Words Unchained: Language and Revolution in Grenada 0862322464, 9780862322465

Citation preview

Chris Searle

®

WORDS

UNCHAINED Language & Revolution in Grenada

Words Unchained: Language and Revolution in Grenada Chris Searle

Frontispiece: Prime Minister Maunce Bishop

Zed Books L td., 57 Caledo nia n Road, London N 1 9BU

i

,·

.·· ..--

Contents

Wordf Unchained was first published by Zed Books Ltd., 57 Caledonian Road, London Nl 9BU in 1984.

Copyright e Chris Searle and individual authors, 1984. Typeset by Forest Photosetting Proofread by Mark Gourlay Cover design by Lee Robinson Photographs courtesy of Wayne Carter, Pablo Sylvester, Chris Searle, Kevin Williams and Arthur Winner Printed by The Pitman Press, Bath

All rights reserved

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data Searle, Chris Words Unchained. l. English language - Political aspect Grenada I. Title 427'.9729845 PE3319.G7 ISBN 0-86232-246-4 ISBN 0-86232-247-2 Pbk

US Distributor Biblio Distribution Center, 81 Adams Drive, Totowa, New Jersey 07512.

Map Glossary

Dedication

Foreword by Ngiigi wa Thiong'o Introduction 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8.

Language Against Language Bilingualism: Language Plus Language Language for Literacy Language and the Teachers Language and Revolutionary Democracy Language and the People The People's Poets The People's Commentators

Afterwords: Caribbean Writers Speak References

vii ix X Ill

XV

xvu 1 23 43

69 87 103 121

179 231

257

Glossary

Antilles: A.K: Alister:

Bacchanal: Baccra: Baku: Ban' your belly: Beast from the east: Belvedere: Bernadette, Laurice, Laureen: Biko: Bishop, Rupert: Block-o-rama:

Maurice Bishop welcomes Mozamb. Liberation Day, Grenada, May 19B~que President Samora Machel on Africa

Bluggoe: Bois-bois: Bon-jay: Bon-jay-say-met: Boo-boo: Brambling: Brave: Briguh:

Radio Antilles: a private radio station in Montserrat transmitting imperialist propaganda hostile to progressive change in the region. Automatic weapon. Alister Strachan: Grenadian martyr, killed by Gairy's Police on 19 June 1977, as he tried to swim to safety in the sea, having been chased from the Market Square, where an N.J.M. meeting had been violently broken up. Making merry. White man, planter. Mythical dwarf. To stand firm in time of hardship. Reference to E.M. Gairy. Name of Fedon's estate. Three young women killed by the counterrevolutionary bomb blast at rally, Queen's Park, St. George's: 19 June 1980. Steve Biko: Black South African militant and intellectual, murdered by racist authorities. Grenadian martyr, gunned down by Gairy's police while protecting children at a demonstration, 21 January 1974. Afternoon dance, accompanied by selling drinks and ice cream. Strain of green banana. Mythical skeleton spirit that blocks the road. Oh God! God is good. Ugly. Fooling, deceiving, purposely delaying. Saucy, rude, audacious. Imperious, bossy, arrogant.

ix

.,._-'"-"'-""-:"'~

Words Unchained

Tu

Glossary

li,

Cal/aloo: Catching tail: Charles, Evon: Choirboys and choirgirls: Cocoa monkey: Cool: Courtney: C.P.E: Crey-crey: C.S.D.P:

Lalsee:

Leaf of dasheen, which makes a nutritious base for soup. Working very hard. A young militiaman murdered by counterrevolutionary violence, November 1980.

Ligarou: Lime: Macawel: Maccoo: Macmere femme: Mafoo-die: Making marse:

Reference to U.S. stooges in the region. An ominous sign. Fine, okay. Andrew Courtney: victim of counter-revolutionary murder, November 1980. Centre for Popular Education: Grenada's Literacy and Further Education campaign. Mashed up. Community-School Day Programme.

Mama Malady: Manicou: Maroon: Mar-zet: Massa day: Mize-warb: Moko: Mookman: Moo-moo: Morocoye:

Dema-say-lat: Dhal:

Tomorrow is others'! Curry, inside unleavened bread. Popular snack in Trinidad and Grenada. La Diablesse: Mythical devil-woman, with pig's feet. Donkey pee on wee: To be the victim of a curse. Dou-dou: Sleep.

Eat from bramble to timber: Efantgras: Fast: Fete: FRELIMO: Gartapurl: Green Beasts: Groo-groo: 1-la-loo: Jola: Jook: Jookootoo: Jrunbie: Jllpt!r.

Kaiao:

~ingarse:

Nancy story: To be taken for a ride. Wicked child.

Nenen: NISTEP:

Cheeky, precocious. Party, dance. Mozambican Liberation Front: now the Vanguard Party of the People of Mozambique.

Pun on Rastafarian expression to put prefix 'I' before words. iarge. bag carried by Grenadian peasant farmers. o pnck, peck. ~imple worker, unschooled labourer. host, s~pematural spirit. Hut, bas1c dwelling. Calypso. Having a hard time, working like fury.

I I I

!

I

,,

~~

Species of snake. Foolishness, lies, stupidity. Effeminate man. Testicles. 'Making mas": celebrating, making merry, or causing a disturbance. Ghost-woman, child-thief who comes in the night. Wild rodent that makes a sweet meat. Act of collective voluntary work. Weak. Era of slavery and colonialism. Miserable, wicked. Devil. Peeper, eavesdropper. Fool. Turtle. Tale of Anansi, the spider-man from West African folk mythology. Auntie.

Normal: Nu-bur-pear: N. W.O: N. Y.O:

National In-service Teacher Education Programme. New Jewel Movement: Vanguard Party of the Grenadian people. Fine, okay. We are not afraid. National Women's Organisation. National Youth Organisation.

Obeah: Oui-joo: Oui-kai-wai: Overhanging:

Obscurantist practices, superstitious beliefs. 'You mad!' 'You go see!' Overhanging branches, impeding the road.

Pappyshow: Peau-cabrit: Pesh: Picong:

Farce. Goatskin. Money. Gossip, frivolous talk. People's Revolutionary Army. Curse, originally to drive owls away.

N.J.M:

Catapult. Gairy's troops. Very hard kernel of a wild nut.

