THE MEANING OF RAT ISLAND FOR CARIBBEAN LIBERATION
In the Caribbean, there are upwards of 7000 scattered islands. Many are considered small places compared to major metropolitan centers and imperial powers. But some have a permanent population of 200 or less. Some are uninhabited. Even as US empire props up Caribbean rulers’ military capacity to patrol lands and police toilers, there are many tiny and neglected places to gather and hold reasonings.
Depending on who tells it, in June or December 1970 there was a meeting on an obscure isle off the west coast of St. Lucia called Rat Island. Rat Island is otherwise known as a colony of rodents who stowed away on European ships and later as a quarantine site in the 19th Century. But this famous event for the Caribbean left remains half-hidden more than a half century after it was convened. What is the significance of this event?
Some insist it was a gathering of “progressive” activists in response to the Black Power movement sweeping the region.
Some say it was a meeting of left nationalists in response to the events of the Black Power Revolution in Trinidad and Tobago of February-April 1970 that nearly overthrew the government of Eric Williams — that peculiar agent of imperialism and pillar of the Black radical tradition.
Some say it was a meeting of revolutionary and socialist groups that desired a United Socialist Eastern Caribbean.
Some say it was a meeting that spawned a series of FORUM groups, particularly in St. Lucia and St. Vincent, but perhaps also in Grenada, Antigua, and Guyana.
Some say the guiding spirit of the meeting was reformist nor revolutionary and no broad strategies or commitments were made.
Some say none had a clear sense of the power of the working class for political life but wished to form community groups.
Some say those who gathered at Rat Island identified with the Black Power idea and preached an orientation to an African ideology as a basis for uniting the Caribbean. Those who disagreed argued that unifying the Caribbean should be based on the working class, with particular attention to uniting Africans and Indians.
Some say the Black Power idea, in an overwhelming region of African descent, was in reality an idea elevating the unemployed at the expense of the inability of post-colonial governments to make clear the meaning of ‘independence.’ It could not mean coveted positions to the Black elite at the expense of Black commoners.
Some say the personalities and influences on this meeting included Trinidad’s CLR James, Makandal Daaga, and Bukka Rennie, Guyana’s Walter Rodney and Eusi Kwayana, Jamaica’s Trevor Munroe and Rupert Lewis, Grenada’s Maurice Bishop, and St. Lucia’s George Odlum. Whether all actually attended was not important.
Another major influence, Antigua’s Tim Hector under the instruction of the VC Bird government was intercepted in Martinique and blocked from attending the gathering.
It appears that no prominent women attended this meeting despite their presence in the movements of the Revolutionary Seventies in the Caribbean. This too has its significance.
Now from this brief outline we may discover this meeting’s historical meanings. If this meeting foreshadowed the conflicting tendencies of the Caribbean New Left (1968–1983), it should remind emerging Caribbean activists of a few things.
Caribbean liberation movements in the past had reformers and revolutionaries, vaguely progressive people, Left Nationalists. This means most activists did not grasp what their relationship to states and ruling classes should be. Further, few understood that direct democracy or workers self-management should be the content of the new society they were trying to bring closer. No perspective on patriarchy or women’s liberation was centered.
This is despite the fact that the meeting happened after the greatest post-colonial revolt not simply in the Caribbean but in the entire world. Clash! periodically reminds our audience this, but we are not Trinidad and Tobago nationalists. We are not nationalists or patriots of any hierarchical regime in the region or in the world. Rather, anytime a mass movement of workers, unemployed, students, and a faction of the army almost overthrows a “progressive” leader of color it represents the highest stage of consciousness that the world has yet reached. Be mindful — not just in the Caribbean, but the entire world. Trinidad and the Caribbean are purposefully socialized and conditioned not to understand the weight of this event.
We understand many do not grasp what is wrong with progressive ideas today, despite the fact that countless progressive activists and intellectuals are stooges and advisors of imperial and peripheral governments from the U.S. and Canada to CARICOM. Through taking part in struggle, then and now, such fault lines are clarified.
But in short, the meaning of Rat Island is its staging of a people determined to enact a politics of liberation, rather than mere party politics or elite representative government. We dare to ask, where are those who stand firmly with the cause of liberation for the toilers, the downpressed, the domestics, and the unemployed and reject all political parties and electoral schemes today? Looking back, whether a clear agenda emerged or not, the significance of Rat Island is this.
Some gathered to associate and place values on themselves and society. They wished to found, frame, and constitute new forms of politics and government. Before the Age of the Internet, they vaguely knew others across the region had similar instincts and vital energies such as themselves. Social networks existed to bring them together and means of communications like pamphlets, snail mail, and newspapers let the region know, and even the Caribbean Diaspora, that there were individual talents and small groups protesting and rebelling in various ways. And yet almost 55 years ago, as different as it was to 2024, has something in common with today.
The Caribbean has a great sense not just of social crisis but impending confrontation. And behind the veneer of social media, we know the sparks for the new society are flaring. But we still have not shown each other the respect of having more face to face regional meetings, however obscure, to better understand one another. Future founding meetings of social revolutionaries in the Caribbean will likely have equal number of women as men. These meetings may even be led and organized by women. Still, this will not guarantee the fight against patriarchy will be centered.
There are networks of women and men today, associations that are funded by imperialists abroad, non-profit foundations and hierarchical governments, with executive directors talking autonomy and being self-directed. These even say they have a memorandum of understanding (non legally binding) with the existing dastardly regimes to protect activists.
People gathered in 1970 at Rat Island (St. Lucia) in response to what happened in Trinidad and Tobago where a multi-racial nation almost overthrew a “progressive” prime minister of color. This was before many of the Eastern Caribbean were formally independent. History only retrogresses for the formally educated who are in fact slow or illiterate. Future meetings that take inspiration from Rat Island will talk about the discarding of all Caribbean forms of elite representative government and mercenary political leaders of all genders and racial backgrounds.
The networks to have these meetings may still be half-hidden like the original Rat Island meeting. The next generation ready to found and frame a new society for the Caribbean, not be an advisor or lobbyist to its decadent governments, may not be ready to gather its forces. But we are confident that when Caribbean people are ready to overturn executives and directors above society (regardless of race, gender, image, heritage, or likeness) they will find their Rat Islands to discuss what to do and how to do it.
After such meetings if there is no consensus they can agree to a coalition that excludes all electoral parties and hierarchical governments, and they can peacefully coexist to see what radical democratic thoughts and activities hold the most weight in the region. Nevertheless, the best organizing meetings are not ones where vanguards chase the uprisings of others — those can stimulate a great awakening. We have enough history and an archive of possibilities to meet and strategically plan sooner, rather than later.
Those who refuse equal opportunity to enter the rules of hierarchy under the present decadent Caribbean regimes, who don’t want inclusion in the imperial or peripheral den of thieves, who don’t flaunt a stylized look of submission, are ready for the next Rat Island. Why not publicize that the meeting is in June so the progressive spies will miss the real meeting in December? The revolution will not be funded. But it will be creative and self-directed.
