Revolution, Decolonization, and Social Change in the Caribbean
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Revolution, Decolonization, and Social Change in the Caribbean
The coronavirus global pandemic reveals an isolated instance of combined economic, ecological, and health crises and exposes the consequences of the forms of exploitation and dispossession in some countries. According to Mullin and Shahshahani (2020), the aftermath of the 1983 Grenada invasion has witnessed a continuation and deepening of the racism underpinning violent dispossession of the marginalized communities at home and abroad. Besides, Grenada continues to face the discursive infrastructure of a capitalist-dominated media and public sphere fashioned to obscure and normalize the dispossession and the delegitimization of resistance. Therefore, while assessing a current issue like the coronavirus pandemic, it is important to draw the connections to the revolution, decolonization, and social change that marked the resistance to racial capitalism and imperialism in the Caribbean (Mullin & Shahshahani, 2020). The mobilization of the Caribbean people toward decolonization and the struggle over their subjection to imperialism had local variations and contributed to the attainment of constitutional independence and national sovereignty.
Decolonization
Most of the English-speaking Caribbean territories attained constitutional independence and national sovereignty through popular struggle initiatives. Rodney (1975) indicates that while decolonization entailed embracing of all the indigenous classes and strata in the colonial societies, the imperialist powers played a decisive role. For example, the metropolitan ruling classes perceived that if the comprador elements ruling the sovereign states rose to power, they would promote their interests. Hence, decolonization shifted from the attainment of national sovereignty and constitutional autonomy to a political system that excluded the masses while creating an avenue for neo-colonialism (Rodney, 1975). The typical examples of the neo-colonialist arrangement are the British West Indian territories. Notably, the West Indian society exhibits a structure of a monopoly capital that has assumed new aggregations and strategies in the post-decolonization period. For instance, the metropole scientific and technological advances have expanded the multinational corporations’ capacity to continue extracting surplus (Rodney, 1975). The new system has altered the patterns of ownership of the means of production in the Third World and altered the classic international division of labor that had restricted the colonial areas to primary production. Therefore, decolonization in the Caribbean appears as the consolidation of the petty bourgeoisie class around the state.
Furthermore, while political independence was to represent a momentous event in a country’s history, the concept became devalued in the Caribbean territories after decolonization. For instance, Lindsay (1975) asserts that the term traditionally connoted liberation from foreign oppression and a community’s freedom to pursue policies and purposes reflecting its interests and values. Therefore, political independence was supposed to uplift the collective integrity of a social group. The attainment of freedom was supposed to imply the liberation of the individuals’ spirit and creative energies from the whims and fancies of external and previously-uncontrollable forces. In other words, the impact of decolonization was believed to transform whole communities of subjects into free groups of citizens (Lindsay, 1975). Contrariwise, the dissolution of European colonial empires resulted in the devaluation of independence. Significantly, the lives of the majority citizens after decolonization remain unchanged while a small minority of privileged individuals enjoy new and rewarding positions as ambassadors and consular abroad (Lindsay, 1975). They also benefit from luxurious residential mansions in their official capacities, and greater access and positioning to use funds corruptively both from local and foreign sources. Hence, political independence appears as a symbolic state that acts as a strategic manipulative device by the individuals wielding the metropolitan power. The metropole government succeeded by offering symbolic reassurance of political sovereignty that masks the continued exploitation.
Importantly, the evidence of the devalued meaning of political independence as a product of decolonization is evident in the continued dispossession and marginalization of communities. According to Mullin and Shahshahani (2020), Grenada continues to manifest a deepening of the racism that communities face despite decolonization efforts. For instance, the capitalist modes of agriculture and environmental changes are linked to enabling the spread of virulent and infectious phenotypes, like those causing the coronavirus. Mullin and Shahshahani (2020) note that the removal of restrictions on global commodity and capital flow accelerated the neoliberal era that witnessed the penetration of imperialist finance capital circuits of the Global South. The social and economic programs were intended to reverse the limited gains of the working class and redistribute wealth upwards. Hence, the repeated tax cuts for the corporations and the wealthy, economic sector deregulation, and public service marketization and privatization caused deindustrialization (Mullin & Shahshahani, 2020). The policies also dismantled the many public institutions that would have supported Grenada’s efforts to mitigate the economic and health care crises during the coronavirus pandemic. Hence, decolonization came with organized abandonment of the state, which has marginalized and oppressed communities.