Stephen Lalsee: victim of counter-revolutionary murders, November 1980. Vampire. To loiter, to relax by the roadside.

P.R.A:

Pwah maniwe/1:

xi

Words Unchained

Pwea-pu-me: Pwee-j-jays!:

Pray for me. 'Squeeze his eyes!'

Quay-zai: Rodney, Walter:

Junction of roads where people congregate. Guyanese scholar and militant: murdered by imperialism in June 1980. El Sa1vadoreon Archbishop, murdered by fascist death squad in 1980.

Romero: Sand-dancing: Saw-oui-santi: Silk-cotton tree: Soucouyant: Stanislaus:

Stiff:

Beating around the bush, prevaricating. 'What you smell?' Large tree, traditionally haunted. Malignant spirit. Donald and Dennis Stanislaus: two brothers who were victims of the counter-revolutionary violence, November 1980. Grenadian martyr: gunned down by Gairy's police on Boxing Day, 1973. Formidable.

Tattoo: Todi-say-slaw: Troumaca: Trust: Twar-mal-e-wears:

Tatou, Caribbean armadillo. Popular wild meat. 'Today is yours!' Neglected village in St Vincent. To give credit. 'God turn his back on you!'

Vex:

To become angry.

Wine:

Wild, voluptuous dancing.

Your-moon:

Not one person.

Strachan, Harold:

,; l' i

Dedication

Maurice Bishop and Jacqueline Creft: the opening of the Mini\"tf}' of Women's Affairs. August 1982

This book is dedicated to the life and work of Maurice Bishop, Prime

~inister of Grenada ( 1979-83) and Jacqueline Creft, ~inister. of Educa-

j. I

I

!·.

xii

tion (1981-83 ), dear revolutionary brother and revolutionary stst~r, founder members of the New Jewel Movement and Caribbean patnots and martyrs, who died serving with One Love the struggling people of G~enada, the Caribbean and the world, alongside their comrades Umson Whiteman, Norris Bain, Fitzroy Bain and Vincent Noel. Forward ever, backward never!

xiii

Foreword

Words Unchained deals with the energy and the new life unleashed in the ordinary people of Grenada by the 1979 revolution led by the New Jewel Movement. This energy and life came out of the people's involvement in the changing of their lives. Development was not being done for them; they were themselves th e objects and subjects of their own development. They were becoming a force highly conscious of their unlimited powers to change their environment and hence change themselves. This new consciousness was clearly reflected in language - both as a means of communication in the process of creation of a new life and as a carrier of a new cultu re of confidence and revolutionary hope. Reading this manuscript. which treats language as a totality of a people's experience. one is painfully conscious of what the USA and their puppets are trying to destroy hy their criminal invasion and occupation of Grenada. But they will not succeed. Words Unchained is a dream unchained. the dream of an awakened people. and no power on earth can stop the march forward of such a people. They will struggle to unchain their hands. their mind . their collective soul. ~ords Unchained is now a testimony to the world the people of Grenada were tryi~g to build under the leadership of the New Jewel Movement. It is also a testJmony to what US imperialism is trying to destroy. Although written before th.e US invasion it is a testimony to why US imperialism and its local puppets Will not succeed. How do you kill a dream remembered? How do you defeat a peo~le whose history as reflected in their language is one of relentless struggle a~amst slavery in all its forms. colonial or neocolonial? The people of Grenada Will seize back the tools of their self~defini tion! Ngugi wa Thiong'o 1984 XI\'

XV

J/

Introduction

The ordinary people, the ordinary, the men and women who go to work every day - out of them comes excellence, not only can come but comes excellence. In the ordinary is the excellent. So if you're occupied with words you must drench yourself with words, you must take ordinary words and out of ordinary words you make beauty, you make glory, you make the song of the sons of God when the morning stars first broke out!

Peter Blackman

This book is primarily the outcome of interviews conducted with many Grenadians and other writers and scholars of the wider Caribbean, during 1980-82, while I worked as a tutor of the National In-service Teacher Education Programme (NISTEP) in Grenada. My intention has been as ~uch as possible to present the words of the Caribbean people themselves, m particular the Grenadian people, and my own contribution has largely been in the role of commentator and compiler. Some of these interviews, or extracts from them, were printed in The Free West Indian, the national newspaper of Free Grenada, during the four and a half years of the Grenadian Revolution, and others in the various publications of Fedon Publishers, the Revolution's publishing house. To both . these institutions I am indebted' as I am also to the writers, poets and smgers whom I have quoted. I would also like to thank the photographers whose work is included in this book: Arthur Winner, Kevin Williams, Wayne Carter and Pablo Sylvester. Readers will soon become aware that this book was compiled prior to the events of October 1983 when serious divisions within the leadership of the R~volution became evident, and led directly to the deaths of Maurice B~shop, Unison Whiteman, Jacqueline Creft, Norris Bain, Fitzroy Bain, Vmcent Noel and other Grenadians, on 19 October 1983, and the subsequent US invasion a few days later. As I write this introduction I write in the knowledge that some of those whose words are quoted in this book are dead, and others are detained by the US occupying forces.

xvii

Words Unchained

Introduction

Despite these tragic events, I decided that I would not contrive to al~~r what I had written over the previous year. I wanted to hold fast to the spmt of the Revolution during the years of its strength and unity, for its successes will continue to be a source of inspiration to the struggling people of the Caribbean, as its flaws and failures must become a point of instruction and precaution for future struggles. The ideas and words which were messages of its popular dynamism cannot be murdered by any imperialist enemy, despite the blood that enemy spills and the machinery it brings to bear in its futile attempts to roll back progress. The words quoted in this book are truly 'tongues of a new dawn', as the anthology of Grenadian poetry was called that celebrated the first anniversary of the Revolution. For the Grenada Revolution spoke eloquently and proudly to Englishspeaking people all over the world, especially to the administration of Ronald Reagan- and with particular persuasiveness to the working people and crucially the black people of the USA. This was a point emphatically made by Prime Minister Bishop: The Grenada Revolution has a facility of speaking directly to, and appealing in their own language to the people of the U.S.A. overall, but more so to the exploited majority. Then in the case of black Americans, meaning something like 27 million black people who are a part of the most rejected and oppressed section of the American population, U.S. imperialism has a particular dread that they will develop an extra empathy and rapport with the Grenada Revolution, and from that point of view they will pose a threat to their own continuing control and domination of the blacks inside the u.s.•

''l!I

!

