brought whose actions were a response over
Speaker 2: the US come in. If the revolution never happened, then
Speaker 2: US wouldn't have come, These people wouldn't be dead. Blame
Speaker 2: game accusations political conflicts, all of that. You know, it's
Speaker 2: very easy to breeze over the deaths of people in
Speaker 2: historical events as just numbers, as just statistics. You know,
Speaker 2: it doesn't even click, you know, because I think, I
Speaker 2: don't think our brains can fully handle that much trauma
Speaker 2: at once, So we we could partmentalize it in a way,
Speaker 2: we package it in something that's a bit more digestible
Speaker 2: when you hear figures of you know, even just two
Speaker 2: people dead. That's two people, two entire human beings with lives, interests, passions, relationships, connections,
Speaker 2: future snuffed out. And in a country like Grenader from
Speaker 2: a small country, one hundred thousand people, and I mean
Speaker 2: I'm from Trinad, right, which has a population of about
Speaker 2: one point four million people, and it still feels like
Speaker 2: you know somebody who knows somebody. The networks are so tight.
Speaker 2: It's even tighter knit network wise in a Grenader or
Speaker 2: a Tobago. You know, we're talking neighbors, relatives split into sides,
Speaker 2: cousin blaming, cousin, friend killing friend, a decolonization never fully
Speaker 2: began and never fully completed. Their social splits. On the
Speaker 2: perspective on what took place you had the Bishop was
Speaker 2: good crowd, the Bishop was bad crowd. The Bishop was bad,
Speaker 2: but the revolution was good crowd. The revolution was bad
Speaker 2: with Bishop was good crowd. You get all sorts of interpretations,
Speaker 2: these kinds of traumatic historical events. Yeah, and the outcome
Speaker 2: to this day is, you know, fair, unhealed, open wounds,
Speaker 2: the youth, the passionate radical youth of yesteryear, keeping their
Speaker 2: heads down on auto politics. Today. Unfortunately, very little has
Speaker 2: been done in Grenea to deal with the traumas of
Speaker 2: the invasion. Besides an attempted truth and Reconciliation commission, which
Speaker 2: failed miserably due to a couple different obstacles, an unwillness
Speaker 2: to reconcile among some, they continued incarceration of certain individuals,
Speaker 2: unrecovered remains, anger towards entire sectors the population at the
Speaker 2: execution of Bishop and others, and so in the years
Speaker 2: that have followed, there's been a subdued political consciousness among
Speaker 2: much of the population. They have risen to the challenge
Speaker 2: of the US inviting themselves to set up shop in
Speaker 2: Marich Bishop International Airport. There were many actions taken place
Speaker 2: in Grenada to speak up under stand against that intervention,
Speaker 2: but for the most part, the propy of this has
Speaker 2: been disengaged from the sort of radical passion that you
Speaker 2: saw in that time period. And it didn't help, of course,
Speaker 2: that pretty much right after the revolution you had a
Speaker 2: series of natural disasters. In September two thousand and four,
Speaker 2: after being hurricane three for forty nine years, the island
Speaker 2: was hit by Hurricane Ivan, a Category three hurricane that
Speaker 2: resulted in thirty nine deaths and the damage or destruction
Speaker 2: to ninety percent of the island's homes. In two thousand
Speaker 2: and five, which is the following year, Hurricane Emily, a
Speaker 2: Category one hurricane, struck the island and killed a person.
Speaker 2: In twenty twenty four, Hurricane Beryl struck the island of Kariaku.
Speaker 2: And so we're already dealing with the environmental instability of
Speaker 2: being a Caribbean island, but now I also have to
Speaker 2: be with the political and social instability of such a
Speaker 2: traumatic incident. Before we close, I do want to get
Speaker 2: into some of the critiques that I had of this project.
Speaker 2: You know, I'm not the type of reason to look
Speaker 2: at these historical moments, no matter my allegiance to the
Speaker 2: exposed politics of the people in them. And we want
Speaker 2: to paint them in a narrow or simplistic brush. You know,
Speaker 2: I think I see that tendency across all groups. Yeah,
Speaker 2: you know, the mark slellness. We'll talk about these revolutions
Speaker 2: in a very fawning and agulating way. Then you're so
Speaker 2: the anarchists to talk about, you know, the Spanish Civil War,
Speaker 2: they talk about the Paris community. They talk about these
Speaker 2: different projects as if they were and as if they
Speaker 2: weren't serious flaws in their structure and the analysis and
Speaker 2: their methodology. It's worth addressing.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 2: It's very easy for nostalgia to take over.
