Facing the Public: The Post-Colonial Lies of Caribbean Monuments to Our History
Whether as creative artists or cultivators of direct action, we must face our public and tell the Caribbean what everybody knows but is afraid to say. In the face of fraudulent bearers of our common heritage, we can suggest what to do and how to do it.
Post-colonial Caribbean governments, as decadent as they appear, seek to control collective memory through the manipulation of art, music, sculpture, monuments, and public history. It is time our youth and energetic citizens take matters into their own hands and disrupt the way of life they seek to maintain. The tottering rulers already fear that we will do so. It is our moment to invade, occupy, and disturb their way of life. Let us take historical snapshots of Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago, St. Kitts and Nevis, and Grenada to illustrate our concerns.
Thinking and Acting for Ourselves
Walter Rodney in Groundings with my Brothers (1969) explained the Jamaican government was manipulating the historical images of the Maroon Nanny, Paul Bogle, Sam Sharpe, and Marcus Garvey in a National Monument Park to legitimate the exploitative black political class of both ‘labour’ parties controlled by wealthy comprador elites. Genuine autonomy, the formation of our own government, independent thought and creative activity, embodied by the Maroons and Marcus Garvey at their best, had to be contained.
They had to be made only ‘black’ while shorning them of their political content (their strategies for autonomy and self-government) to prop up the image of authoritarian black rulers. In doing so, the image of these national heroes shed the social force that compelled the masses to form our own government. The Jamaican and Caribbean political parties and parliaments live by ‘black unity’ as a veil for exploitation of commoners and toilers.
Today they have added Bob Marley. Is the present Jamaican and Caribbean government calling for ‘emancipate ourselves from mental slavery?’ They are the very embodiment of mental slavery. ‘Three o’clock roadblock’ was not meant to affirm the state of emergency of the Jamaican and Caribbean police state, but ordinary people’s direct action and disruption of the hierarchical government, regardless of party, and their rule of law.
Why do we allow the symbols of our resistance heritage to be controlled by the governments that downpress us? Why do we continue to share a social identity with Caribbean states and rulers?
Monuments to Greatness?
Recently, the Government of Trinidad and Tobago put out an advertisement for some cultural workers to help them decide what to do with statues or public art of the past, like that of Christopher Columbus. Columbus represents the arrogance and irrationality of white racists who claimed to be just exploring but came to conquer and claim lands for European imperial rulers.
The ruling class in T&T wish for experts and specialists to lead a discussion of what to do with these European personalities ingrained in the Caribbean public? Should they be placed in a museum, a warehouse, the rubbish bin?
The Trinbagonian and Caribbean government officialdom put out this call for cultural “experts” hand-picked from their roster of consultants and creative partners. Never did they consult the ordinary people of Moruga, Point Fortin, Enterprise, Aripo, Laventille, or Beetham as experts on the cultural heritage of their nation. It is the politicians and their class allies, though, who are rubbish and should be dumped in the Beetham Landfill. They love misdirecting the public, pointing toward the mode of production and rule of the past to cover up their own crimes against the masses of Trinidad and Tobago.
The Bureau of Public Secrets
Expertise was not called for to inquire with what to do about public memorials for Eric Williams, whether statues or paintings, who was an open agent of Anglo-American empire in the 1940s and 1950s, and who was almost overthrown by the Black Power movement that he violently suppressed in 1970.
We respect Khafra Kambon’s historical contribution to the Black Power revolution in Trinidad. But when he suggests not simply the Columbus statue but all colonial statues need to be taken down, what he leaves out deeply disturbs us. He is not the only elder we respect who is silent or mystifies the matter.
Why are his generation of rebels silent about salutes in the public memory to the regime they almost overthrew? Someone should openly say no monuments or public art dedicated to Eric Williams.
That nobody is doing so, or that these individuals and small groups remain obscure, reveals to us how the heritage of 1968–1974 has been co-opted by cunning mediocrities.