:~

.

'

The English language, now the vehicle of the advances and transformations o~ a small ex-colonial island in America's so-called 'backyard', became a direct chal~enge to US imperialism with a similar impact to the volcanic words and influence of another English-speaking Caribbean giant Marcus Garve d hi U · ' Y an s ruversal Negro Improvement Association half a century ~fore. The effr~ntery ~fa ~mall black nation speaking out proudly through Its ?wn rev~lutionary mstitutions, developing its own policies and international friendshi d · · fi · . . ps an strivmg or Its own economic and cultural ~v~retgnty was mt~lerable to the world's largest and most aggressive and power, was bound to be seen as a continual pro~tion to a re~e ~D:tent on remtroducing, with added force and vulgarity, be the hegemoruc spmt of theMon roe Doctrine. The merest pretext would e':'OOgh to ~.rn propaganda attacks, economic and diplomatic isolation, con~uous mthtary manoeuvres and intimidation off the coasts and over the atr-space of the offending nation and a man -ti nentdestabilisation, intooutrightmillt Y e~ed s~ategy ofpermaclimax of 26 October 1983 It alary alttack and mvaston, the eventual . . · was so c ear that the Am · · d WOUld unmediately begin a cultural 0 fti . . encan mva ers Revolution and seek to wipe out thew dsenthstve a881.nst the influence of the . . . .._, __ • 011 at were Its testam t d ali - - . &ts slogans and its murals, replacing the bold d hen ~ re ty' an ero1c concep-

mill~

niii

eco?o~c

~d

tions of the struggling Grenadian people with crude imperialist grafitti. As the words painted by the US 82nd Airborne Division put it: 'Eat shit, commie faggot!'b and such dignified declarations are heralded by US propaganda teams from the battalion of' Psychological Operations', producing posters and traversing the island on loudspeaker tours, condemning and vilifying the very cause of the progress of the people. Of course such exercises will have an effect, but they will not smother the words and ideas of the years of the Revolution. They cannot, because the words were not empty, they were the accompaniment to concrete economic change and social benefits. They were also the messengers of a new dignity self-confidence and becoming one with the rest of the world never achie~ed before by the common people of a small Caribbean island. Three weeks after the invasion, the Barbadian journalist, Henderson Dalrymple, wrote of his meeting with a young Grenadian soldier who had been seriously injured in his arm while resisting the US marines: As one boy in the hospital said to me: 'I believed in the Revolution, it was good for the people and in spite of my arm I will not desert the Revolution'. In all I had seen and heard in Grenada nothing brought me closer to tears than that. If after what he had gone through he could still support the Revolution, then I knew all was not lost, the Revolution may have suffered a temporary setback but it will resurface again. c For it was Grenadians like this young man, the working people, the youth, the women, the peasant farmers, the urban workers, the agricultural labourers, who took hold of their language and gave it a new resonance an~ power. In transforming their own reality in response to the challenge of their 'Revo' in Education, Health, Agriculture, Housing and People's Democracy, they found their own words:

The brilliantly blazing sun Now shines for all All who were wretched Each and everyone It is you: Old time fisherman Old bend back farmers Who love the land It is you: Worn out housewives That now drink honey From liberated beehives Little schoolboy With your Education You now enjoy,

xix

-----~----------~--""_"------~-----"----~-...-" Words Unchained

Introduction

It is all of you That the dawn smiles upon. The basic flame of freedom Is burning in this Grenada land And would you believe it The poor simple folks Are feeding and fanning it! Forever we will cherish The hope in our garden With an intensity so feverish The life in our dawn Forever we will cherish The red flower growing In the rubbish For in our hearts we know, We are totally sure That our babies will no longer Perish Garvin Nantambu Stuart

..Th~se w~re ordinary people, poor people who were speaking and participating With a greater security, personally and socially, than they had eve~ known before. They were speaking and organising from within the achievements of the Revolution, from within free medical care and more d~rs and den~sts than their country had known in its entire history, from Within ~ew ho~smg programmes and house repair schemes, free secondary ed~catio~, a ht~racy and further education programme, a marketing and national ~portmg board, a public transport system, over 300 university ~holarships, grea~er ac~ess to electricity and pipe-borne water, massive infrastructural projec~ like the construction of a new international airport and ~e Eastern Mam Road, more farm schools, agro-industrial and fishenes development, free milk distribution free school uniforms and :ehool books, a lowering of unemployment fro~ 50% to 13 ~%. The words ~spoke were C?ncrete and real, common to all and arose from a con~at matenal progress was happening all around them tax. IS much a Part of the English language as its gramm~r and syne~ . e l~guage exists and is used in the context of colonialism or neo-co1orualism 1t has the adde.d d'Imens1ons · · · d imperialist h tred fr of VIolent racism an . • to omhithe colomser to the colonised ' and successively from the coIaorused decades as a result f th s own people and himself. Over the last three truth of ~ltural and ~pec~fis:~.e fo~ ~~ proc~s~ of decolonisation, the times in Africa, America .;d mguistic •mpenal1sm has been put many the Caribbean genius of F Sia and no .more powerfully than through anon an Lammmg. I attempted to add to the

c::e

%

=

J.. .