Speaker 3: Yeah, definitely like something I think about a lot. Like
Speaker 3: I translated a piece for the Strangers in a Tangled
Speaker 3: Wilderness zine a few months ago, maybe even a year
Speaker 3: ago now by an anarchist fighter who fought in the
Speaker 3: International Group of the Druti Column who went by several names,
Speaker 3: Charles Riddle with his birth name, but he has this
Speaker 3: whole thing about how anarchists tend to write hagiographies, which
Speaker 3: is the life of a saint, right, Like they've tried
Speaker 3: to make the Spanish Civil War into these like exemplaries
Speaker 3: saintly people as opposed to actually looking at the mistakes
Speaker 3: people made and his stances are like his friends died
Speaker 3: for nothing if we don't learn anything, and so if
Speaker 3: we don't acknowledge the very real compromises and mistakes and failures,
Speaker 3: then they have been defeated, right, and they all died
Speaker 3: for nothing. But if at least we can learn from it,
Speaker 3: then at least of something we can take going forward,
Speaker 3: which is something I always thought was a great way
Speaker 3: of phrasing something and quite an admirable way of looking
Speaker 3: at something that he himself participated in and it was
Speaker 3: obviously defining a very traumatic experience of his life.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's something that I've rallied against, that sort of
Speaker 2: great man approach history. Yeah right, I suppose that brings
Speaker 2: me some of my first critique, which is something that
Speaker 2: plays Grenada both before, during and after. It is revolution
Speaker 2: when you have a political culture dependent on a maximum
Speaker 2: leader or a personality cult or just a grouping around
Speaker 2: her personality, whether that's Bishop or Gary or Cord. For one,
Speaker 2: it's a continuation of the colonial politics of the British
Speaker 2: in that sort of governor position, and it also I
Speaker 2: think leads to a contempt towards common people, whether it
Speaker 2: starts out that way or not, it eventually makes its
Speaker 2: way into that direction. I still see personality politics rear
Speaker 2: and it's ugly headed in Trinidad, even though we've been
Speaker 2: independent even longer, you know, nineteen sixty two as opposed
Speaker 2: to creator as nineteen seventy four. But the result of
Speaker 2: that kind of politics is, you know, it's ideological and
Speaker 2: policy splits either non existent or secondary to personality loyalties,
Speaker 2: familiar ties, and in some cases ethnic loyalty. The United
Speaker 2: National Congress, you went to see the party in power
Speaker 2: intranet right now, party responsible for our current position is
Speaker 2: a personality cult led by a current Prime minister talent
Speaker 2: sub processor, and she's only one of many examples of
Speaker 2: this sort of party first, leader first approach to politics
Speaker 2: that we see in the region, a baggage that we
Speaker 2: see in the region. I know, with radical politics, it's
Speaker 2: sad because you expect to do away with that kind
Speaker 2: of stuff. But the Revolution, in my view, had a
Speaker 2: lack of decolonization away from the authoritarian tendencies of colonial rule.
Speaker 2: That I think is why there was such an appeal
Speaker 2: in Leninist thought and rule to begin with, Because it's
Speaker 2: a lot easier to approach. You know, it doesn't unpack
Speaker 2: the psychology of clonialism, or unpack how Gary's rule may
Speaker 2: have shaped their own approach to politics. That another politics might,
Speaker 2: that another anti politics might, and so they carried on
Speaker 2: this elitist, authoritarian, and personality based politics despite having a
Speaker 2: youthful beginning. Bishop was twenty nine when he started a
Speaker 2: neutral movement, which is the same age that Gary was
Speaker 2: when he got into politics. I know one could make
Speaker 2: a movie of the mirrors in their histories, but despite
Speaker 2: his youthful beginning, the youth carried on the mistakes of
Speaker 2: their forebearers. They betrayed the excitement of people power that
Speaker 2: people had for the revolution, just as they betrayed the
Speaker 2: excitement of people power that people had for independence, and
Speaker 2: they continue the consciousness of deference to hierarchy. Again, I
Speaker 2: don't want to draw one to one comparisons between Gary
Speaker 2: and Bishop. I recognize their stark differences and their politics,
Speaker 2: and in their engagement with the people of Grenado they
Speaker 2: were not the same, but in some ways they did rhyme.