Black Power was not a contribution to the cultural awakening of the region. It was a clash with the Black political class too many have reconciled. Whether such people live a humble, intellectual, or wealthy life is not the point. They take a role in falsifying their own heritage, which is part of the democratic heritage of the Trinidad and Caribbean masses.
Can you be a spy for empire (or take part in national security today) against Caribbean labor and be great? Can the workers, unemployed, street force, peasant farmers, and a section of the military almost overthrow you, while you are said to have achieved greatness? Then all monuments and public art dedicated to Eric Williams have to be discarded.
Attacking White Racism or Black Officialdom?
Is it doubtful they could not find such madmen and specialists who could facilitate a fit discussion of this historical problem.
The historical problem of Williams, as the embodiment of the Black political class, was a settled fact, and placed in the bureau of public secrets more than 50 years ago. Where are our Caribbean cultural advocates and authorities who are not lackeys of the post-colonial regime?
What the T&T government is doing in this maneuver is consistent with what every post-colonial government does — it points us to the historical crimes of white racism and colonialism, so we won’t attack Black and Indian post-colonial officialdom. If this is apparent to large numbers or individuals and small groups, either way, we will not reverse the cultural decline unless we act like we know.
Groundings with the Exploitative Parties and Politicians?
The St Kitts and Nevis (SKN) government is collaborating with a Rastafarian Order, the Nyabinghi Theocracy, to sponsor a public monument and art exhibit to the famous Buckley Revolt or Uprising. There is a creative conflict with this Rastafari Order. It is affirming Caribbean labor revolt in history — they should be appreciated for this. But they are being saluted by a contemporary government that in no way supports Caribbean labor revolt today. The people of SKN and the Caribbean should sight certain mistaken notions we must overstand in order to overcome.
It reminds us that the discourse of ‘groundings’ which was supposed to be a gathering for common people’s reasoning too often welcomes official government authorities to take part. Our reasoning is not radical or democratic if those who exploit and degrade are invited to break bread with us.
This dilemma of many Rastafari (not just in SKN but in Antigua and Jamaica) is consistent with the decline of Maroon communities. Caribbean toilers are either founding forms for direct self-government or they are maintaining associations so the existing police states can patronize them and buy them off. Which is it?
The Message of Historical Rebellion
Buckley’s Rebellion happened in 1935. Almost 100 years ago. What message is that sending about organizing uprisings today in SKN and the Caribbean? Is it turning Caribbean eyes away from those Black people in power above society, keeping us poor and policing us brutally and reminding us of the white planter class? The white planter class no longer rule the Caribbean. And if global imperialism rules the Caribbean, then one has to oppose capitalism or we are maintaining a silly value system that cannot be the basis of Caribbean labor’s self-emancipation.
Are we saying capital accumulation is good when petty bourgeois Blacks or Indians pursue it, but we find it abhorrent when whites do it? Most people of color, even in business, have no capital independent of collaboration with whites abroad. Most find money to put in their pockets by associating with governments that keep us down. Let us not fool ourselves when we look at Buckley’s and other historical labor risings what they must mean for the present.
Historical uprisings can be an archive of strategies and tactics provided we update our political philosophies to clarify how society must be re-arranged for power and freedom today.
SKN’s Monument Park is saluted by some as the birthplace of Caribbean democracy. Genuine Rastafarians in their original wit would ask where is its burial ground?
Democracy means majority rule. Not minority rule through periodic elections of despicable elites, regardless of party, to parliament. A Committee has been formed, approved by the government, to judge the artwork, offering an award for a proper monument to Buckley’s Rising. Who would give you an award for leading an insurgent rebellion today?
What was Buckley’s Rising About?
In December 1934, some plantation estates on the island offered bonuses to their workers while some did not. Almost all worked for starvation wages. Those who managed Black toilers were compensated more. The plantation estate in question was owned by an absentee landlord who lived abroad.