d

evidence from my own experience of teaching English in the Caribbean in 1968-69, in The Forsaken Lover: White Words and Black People. Yet at the time of writing that book, I had not fully understood that what I saw happening to the children of the neo-colonial Caribbean was also happening to the majority of our English children in London: that their language and culture and that of their parents, was being systematically suppressed as the labour power of their entire class was being exploited. And this while they were being denied access to a full development of their intellects, ~kills and language power through an inferior education with lowly expectations. As I saw 700 of my own East London students on strike from school on behalf of their 'Stepney Words', their own poetry and creativity in 1971, standing up for its publication and singing massively 'We hate the governors!', I realised that there was an obvious connection between the children of the Caribbean who had been forcibly underdeveloped and alienated from their own w~rds of labour and resistance by British colonial schooling and 'worship', and the experience of my own English pupil~. . It had taken the Caribbean people to begin to lead me to this conclusiOn, as it has taken the Caribbean people, some 12 years later, to show me what a real seizure and liberation of language really means. The Grenada Revolution which began on 13 March 1979, set free the 110,000 G.renadian people to create their own political, economic and cultural dens1ty: It was the first sustained anti-imperialist revolution of the Engl~sh-speaking world, and its impact upon the English language was. pr~vm.g to be a.s transfonnational as its impact upon many other of the mstitutiOns that 1t inherited. The model of the Westminster parliamentary system had been replaced by a revolutionary democratic alternative, and with it had also gone the imposition and model of the 'Queen's English'. For during th.ose four and a half years the Oxford Dictionary sat with the masses for rad1cal amendment with a re-created lexicon, forged according to the needs and aspirations of the Grenadian people, and as a result of their. vision of.themselves. Language was in their hands to be moulded accordmg t? the1r pr~ cess and resources, to release all the history, energy and gemus of the1r people's lives and creativity which had been dammed underground for centuries. .This book seeks to show something of how this process happened. In domg this, it also seeks to show to my own countrymen and co~ntrywome.n and the suppressed peoples of the English-speaking world, how Important IS language in changing society, how it contributes to cha~ge, ~esponds to change and contributes to change again in an ongoing d1alect1c of words and actions. For the English language has been a great and

intern~tional force. ~or

~uman liberation: it has also been the medium of oppressiOn and hu~uha­

tion on a monumental scale. Those who were enslaved, colonised, wh1pped an? exploited through blood-soaked words, now us.e. th~ sam: ~ords to build. freedom. The language of four centuries of Bnt~sh •ID:pe_nal•sm was English: the language of 20th Century multinational1mpenahsm and the

xxi

I

Words Unchained most sophisticated exploitation in the history of humanity is als.o pr~­ dominantly English- and the aggressive militarism of Reagan, descnbed m 1983 by Maurice Bishop as 'the worst disaster to hit mankind since Hitler', also plots and bellows in English. The colonial experience scarred and agonised the bodies and minds of the colonised peoples, and the blows were carried by the same language with which the free Caribbean man and woman declared in Grenada: 'Forward ever, backward never!' This book is a part of the story of a free people's determination to build a new future from a hideous and heroic history. It demonstrates one facet from a whole process of creation, forging from an alien and frightening institution an instrument and weapon of revolutionary change, and in doing so, cracking apart the contradictions oflanguage itself. For as a people seize a gun and a plough and the other means of production to liberate themselves, they must also seize the word - spoken, written, printed, chanted, sung. What kind of language do they need to develop? How do they set about decolonising and demystifying the language itself, along with all other dysfunctional colonial institutions? How do they tear out all those expressions, images and deformities within the coloniser's language that only appeared to legitimise racism, mimicry, dependence and other colonial complexes that gave to the people a fear of themselves? How are they going to affirm their own dialect and all the linguistic power that kept rebellion alive in their culture during four centuries of colonialism? Simultaneously, how are the liberated people going to guarantee the tool of literacy to all their people? And not only literacy, but also competence and eloquence? How will they develop language as a weapon of unity and struggle on the regional and world stage, giving themselves the resourcefulness and power of language to verbally tackle any problem or adversary? How does the revolution give its people the linguistic basis for developing a rational, problem-solving and scientific view of the world? For as well as giving expression to and satisfying the cultural yearning of a long-exploited people, the people themselves will need a form of language to break free from colonial and neo-colonial underdevelopment and dependence, so as to create a new consciousness and confidence to raise participation in all the organs of the revolutionary process, to be able to analyse events and to recognise and understand their enemies and their friends, and ~ be able to articulate their own planned way ahead, building a new and vtbr~t eco~omy. There must be a dimension to this language that removes an~ ms~lanty or restricted consciousness, so as to go beyond cultural nationalism and find common aspirations with the other oppressed peoples of th_e wo~ld, and perhaps most crucially - for the very consolidation and COOtinuati?n of the revolution depends on it- to develop a language capable of expressmg and teaching a mastery of science and technology, a genuine language for production! The historic stone thrown by the Grenadian people in March 1979 began to cause a. wave of ideas and words which are irrepressible. They will become prophetic for all other English-speaking peoples in their struggles to

Introduction transform their lives and build a better world, whether in the Americas, Africa, Europe or Australia - a true common language spoken and controlled by the working people that will be an instrument to unite and free us all. A Stone's Throw Swing me high, sah Fling me hard, sah Like I's stone In di back yard A' de monstah Plant yuh foot like tree in Cuba An swing yuh han' like branch Full a fruit Scatter me far - Nicaragua! Riding through storm - to Jamaica! Burning like sun - in Grenada AndEl Salvador? El Salvador! Yes! I fly to fall like stone Failing to break (still red from the fireside a' retribution) Dem millian glass window Da decorate di shame a' Nations Where Size is no measure for struggle! Swing me hard, yes Fling me hard, fren Make me break that foot! (Haiti squirms like a worm Under the hell a' di monstah Chile still eatin she children Pu~~o Rico pukin from spikes in she guts Tnmdad starvin she people on oil) Make me break an' bum An' when I done Use me, dis stone, to build! Jacob Ross

Chris Searle london,

Jan~ary

1984.

xxiii

Words Unchained

References a. Quoted from Grenada: the Struggle Against Destabilization, Chris Searle, Writers and Readers, London, 1983. b. The Guardian, 25 November 1983. c. Caribbean Times , 25 November 1983.

1. Language Against Language

Celebrations of the Third Anniversary of the Revolution, March 13th 1982 Senior citiz

xxiv

.

ens at a meetzng of the Productive Farmers' Union

1

Words Unchained Language Against Language For centuries this Caribbea . of the Caribbean pe I h n culture, this culture of the masses 0 P e as develop d · 1· unrecorded or at best . d . e m Imbo, unrecognised . VIewe With co t T . , to gam the approval of th n empt. his culture is yet practising it_ the m e very people who are creating it and asses themselve Th s. e cultural development of our people since th R . e evolution · d h I~ ue to a VItal process of c ange which only a politic I process of change has twoa ::volutton can set in motion. This other, ~ey come together topects - they complement each cultural Identity Th produce a strong revitalised · e cu1tural reg · ' eneration of our people comes out of a twin process f . education. o Increased self-expression and increased