Speaker 2: I would wrap up, I suppose with Bundy's sort of
Speaker 2: critique of Grenada's revolution, which is what I just echoed
Speaker 2: this continued consciousness of a deference to hierarchy. A genuine
Speaker 2: revolution depends on people taking direct responsibility, not waiting for
Speaker 2: leaders or stages of development, not waiting on guidance, being
Speaker 2: empowered themselves. That sort of tired Leninist gradualism and bureaucratic
Speaker 2: control gets regular people no closer to actually having a
Speaker 2: sense of autonomy and control over their lives. And as
Speaker 2: funny sizes, especially in small Caribbean societies, participatory local self
Speaker 2: managed systems are entirely feasible. Inclosing, fundly suggested that Grenada's
Speaker 2: revolution failed because it moved away from this principle of
Speaker 2: immediate collective self management and deliberately chose hierarchy. And from
Speaker 2: that hierarchy came a sense of erodent trust, came, a
Speaker 2: sense of secrecy, became a sense of secret societies, and
Speaker 2: I created a culture of secrecy, a post transparency that
Speaker 2: led to its downfall. As I mentioned, it was gossip,
Speaker 2: a rumor of somebody trying to kill Bishop that got
Speaker 2: this ball roller. So today I want to appeal directly
Speaker 2: to Cribian radicals of all stripes to learn to learnessly
Speaker 2: learn from the Grenadian revolution on appeal not just to
Speaker 2: Cribian radicals, but to radicals all look across the world,
Speaker 2: all across our listenership. It is critical in times when
Speaker 2: the means of intervention and the means of disruption and
Speaker 2: division and co optation are more powerful than ever, that
Speaker 2: you engage in the sort of dissipation of leadership, that
Speaker 2: you engage in grassroots and dispersed in powerment, That you
Speaker 2: maintain an anti authoritarian ethos that cannot be co opted
Speaker 2: by a charismatic power. But you're take an approach to
Speaker 2: organization that does not lend itself to the vulnerabilities of hierarchy,
Speaker 2: that you consider moving like my coruser, that you take
Speaker 2: on networks and free associations rather than the sort of
Speaker 2: X Marx Spot Bullseye centralized parties and the power struggle
Speaker 2: that ensue from them from that first for power that
Speaker 2: led so many downfalls for the revolutionary imagination. Before I
Speaker 2: wrap up, I just want to ask James, we have
Speaker 2: any thoughts.
Speaker 3: No. I think that's very eloquent the way you said it,
Speaker 3: Like we have to build systems and ways of organizing
Speaker 3: or relating to one another that don't allow this to happen, right,
Speaker 3: we have to be very conscious, like you say, of
Speaker 3: where it has happened. And I think the only way
Speaker 3: there'll we understand the value of that is through studying history,
Speaker 3: but like studying it from a place like you were saying, right,
Speaker 3: like I get death is a statistic or a number
Speaker 3: until it's a person. And I think if we can
Speaker 3: study history from a place of like empathy, I guess,
Speaker 3: and solidarity rather than this would never happen to me,
Speaker 3: or like you said, like oversimplifying in a way that
Speaker 3: I think doesn't help. And sometimes I think we do
Speaker 3: it to kind of absorb ourselves from similarity, to think like, oh,
Speaker 3: how close could I be to this? It's one of
Speaker 3: the things I don't like about academic history that if
Speaker 3: we are people who are interested in making the world better,
Speaker 3: than we have to learn from all the other people
Speaker 3: all over the world who tried to make the world
Speaker 3: better in it, especially from the ones who didn't succeed. Yeah,
Speaker 3: because we don't want to do that again.
Speaker 2: Like exactly and the times the ority engine. Yes, indeed,
Speaker 2: we have to approach that with our due diligence, you know,
Speaker 2: the strategies that were more relevant or more practical in
Speaker 2: particular context, may be relevant or practical in your contexts.
Speaker 3: Yeah very much so. All right, yeah that was great,
Speaker 3: Thank you Andrew.
Speaker 2: To all our listeners, thank you so much for tuning in.
Speaker 2: I hope that you can look at our region with
Speaker 2: clearer eyes and visualize us in the way is that
Speaker 2: history repeats and rhymes. Until next time, We'll powell to
Speaker 2: all the people peace.
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