Workers on the estate where Buckley toiled requested a bonus from the plantation manager there; Mr E.D.B Dorbridge who was less than accommodating refused to pay more than the basic allowance.
This refusal was the last straw for these workers who had been treated poorly by Dorbridge. They downed their tools and went on strike.
How meticulous were the workers in their approach to strike action?
Yesterday. But not Today and Tomorrow?
After holding a meeting following Dorbridge’s refusal to pay what they felt they were owed, Kittian and Nevisian toilers marched from estate to estate, garnering support and followers as disgruntled workers joined them by the hundreds as they marched around the island.
There was a confrontation with riot police. Bullets were exchanged, rocks were thrown, property was damaged. Many died and were injured. Still, a significant number refused to be unbought and unbossed. But what did this mean exactly?
A peculiar official reading of Buckley’s rising salutes those activists who transitioned the rebellion toward building a ‘labour party’ and identifying with electoral politics to parliament. Surely, this insurgent rising is not the pre-history of the excremental parties and trade union bureaucracies that overlord SKN today?
Why do Caribbean governments celebrate the breaking of laws yesterday but not today and tomorrow? Indeed, their machinations are carried out artfully.
The most insightful Caribbean artists and activists — not those award winning and compensated by the government — will tell us.
Why would the contemporary parliamentarians of SKN salute such direct action? Would they not read the riot act on such initiatives today? They are saluting historical action against white racists to bewilder Black toilers today. Caribbean governments play around with public art and monuments for they don’t wish for us to tear down executives and managers of color who supervise subordinate lives today.
The Birthplace of Democracy, Where Did They Bury It?
It is a true that from 1934 to 1939 a chain of great labor revolts happened across the Caribbean region (beginning in SKN it carried forward to Belize, Barbados, Guyana, Trinidad, and Jamaica). Initially, these rebellions were synonymous with the anti-colonial movement. Colonialism is not just a form of racism but denies popular and direct self-government. But from 1945 to 1966 a process happened where the Caribbean middle classes stole the initiative in anti-colonial politics from ordinary people, and repressed and contained the power of Caribbean labour. History’s contradictions need not debilitate us. The heroes of tomorrow will be known for resolving these dynamic tensions today.
Exposing the Whole Mess
On February 6, the Eastern Caribbean Central Bank (ECCB) announced a commemorative $50 note to celebrate Grenada’s Golden Independence Jubilee. The note features two faces. On the front, the bill is graced by Maurice Bishop, the political leader of the New Jewel Movement (ECCB) and Prime Minister of Grenada during the Grenadian Revolution of 1979–1983. His predecessor, Eric Gairy, appears on the backside, playing the ass as the union leader turned autocrat who was deposed in a coup launched by Bishop and the NJM.
Gairy led a labor revolt in 1951, distinguished by the burning of property, called ‘Sky Red.’ He became the maximum leader under late colonialism. Grenada officially became independent in 1974 under Gairy whose Mongoose Gang was known to terrorize those who fought for democracy. This very same Mongoose Gang attacked Maurice Bishop, beating him around the eyes so badly, he needed surgery to save his sight.
What does it tell us that the ECCB believes that the legacies of these figures can come together on one note? Indeed, there were conflicting tendencies within the Grenada Revolution, too, between the mass movement for village and workplace assemblies — the organs of direct democratic self-government — and the vanguardist tendencies of the “Coard faction” aligned with Bernard and Phyllis. Bishop himself was inconsistent in his support of the movement for assemblies, but his house arrest and subsequent assassination by his own NJM comrades was taken as an affront to the masses in action.