As culture arises directly from work and production, language is its messenger. When that work is the result of a deformed or unequal relationship, when it is organised by the exploiter against the exploited, the coloniser against the colonised, the master against the slave, then there will be two cultures and thus two forms of language in direct opposition. Thus the culture and language of the Caribbean masses were necessarily different from those of the colonial officers and plantocrats who ruled them. The added dimension of slavery and the racism that the coloniser used to bogusly legitimise slavery to his own class and conscience, created an extra level of brutal complexity to the contradictions of the Caribbean situation. ~he exploited people suffered from the most infernal form of the exploitation of man by man: slavery. They had been ripped away from their own earth and people, their own work and way of producing. Although they carried their language, songs, drums and other aspects of their culture with them and held on to them lovingly and tenaciously, they could not wholly transplant them. As their work and its organisation changed, their culture changed, and with this new reality, their language also had to change. They had to understand and respond to their slave-masters, and in order to resist them effectively they had to study and know them. To know them, they had to know their language. The words they had brought with them from Africa would not, could not, suffice. They had to take a strategic decision, a political decision in direct opposition to everything they loved about their own culture. But it was not a decision of submission. To know the language of their oppressor was to be able to better resist. So they learned a form of English if their masters were English, or a form of French if their masters were French. Having done this, their culture could never be the same again. In our own time, similar choices faced the liberation movements of the Portuguese colonies of Africa. Portuguese colonialism negated the many languages of the African territories they occupied, impeding their evolution and instituting the language of the metropole as the official means of communication - even though only one tenth of the colonised masses ever achieved literacy in Portuguese. It was a part of the cultural offensive which sought to crush the personality of the African people, accompanying the exploitation of their labour and the plunder of their land and its resources. Yet FRELIMO, the national liberation movement of Mozambique which began its armed struggle in 1964, opted for Portuguese, the language ofthe coloniser, as its official language. The armed struggle itself, in 'putting side by side Mozambicans of different regions, with different cultures and languages oftheir own, was the first great factor in creating a national consciousness.'3 When the decision had to be taken about which language should be used for congress documents during the armed struggle, and thus which language should de facto become the official language of the liberation movement, 'it was unanimously and tactically accepted' that they should be written in Portuguese. In the situation of the dozens of different languages and dialects of the Mozambican people, Portuguese became the

Maurice Bishop (to the C ~ Sovereignty in the Cari~~ erence on Culture and ean, November 1982).

Culture Culture is created b it's not artists th t y the people, The bourg . . a create it. eoisie don't d they don't h pro uce art: th d ave the earth ey on't have th . The people a . e ~nspiration. Look at th re InSpired every day. Th . e peasants eJr music talk 0 f · · · · the nr s their life I mg, the harvesti , It says how th . ng, the watering th e nee was reaped . e gathering of the h When he's workin . oney, the maize watering the earth g, _swh e~tmg under the sun. . . . Wit his sweat , th H e peasant sings .e goes back home . With a pitche f thinking that ~~'s water on his head be lives his life an~ot _to make a fir~ and cook At night, in the h smgs of his life. when the half- ours of rest be . moon throw . . Sings of his w k s Its hght upon hi his suffering, h" ohr ' he tells of his gn· f m, H . Is opes e, h e ~mgs of happiness . . . . . e s!ngs and dances , It mtght be sad or h~pp a reference to h"Istory Y or d . a ally epiSOde 8utth at•s how it is. it h it as a real meaning, defines the enem~ •--and how to figh ... Pttacbel I t the enemy.2

2

3 ,.~

Words Unchained

'common denominator of all'. The choice was not determined by cultural tradition, 'it was a tactical decision, with a perspective that the future fully confirmed as being the only correct one . . . a political decision, the result of deep thought and consideration.' As the operational language of the liberation war, Portuguese, gave the basis of a common military language of command and co-ordination. It allowed the liberation forces to 'know the enemy better', as well as giving a greater capacity to understand and apply military strategy and the technology of war. It gave FRELIMO a language to deal with certain concepts that were untranslatable in the African languages. Portuguese colonialism had not allowed the Mozambican people any real penetration into the world of science and technology. The liberation forces needed not only soldiers who were also technicians, engineers and strategists, but thinkers with the necessary skills to analyse FRELIMO's ideological foundation of Marxism-Leninism. At the time and place, the only language capable of satisfying these demands was Portuguese. Thus it was 'necessary and inevitable' that the majority of Mozambicans would eventually become bilingual. What emerged clearly from FRELIMO's decision was that such choices are determined by tactical and political exigencies, not in a moment, but in relationship to the objectives of the people's struggle, which for Mozambicans was 'the construction of a prosperous country, without hunger, without misery, without ignorance; a country strong and united, a country which is also a Nation'. . Th~ instance of Mozambique, and the similar choices made by the liberatiOn movements in Angola and Guinea-Bissau demonstrated how the sn:uggling peoples cannot afford to be prisoners 'of culture, and hence pnso~ers oflanguage. This was also underlined in blood by the Soweto stude.nts m Ju~e 1976, when they rose in unified resistance against being ghettmsed ~nd tsol~ted through the imposition of Afrikaans as the language of school ms~ctton. For FRELIMO it was clear that success would depend upon knowzng. the enemy and knowing the concepts and ideology that would defeat ~urn, on constantly extending the capacity to think, analyse, apply and articulate, to study and to know, to understand and to name: at night, in the bases deciphering letters in th~ shadows of mango trees, spelhng out words under the cry of the bombs scribbling sentences . . . word was made bullet and the bullet was guided by the word . . . from words hurricanes were born which annihilated the companies.

4

Language Against Language With the sentences they wanted to hide from us we lit the great fire of the People's war. 4

By the time of ~e first great popular upsurge in the Caribbean island of Grenada, led by a free planter of mixed race, Julien Fedon, in 1795, the colony had already passed from French to British imperialism. Yet it was clear that the language of insurrection was French, at this time certainly not the language ofthe masters. French had become the international language ofthe struggling downtrodden, the international language of revolution. The language of those who stormed the Bastille was also the language of Toussaint L'Ouverture and the Haitian Revolution. When Victor Hughes, the Caribbean messenger of the revolutionary ideology, connected Paris, Haiti and Grenada, it was the French words 'Liberte, Ega/ite ou Ia mort!' that were emblazoned upon Fedon's flag as it flew over the rebel camp on the highest mountain ridge of Grenada. The Caribbean revolutionaries were raising the language of Europe to struggle against the colonial rule of Europe. They were transforming the language and alongside the Haitians creating an international tool to help them crush oppression. The words that were previously the violent monopoly of the coloniser were now baptised in rebellion as a code of the people's struggle. This truth showed that there was nothing spontaneous or parochial about Fedon's revolution. It was an extension of an international movement which spread sparks to the horrific suffering and rebellious personality of the Grenadian masses. Fedon's enemies soon made it clear that they understood the rebellion's ideological connection to French and Haitian Jacobinism. On their memorial to their own dead in the Anglican church in the colony's capital, St. George's, they referred to these 'execrable banditti'

And their free coloured descendants: Who stimulated by the insidious acts of French republicans Lost all sense of duty to their sovereign ...