Additionally, the rise of the petty bourgeoisie following decolonization led to the emergence of a neo-colonial brand of politics that marked a retrogression process. Rodney (1975) observes that in the Caribbean, there was petty bourgeoisie power concentration, manipulation of race and other divisions, destruction of popular political participation and expression, and institutionalized corruption. The metropolitan government also extended political repression and victimization, vulgarized the national culture as an instrument for class rule, and deliberately distorted revolutionary concepts (Rodney, 1975). The listed elements of retrogression aided the petty bourgeoisie class reproduction while the vast majority witnessed declining material standards. The multinational corporations also accelerated their surplus expatriation. Besides, the onset of neo-colonial politics is evident with the response of the people of Trinidad and Tobago, who could easily distinguish the gap between promise and fulfilment that did not match the purposefulness of the advancement towards independence (Rodney, 1975). The background of spontaneous organization entailing strikes, riots, and other worker manifestations from the interwar years expressed the dissatisfaction with politics after decolonization. Hence, the people in Trinidad demanded for trade union recognition and the emergence of the People’s National Movement (P.N.M.) as a mass political party articulating fundamental social demands. However, the petty bourgeoisie that took over from the colonialists exhibited the incapacity to transform the country and resorted to discourage the party press from political discussion and analysis (Rodney, 1975). The ethnic elites also capitalized on the existence of the African and Indian racial groups for neo-colonial political manoeuvre and survival.
Revolution
Decolonization in the Caribbean inspired the revolution because the region’s people had to struggle against imperialism. They engaged in collective public action with varying local mobilization variations (Neptune, 2011). However, the conflict currents that moved individual territories belonged to a tide sweeping the entire maritime region and even extending globally, indicating a unit of fragments. Nationhood was the dominant challenge to the old European and new postwar superpower empires. Nonetheless, the Caribbean nationalists that led the revolutions can claim success for their activities as far back as the sixties because by then, constitutional independence had become a reality in most of the islands and continental edges (Neptune, 2011). The rise of Caribbean dissidents also redefined the notion of decolonization as a liberating historical process of reimagining peoplehood. The nationalists rejected the imperial subject status and recast the Caribbean populations as unrecognized subjects of repressed countries and a global majority labelled the “Third World” (Neptune 2011). Therefore, the revolution brought decolonization by demanding the universal self-determination right owed to the Caribbean people.
Importantly, the decolonization struggle of the Caribbean was fundamentally cultural. For instance, Neptune (2011) argues that the people of the region argued their case for sovereignty by “citing an authentic history of competence, history, and genius.” Hence, the nationalism advocates viewed that the Eurocentric image of decolonization was as an arrogant distortion because the Europeans painted it as a dark tide of color engulfing enlightened civilization. Instead, they viewed the process as the birth of a brave new world of multiple cultures. Neptune (2011) notes that Haiti represents a beacon for the intellectual movement of the Caribbean revolution because the country’s intellectuals rose to attack the historical reliance on the French standards of conduct and creativity. They recommended replacement with the ordinary Haitian people’s culture and expressions. Jean Price-Mars’ articles that promoted the black poor as producers of a refined oppositional culture and a rich national renewal source were an anguished reaction to the United States (U.S.) military occupation (Neptune, 2011). Moreover, the renaissance mood was witnessed in Cuba, with artists and intellectuals joining the subversive cause validating imagery, practices, and ideas associated with the non-white masses. Therefore, music forms gained status as essential expressions of Cuban culture and occupied a privileged place in their critical and artistic presentations (James, 1958). The intelligentsia approach was a depiction of the national culture as black while discarding the colorless notion of citizenship among Cuban patriots.