While Gairy betrayed the labouring classes he purported to represent early and often — before and after his tenure as Prime Minister — Bishop retained grassroots support in his final moments insofar as he represented the vestiges of the Revolution and its vision of self-government by and for the people of Grenada. The ECCB, by placing Bishop alongside Gairy, seek to erase the children, women, and men who made Bishop, pushed him from behind, and carried the Revolution forward. While the bank note bears the revolutionary motto, “Forward Ever, Backward Never,” it suggests that we can understand the progress of Caribbean history as a succession of Great Men divorced from the social motion of the workers, peasants, and unemployed. If Bishop never betrayed the masses fully — as Gairy did — the ECCB, through their artful depictions on bank notes, will betray them posthumously by appropriating the heritage of the revolution and elevating equally the forces of colonialim and counter-revolution in an attempt to confuse the public.
Leaving White Colonialism Behind, Confronting Black Officialdom
In the 1960s and 1970s the Caribbean began a transition not out of enslavement or indentureship but colonialism. We do not forget those still colonized under the French, Dutch and British in our region. But even in those territories from Martinique to Curacao to Anguilla, there is a falsification of anticolonial and labor resistance. Their independence must come not by establishing Black officialdom in the new millennium but overturning them. Black elites in both colonized and post-colonial society already live an active and full existence. Independence is what Black toilers must take and sustain for themselves.
While the empire of capital is still with us, the Caribbean has to be insulted by capital accumulation and wish to arrange society in another manner, for that empire to be defeated. The frontline of our degradation is not in imperial centers. Who we must clash with are those that wield a cultural populism, who hide behind the monumental personalities and events of yesterday through art installations, that protects the local rulers who are the real troops that assault us every day.
Stop Talking About What They Don’t Teach in Schools
We must remember to stop talking about what they don’t teach in schools. Schooling, not under white folks but the authority of people of color as well, is for socialization to accept the hierarchies of the dominant institutions. They seek to teach pride and loyalty to those who rule and their methods. Why would we expect our enemies to teach our children how to liberate themselves?
The problem is not ‘white’ or ‘colonial’ schooling. The problem is schooling that serves the state, even when there is Black and Indian rulers. When you punch a clock in a factory next to images of Frederick Douglas, Malcolm X or Harriet Tubman, Cheddi Jagan, Uriah Butler, Nanny, Elma Francois or images of Buckley Uprising, you should begin to reconsider the contemporary cultural claims of the world we actually live in. If in Atlanta, New York, Miami, and Detroit this is happening, we know damn well it is happening in front of smiling Caribbean faces all across the region.
Buckley Rebellion, Walter Rodney Riots, Black Power in Trinidad, Grenada Revolution did not lead to ‘Caribbean Unity’ Above Society
It is crucial to recommend that as historical rebellions are falsified in Caribbean public history, art and the collective memory, the shining governments of the damned tell us, these were moments of ‘Caribbean Unity.’ Only a retrogressive disposition with a false philosophy of history could possibly think so.
What they scandalously mean is our insurgent rebellions are forerunners of the present exploitative and brutal power of Caribbean rulers and their regimes today. Whether in the 1930s or the 1960s-1970s our risings represented the social motion of toilers of color who mashed up the overlords of their day.
While there have always been collaborators with empire in Caribbean public life — today can we find someone who isn’t? — for over forty to sixty years everyday people in the post-colonial Caribbean have been confronting despicable people who share their color, ethnicity, and heritage.
For some time, our people have not been confronting the Columbuses of the world or the old white planter and colonizer. Those who know Caribbean history understand overwhelmingly for more than one hundred if not two hundred years, even under colonialism, our barefoot, unemployed, mothers, and workers have clashed with police who were people of color. We have always had the psychological consciousness to grasp this confrontation despite miseducation and artful dodging. It is always the stupid and underdeveloped people above society who question our mental health and reasoning.
If a “cultured” formally educated person in the post-Black Power elitist sense cannot see that, ordinary people in their daily lives in pursuit of creative survival see it. This is who our artists and activists, independent of all the exploitative parties and parliaments, must lend hand. Tear down all monuments to White Colonizers and Officialdom of Color — take the self-directed initiative that Caribbean clowns above society cannot salute. Tear down the contemporary states and rulers of the region next.