In spite of imperialist domination and the need to adopt the coloniser's words for their own subversive purposes, the exploited and enslaved Caribbean people clung to integral parts of their own cultural foundation in Africa, even though it had developed in a relationship to a set of conditions and circumstances that they had been forced to leave behind. These deep cultural seams that still survived, whether in word, thought, dance or music, fed their resistance and stamina, and often took an armed form in acts of defiance or rebellion. Although by necessity they were often forbidden or clandestine, these submerged cultural energies still sparked revolt and

s

'r

Words Unchained

struggle. This truth, for all oppressed people, is eloquently expressed in the writings of the leader of the PAIGC, the liberation movement of GuineaBissau and the Cape Verde Islands, Amilcar Cabral, and finds particular focus in his National Liberation and Culture: A people who free themselves from foreign domination will be free culturally only if, without complexes and without underestimating the positive accretions from the oppressor and other cultures, they return to the upward paths of their own culture, which is nourished by the living reality of its environment, and which negates both harmful influences and any kind of subjection to foreign culture. Thus it may be seen that if imperialist domination has the vital need to cultural oppression, national liberation is necessarily an act of culture. 5

As Cabral emphasises, the people's revolutionary culture is dynamic, always open to 'positive accretions', even if they come from the oppressor or coloniser, and never bound solely by local or insular conditions. All this is, of course, directly applicable to the people's revolutionary language, which as a part of their culture, drinks from many sources. One of these sources for the colonised West Indian, full of its own contradictions, was the Bible, in particular the 1611 version. For the huge conservation of cultural energy which boiled inside the oppressed people repeatedly broke out into opposite directions when they were handed that most hateful and beautiful book. For the coloniser it was yet another weapon from his arsenal of domination, which would send the oppressed into more and more profound depths of submission and meekness. But apart from having that effect, the ever-resisting people seized upon the Bible and its language, images and stories as a resource and tool which could be immediately useful to their liberation. As for many slaves it was the only printed English they had access to, it was widely used as a primer for literacy and popular education. 6 For others, like the American slave Nat Turner or the Jamaican priest Paul Bogle, the Bible became a manual of revolt- as it was to be for the American white man John Brown, and the Malawian John Chilembwe in his insurrection against British colonialism in 1915. When the oppressed peoples read or listened to a declamation of the prophetic books - The Book of Amos, for example - and became conscious of w~rds like: 'Let Justice roll down like waters and righteousness like a rrughty stream', when they read Jeremiah or Revelation and learned of Christ overturning the tables of the money-lenders in the Temple, they read messages of liberation that seemed to be directly aimed at them. The revolutionary poet of Barbados, Peter Blackman, said of his early life as an active Christian in that island: I spent most of my time up to the age of thirty somehow occupied in reading that very strange book, the Bible. Very strange, because it's such a mixture of violence and beauty, and hatred and love . . . . 7

6

Language Against Language

He speaks of the words from Job that have moved and fired him all through his life:· ... when the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy!' In the minds of the opponents of colonial oppression in Grenada, such words became direct pointers to political action. The most consistent leader of the anti-colonial movement in Grenada during the first half of this century wasT. Albert Marryshow, a convinced Methodist. His language and oratory was strongly inspired by what he read in the Bible. In his Cycles of Civilisation of 191 7, Marryshow dipped deeply into the Bible for his rebuttal to the racist demagoguery of the South African, General Jan Smuts: The Sixty-eighth Psalm should be incorporated in a special African Te Deum for it is strong prophecy of her future greatness and the greatness of a better world. General Smuts should read this psalm through. I quote a few passages: 'Let God arise; let his enemies be scattered; let them that also hate Him flee before Him. As the smoke is driven away, so drive them away! As wax melteth before the fire, so let the wicked perish at the presence of God . . . .' I believe in the depths ofDemocracy, which is broad and deep enough to swallow the mightiest systems ofworld domination; I believe in the evil, though its 'head be of gold, the breast and arms of silver, and the belly and thighs of brass' for are not the legs of 'iron mixed with clay'? 8

I

i

I ! i

!; '

In the 1930s, the Grenadian Tubal Uriah 'Buzz' Butler, who led the

fi:st~ever mass movement of workers on the Trinidad oilfields, also used the biblical power of language and gave new meaning to Christian hymns as he sang: I have a sword in my hand, Help me to use it well .... at his huge open-air meetings, and he applied the vocabulary of the King James Version to the new industrial scenario, fused with Victorian prose and any other borrowed or assimilated eloquence, to push forward the cause of the workers in the Caribbean or elsewhere in the world, like Ethiopia under fascist attack: We ~00 must be prepared to hand gifts to our fellows by sacrifices. We have to make s~cnfices to make gifts. We are not in a position to make gifts without making sacn~ces. So I want you to remember the words of John Ruskin: 'Out ofthe hands of pam and suffering more gifts have come to us than from any other source'. When you remember others you are bound to have a feeling to make sacrifices, as I feel where I ~ ~tanding. Yes, I can die, I can suffer pain, I can suffer anything in this fight for JUs~1 c_e for the oppressed people of beautiful Trinidad. Make no mistake about it. T!us IS a cause that demands real men as leaders. Yes, a time like this demands real men as followers. A time like this demands men real men men of opinion, men of Willm ·' the soul of the M aster, ' en whom the lust of office cannot kill. Yes.' Men w1th