Furthermore, the radical Caribbean social thought that played a significant role in the revolution falls within the larger radical global intellectual tradition. Reddock (2014) argues that radical scholar-activists and race thinking emerged in the English-speaking Caribbean to counter the colonial “white supremacy realities, class warfare, and the coloniality of power.” They rose in response to the decimation of the indigenous people, the slave experience, Africa-Europe confrontation in the Americas, diasporic experiences, and the impact of new migrant communities to the region (Reddock, 2014). The aspirations of the emerging educated middle- and lower middle-class group, properly trained in the ways of colonial arts and letters, fuelled the Caribbean radical social thought. Hence, the region’s defining characteristic as a diasporic society, provoked the Caribbean social thought that emerged out of their interactions and transnational links with the other people from North America, Europe, Africa, and Central America. The social networks to which the Caribbean intellectuals belonged accounted for their ideologies and political allegiances during the decolonization revolution. The intelligentsia’s function was to direct the ideas and aspirations of the group or class relevant to them in the fight against imperialism. They could articulate issues concerning race, gender, or national/regional identities.
The Caribbean revolution also entailed pan-Africanism and radical pan-Africanism ideas dominant on the intellectuals’ social thought. Reddock (2014) observes that Marcus Mosiah Garvey represents a world renowned Jamaican pan-Africanist who founded the United Negro Improvement Association African Communities League (UNIA). The movement had an extensive reach across the Caribbean and North and South America and had an influence reaching Africa. The radical ideas of Garvey’s social thought and that of other thinkers like John Thomas, Theophilis Scholes, and Norman Cameron, influenced the anti-colonial developments in Africa. The pan-Africanist movement from the Caribbean supported the efforts of the international congresses attended by Africa’s future leaders and represent a precursor of African independence. Significantly, the George Padmore’s socialist orientation ensured the labor and trade unions were substantially represented at the 1945 Congress (Reddock, 2014). The Caribbean pan-Africanists’ role was to encourage the future African leaders to exhort to self-pride and self-actualization, and to organize and act in a formidable challenge against white supremacy. The cultural nationalists called for justice, equality, and liberation, often using the colonizer’s yardstick. They appreciated the importance of economic independence of numerous economic undertakings that belonged to the locals. Hence, they were mostly anti-racist personalities challenging the white supremacist ideals of colonization.
Moreover, the bringing of Enlightenment ideas nearer to reality represented another aspect of the Caribbean revolution against colonial powers. According to Beckles (1997), C.L.R James and Eric Williams contributed to development discourse within the Enlightenment Idealism traditions. The two were critical realists and regarded popular historiography indispensable in the attempts to root philosophical ideals within recognizable everyday living terms. For instance, James documented the struggles of the enslaved St. Dominique’s people in his works, “The Black Jacobins” (Beckles, 1997). Hence, he recorded the fight for freedom and social justice under the French colonial capitalism in the West Indies. James documented the transformation of the successful antislavery rebellion regarding the Atlantic history capturing the creation of Caribbean’s first nation-state, Haiti (Beckles, 1997). Similarly, Williams expanded and developed the African labor enslavement and European capital liberation paradigm that instituted the revolutionary reorganization of productivity for economic development in Europe (Beckles, 1997). Hence, the intellectuals’ model extensively influenced the thought concerning the connection between slavery, Atlantic modernity, and development discourse. They provide an insider, creole, and nationalist canon on the politics of black liberation in the context of Enlightenment discourse philosophies. Thus, the scholars viewed the politics of bringing Enlightenment ideas nearer to reality as a mandate of the enslaved against colonizers seeking the monopoly of privilege and power. Accordingly, the Caribbean culturalists encouraged the revolution by outlining the imperialists’ purpose and the role slavery played in the colonialist’s economic system.