7

~! I

Words Unchained

Language Against Language Here was the English language used brilliantly as an international tool with global content. Both Marryshow and Butler, neither with the benefit of any kind of secondary education, both from working-class families on a small imperialist outpost in a sea of colonies, were using words creatively, totally devoid of any sense of parochialism or insularity. They spoke as citizens of the world, no longer under the command of the coloniser's language, but in command, making war on him with it, setting an eloquent example to the revolutionaries of the next generation. Butler's effect on his listeners was electric, as even journalists of the reactionary colonial press acknowledged: It does not matter your frame of mind when you begin to listen to the man. I guarantee you that you will be swept away after ten or fifteen minutes by the inexorable tide of his oratory. He speaks with the full weight of his being. Having heard him I no longer speculate to the likely reasons for his abi lity to produce an instantaneous response from his audience. That intense, consuming, passionate quality . . . I have neve r witnessed before. Speaker and audience were organic and indivisible. 10 This tradition of Butlerian eloquence is still alive in Trinidad and Grenada. In June 1982 at the mass demonstration of Trinidad workers at Fyzabad, where the great oilworkers' strike began in 193 7, members of The Butlerite Institute of Working Class Patriots were handing out a pamphlet with the following text:

Tubal Uriah 'Buzz' Butler in his later years

I:;

the mind of the Master to make sa .fi brighter day. Where I am standing t~es th~t. others might enjoy a better and serve you loyally, faithfully and a POSition to tell you that I have sworn to 11 in Hell for that matter to make wte ' uTnto th~ end. There is no power in Heaven ct · me urn. here 1s no . as1de from the paths of truth and be power, no bnbe, to make me tum that these contain fall not like n·pe daufty. and freedom. Beauty and freedom and all ne rult about o fi W . years of sweat and pain· without 1... , ur eet. e chmb to them through . • lie s Struggle Yes, fnends, I want you to take home with s none do you attain .... there are men and women who a . you the thought that at this very hour . . re greatly gneved t h 10 your mmds the picture of an Ethi . a eart.l want you to conjure up · op1an tent· a · ago; a PICture of homeless peopl . . ' PICture I drew before you a while t d e, a PICture ofg d '" ar ens that were blooming but yes· er ay, now destroyed to maker . th th oom ,or a tank s t I you e ought that these things will ha . po · ~ant you to take home with tha~ must not happen in Trinidad at the e:pen In the ordmary course of things, but the Idea. We want you as humble workers ~e~se of poor humble village folks. That's not alone m this fight for equal rights od eel, to realise, and to know that you are • an equal oppon · · 9 Untt1es, for existence.

It is of great importance today to emphasise the significance of June 19th. Let it be remembered as a memorial. Let your children and your children's children know where they came from. Let them know that it was Butler who led them out of British bondage and out of the Red Sea of oppression, to bask in the sunshine of political equality and freedom. Let them know that it was Butler who pioneered the struggle against serfdom. So that today we are considered as a people and a nation. Let them know that June 19th, 193 7 heralded a new dawn on the horizon for the working class. A new dawn for which we must acknowledge the overruling power of God. As Moses led the children of Israel out of Egypt, so did Tubal Uriah Buzz Butler lead 11 the working class of this nation out of British Colonialism. The language of the Grenada Revolution partly arises from this great tradition of Butlerian oratory- 'justice shall come to the poor and the meek shall inherit the earth!' - has often been heard at public rallies since 13 March 1979. Allusions to the liberating aspect of biblical language often come spontaneously from the lips of the revolutionary leaders and calypsonians, synthesizing the poetical power of J acobean prose with the real and concrete transforming strength of the revolution. This is Maurice Bishop addressing a meeting at the village of Birch Grove in November 1980: We Grenadians are the children of Fedon, who led a slave insurrection and paralysed the British colonialists for two years; we are the children of Butler, who led a Caribbean workers' movement that created a Caribbean trade union move-

8 9

Words Unchained

.I

i'

.l

'

i '

ment; we are the children ofMarryshow, who stood and fought for the principles of one Caribbean people and one Federation; we are the children of Harold Strachan and Rupert Bishop who gave their lives to defend our country and our revolution. Let them understand that! And as the descendants of these patriots and martyrs, as the people who had the only and first revolution in the English-speaking Caribbean, no yard fowl can change that! Let them understand that! And let them understand at the same time that our revolution remains strong, that what they are afraid of is the example of our revolution, the successes that it means, the more benefits it can bring to our people. Let them understand that we intend to continue along our road, because we have abandoned the old, decadent road, the road of slavery, of colonialism, of neo-colonialism. We have abandoned the road of imperialism. We know that the travelling is going to be long, but we are equally convinced that we are taking the only road that we can take, the road that will take us towards genuine peaceful development, genuine social progress, genuine democracy and genuine economic revolution. We understand that, and let them further understand that nothing frightens us in free and revolutionary Grenada, that our unity is still strong, our determination is still strong, our courage is still up. Let them see our mettle, the material we are made of. Let them see that we are going to continue our process because this land is ours, these resources are ours, here is our people and on this rock we are going to build a foundation that they will never, ever forget! 12

A~ old lady in Brizan, a fishing village on Grenada's west coast, still sings thts lament: Where are my African drumming Where are my African chant? I can't hear my African drumming I can't hear my African words. I want to hear I.

Caribbea okoo alana Caribbea ai ja ray, ai ja ray Oshu alia ba Ai ja ray, ai ja ray Calling all those Africans home again. Where are my African people Where are my African drums? I can't see my African people I can't hea~ my African drumming. They take way my African drumming And give me the King James Version. u

A local calypsonian, Sam Kee, says that the . of voluntary collective work: song IS from the maroon, or act . 10