Besides, the Caribbean revolution entailed violent confrontation that cost human lives, but with meaningful change for the region’s people. According to Lorde (1984), the Grenada bloodless coup of the New Jewel Movement kicked out Sir Eric Gairy’s U.S.-backed regime of wastefulness and corruption in favor of the People’s Revolutionary Government (PRG). Therefore, it marked a significant moment in history where a nation decided for itself what it needed. The Grenada people’s concerns were how to get food, medical personnel, and infrastructure. However, the absentee landlords owned farmable land but did not work it, with the RPG requiring the filing of plans whether for farming it or surrendering it to capable farmers (Lorde, 1984). The author notes that U.S. interest in the Caribbean is not democracy because of supporting corrupt and repressive governments in Haiti and the Dominican Republic. Therefore, America’s only concern in the invasion is guided by racism against the Caribbean countries. However, Grenada succeeded by fighting back against the Americans, succeeded to overcome the U.S. forces despite the Caribbean people being untrained. Grenada’s revolution inaugurated a better agricultural system, with the inauguration of an agro-industry (Lorde, 1984). Hence, the country could process its fruit and coffee under own brand. There was also the emergence of a fish-processing industry that guaranteed no more importation of saltfish from Canada (Lorde, 1984). The island’s health care and literacy also improved through the armed revolution against the U.S.
Social Change
The decolonization and revolution processes of the Caribbean were instrumental in the social change that swept across the region and in the diaspora. For instance, the struggle for the liberty of man against feudal backwardness in the anti-slavery politics represented a social effect of modernist idealism (Beckles, 1997). In other words, modernist idealism challenged Enlightenment discourse that had invented and promoted the idea that slavery was progressive and developmental and could benefit both parties to the power relation. The social change that came entailed getting rid of the slavery ideology that had prepared the Europeans for the imperialism age. Lorde (1984) observes that the Caribbean nationalists borrowed from the American successful war against British colonial expansion. They were motivated by the thirst for liberty, which would only be attainable by defeating the chattel of slavery maintained as the principal organizing social institution for labor. Parliamentary politics role in emancipationism appealed to the revolution and the Caribbean strive to attain political independence from the colonialist. Therefore, Haiti’s seizure of a state and fashioning it in line with their ideological praxis marked a significant turn in freeing the working classes and the Caribbean slaves (Lorde, 1984). The Haitians challenged the proletarianization of the enslaved worker, with the view of the African worker as a prototype of the modern industrial worker. Accordingly, the plantation slaves aided the political discourse favoring the democratic values of equality and social justice (Lorder, 1984). Thus, slavery became socially unacceptable as it represented a fascist relationship of power, principally centering Enlightenment ethos within popular culture.
Besides, the revolution and decolonization ushered in the anti-racism campaign that dates far back into the mid-twentieth century. According to Quinn (2015), the emergence of the Black Power movement in Trinidad and Tobago represents an antecedent to the Grenada Revolution and carried a significant social change in the Caribbean. The National Joint Action Committee (NJAC) and the New Beginning Movement (NBM) are the two significant groups the led the Black Power organization in the demonstrations in April 1970 (Quinn, 2015). The revolutionary forces were against the charismatic domination of the political process, with the opposition significantly ineffective in its role. Therefore, it was a challenge against political legitimacy, which took place on the streets rather than in parliament. The alliance of student and youth organizations, trade unions, and cultural groups united and gave up their identities to become units of NJAC. The group incorporated strands of black nationalism and leftism and fought for racial equality and social justice. They rejected conventional politics and shared the belief that the solution for Caribbean problems must develop from the people rather than be imposed from above (Quinn, 2015). The group was an expression of social consciousness of the people and the development of new idea and institutions that evolved from their demands. They also fought for constitutional changes to end the fundamentals of white power established by the constitution Britain imposed in the Caribbean. NJAC identified the legal structure as a cause of systemic problems compounded further by the culture of individualism borrowed in the Trinidadian context from Westminster.
Conclusion
In conclusion, the Caribbean decolonization, revolution, and social change are reflected in the modern context with the emergence of a significant global challenge such as the coronavirus pandemic. The economic, ecological, and health crisis expose the consequences of exploitation and dispossession associated with colonization. There is evident deepening racism that underpins the violence and marginalization of the Caribbean communities both at home and abroad. For instance, the decolonization theme emerges in the popular struggle initiatives that brought constitutional independence and national sovereignty. Despite decolonization, most Caribbean territories continued the colonial tendencies, with the petty bourgeoisie benefiting from state power at the expense of the majority. Therefore, there was a devaluation of the meaning of political independence. The revolutions also entailed intellectual social thought and sometimes armed struggle. This brought social change such as improved health care and the expansion of literacy in the Caribbean.
References
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