Language Against Language It is an old, old song the old villagers used to sing when they ploughing or forking or

so, or when the ladies planting potato and so forth. They sing that song in order to give them speed and courage. It's an African chant they call it, in African language. A lady told me they were calling on their ancestors. Some fathers they calling. Whenever they praying they use the same language. 14 The 'King James Version' was a fundamental part of the curriculum of colonialism for the Caribbean people, and as conceived by colonialism, an antidote to the cultural roots and independence of the colonised people. To the lady of Brizan it was a part of a strategy of cultural substitution, designed to stifle the African personality. The vibrancy of African traditions in many villages of Grenada, and particularly in the sister island of Carriacou, show how far short colonialism fell in accomplishing this cultural penetration. In the village of Tivoli in north-eastern Grenada, the fictional character Sergeant Colan plays his drum in Renalph Gebon's story, The Village Drummer: African blood, true African blood flowed in his veins. The women folk dressed immaculately in their long, multi-coloured, starched cotton dresses and fluffy, coloured headties . . . expressed in song and dance the African culture that was part of their very being. As they sung and danced to the rhythm of Colan's drum, with head thrown backwards, lips continually flapping and hands vigorously beating on the tightened goatskin of the cou-pay drum, he played away. The expression on his face, the sweat on his forehead, the vigour with which he performed his task, all bore evidence of his African heritage. This expression too was manifested on the feast of Sara-ka, a feast for the dead which was pregnant with foods, drumming, singing and dancing, 'N ansi stories, prayers for the dead and adoration of the water goddess, Mama Eau. 15 The African vestiges in the culture and language of the Grenadian people are characterised by the themes of rebellion and resistance. Sergeant Colan himself symbolises that insurrectionary strength and, in Gebon's story, is one of the organisers and stewards of the 19 51 upsurge of agricultural workers that signalled the beginning of the end for British colc!li?'ism in Grenada. Christine David, the principal of Harvey Vale School in Carriacou and scholar of her people's culture, emphasises that the Big Drum dance of that sister island also finds the same theme: Our culture here in Carriacou has been handed down from generation to generation and our people have resolutely held onto it, which is why it remains with us so strongly, even at this present time. Ifs as old as slavery, and we know that in those times our ancestors used their spare time to express their suppressions and feelings of joy, through their drums. The drum brought the people together in a communal effort, and still the people adhere to it. According to the records, the European landlords in Carriacou were absent most of the time, which is the main reason why the African culture remained here. Then

11

----

~. -~-

--~~

-

-----

------------

--

Words Unchained

1 '

'l

'

because the island was so small it was always easy for the people to get into contact with one another, and so it has been to this day. The African was rebellious, and although he may have tolerated certain things from the European, the African element was still predominant. Involved in all our culture is the theme of rebellion, and sometimes insurrection. Even some of the Anansi stories told at prayer meetings, tombstone feasts or wakes have something below the surface meaning, passing on the message of resistance and hope. Some of the songs that accompany the Big Drum tell the story of the slave asking to go back to Africa, saying that the sea water is only barren to him. Other songs relate to the children being sold into slavery and their parents crying over this, others are about one person's feelings when a set of people were against her. In all cases the people wanted to express how they felt. They were not just accepting things like that. So when the slaveowners introduced their religions, the people thought they were insufficient. So although they might go through Christian ceremonies by day, for example at Christmas, they would always beat their drums all through the night, as if to fulfil the ceremony. They grafted on their own rebellious African elements. Other Big Drum songs celebrate figures who were very important to the ancestors, like Kromanti (or Anansi) Kojo and Mama N u. An ansi Kojo was a famous Kromantin who used to call the people together to tell them stories, to explain things and educate them. He was a wise man and an educator, and Mama Nu was the female equivalent. The Big Drum is divided into two classes. The tribal and religious dances were handed down by the African tribes. The Kromantin had the Kromantin dance, the Ibos had the Ibo dance, and the Mandingos, the Chamba, the Moko, the Temne. Then we have other dances, the secular dances that are more European than African, and these are the Bele dances, like the Bele Kawe, the Gwa Bele, the Bele Juba, the man Kalinda and the woman Kalinda, the Bongo and the Chiffonay. The Big Drum dances themselves express warfare, particularly the secular dances like the Hale Churde, the Bongo and the Kalinda. They bring out the fighting spirit and the sense of challenge, and they relate strongly to the fact that the people of Africa never accepted suppression. 16 •

The Big ~rum. songs and chants which accompany the dancing are in French patois, which even up until1940 was still spoken widely, very oft~n as the first means of communication, in Grenada and Carriacou. It is in this Ian~ age that much of the submerged culture still exists, full of personal and political anger- a~ in the messages of these two dance lyrics, a Bele Kawe and ~ongo respectively from the Mount Royal village on the central ridge of Carnacou: I am Claris, I have no children I am Claris, I have no children Papa God did not give me any: Do not cry out my name in the crowd. If they were lending I would have borrowed one, If they were selling

Language Against Language I would have bought one, But God did not give me any So do not cry out my name in the crowd. I cannot go where I want I cannot go when I want I cannot speak as I want I cannot sleep as I want I cannot sing when I want I cannot dance when I want In my own native land In my own native land. 17

In many songs the pull is homewards, towards Africa and the land of the ancestors: Oye oyo, 0 beautiful Louisa Come let us go back to Guinea Where we will find our parents Alas! The waves and waters separate us. Wake up Era, wake up Mme, wake up Nu The morning will be breaking, Come to bless your children. Ah! Let us seek the tomb of Kromanti Kojo.

The final rejection of the coloniser' s culture and language emerges in lines like these:

I don't want these hypocrite people in my yard I have these hypocrite people's words under my tongue ....

As much as the coloniser's language was embraced, it was also rejected, along with the ideology it carried. As much as the African traditions were forgotten or marginalised, they were remembered and nourished. After the emancipation, as more and more people began to receive basic elementary education and attend schools organised by the colonial authorities or the ch~rches, the curriculum of colonialism strengthened its hold on the consciousness of the people. Coming from either of these sources, it became a Eurocentric, imperial propaganda exercise that had very little organic or real meaning for the mass of the Caribbean people. An extended secondary education or anything beyond was a rare enough phenomenon, reserved on~y for the very occasional scholarship boy from the poor home, plus the children of the plantocracy and the professional and commercial strata. The few that went through the entire colonial educational machine tended

12 13

Words Unchained

to have their empathy for the working people smothered in the process, and became local appendages and apologists of the colonial power. The majority of the people stayed profoundly dissatisfied with the educational content of what they learned, and picked up what skills they could. Marryshow and Butler, for example, had only the most basic elementary education and were largely self-taught, developing their genius in relationship to their immediate circumstances and struggle. Another remarkable Grenadian, Francisco Slinger, better known by his calypso name of The Mighty Sparrow, remembered the kind of absurdity-based curriculum heaved upon him during his primary school education in his calypso Dan is the Man in the Van. The references are to be found in Captain Cutteridge's colonial English textbooks, in particular the Royal Readers, which had their effect on several generations of Caribbean infants:

;

l

I

!