By Caldwell Taylor
"In a divided world that don't need islands
no more,
Are we doomed for ever to be at somebody's
mercy?"
David Rudder: "Rally Round the West
Indies"
Austin "Mighty Skylark" Tuitt, a Brooklyn ( New
York)- based cleric and calypsonian, is preaching a
gospel of Caribbean unity. This is by no means a new
gospel, for the idea of a single Caribbean nation is
something that has taxed the political imagination
of the so-called "English speaking Caribbean" for
more than a century. It is an idea that is at
once a logical response to the tyrannies of both
geography and history, and a struggle against the
evils of more than five centuries of foreign
domination. Though it faces many formidable odds,
Tuitt's ministry of unity is another hopeful
beginning that is unashamedly inspired by the 1958
West Indies Federation.
Everybody knows that the 10-member West Indies
Federation (Antigua-Barbuda, Barbados, Dominica,
Grenada, Jamaica, Montserrat, St Kitts-Nevis, St
Lucia, St Vincent and Trinidad-Tobago) did not last
as long as the proverbial Red House fire. Launched
on April 22,1958 the much- heralded experiment in
regional integration came undone in September 1961,
in the wake of Jamaica's decision to pullout and go
it alone. Jamaica's decision to leave prompted Eric
Williams (1911-1981) to propound his new arithmetic.
"One from 10 leaves nought", deadpanned the then
Premier of Trinidad and Tobago. The collapse
of the Federation dealt a crushing blow to the
fragile psychologies of ten small islands which
sought a collective path out of British trusteeship,
but it was not enough, mercifully, to cancel the
dream of a single Caribbean
nation.
And so within three years of the May 31, 1962
dissolution of the Federation CARIFTA ( the
Caribbean Free Trade Association) was inaugurated by
Antigua , Barbados and Guyana. By August 1968
CARIFTA hosted the ten islands that once made up the
ill-starred West Indies Federation plus Guyana.
(You will recall that Guyana ,then known as British
Guiana, British Honduras, now Belize, The Bahamas,
Bermuda, Turks and Caicos, the Caymans and the
British Virgin Islands all refused to answer the
British Colonial Secretary Arthur Creech Jones's
call for a "federation in the Caribbean, enjoying
internal self-government within the British
Commonwealth"). CARIFTA grew into CARICOM (1973),
and a little more than thirty years later CARICOM
continues to be a major institutional expression of
this ancient dream that is meant to rescue us from
our stifling insularities.
Why the West Indies Federation collapsed is not a
matter within the scope of this essay. But even so,
it is well worth noting that many have asserted
that, the failure of the 1950s federal enterprise
had much to do with top-down architecture imposed on
the union by its British principals. Orders, these
critics say, came from the British Colonial Office,
which backed federation only because it was a means
of administrative economy.
The opponents of top-down federalism propose a
bottom -up alternative. In other words, a federation
that is driven by what economist C.Y Thomas has
described as " a resolute and relentless pursuit of
the interests of the poor and powerless".
Thomas and other exponents of the bottom-up approach
say integration will succeeed only to the extent to
which it finds favour with internal social (class)
forces in the region. Calypsonian "Atilla the Hun"
(1892-1962) anticipated Thomas and company, when he
captured the flavour of this 'popular' brand of
federation in a 1933 song entitled "Expedite
Federation". He sang:
We know that federation means Emancipation So let us
start to co-operate, agitate and educate.
The second line of Attila's couplet was borrowed
from T. A. Marryshow (1887-1958), the
widely-acknowledged "Father of West Indian
Federation". Always a savvy political
actor, Atilla used the word "Emancipation" in his
song in order to bring attention to what he viewed
as the real purpose of the integrative effort.
Besides, he was also drawing attention to the fact
of the
centenary of the abolition of slavery. The bard had
such an exquisite historical sense; 'reading' Atilla
tells us why the calypsonian is the most organic of
our poets and public intellectuals.
Atilla's interest in Caribbean unity has been
embraced by many calypsonians, including Sparrow,
King Fighter, Small Island Pride, Melody,
Bomber, Chalkdust, Stalin, Valentino, Ipa, David
Rudder, and latterly Mighty Skylark Austin Tuitt,
founder of the Brooklyn ( New York ) -based Global
Caribbean Representation (GCR). The New York birth
of the GCR is probably a good omen as New York-based
West Indians have played crucial roles in the
struggle for Caribbean
nationhood .Back in the 1930s, New York's West
Indies Defence Committee (led by Hope Stevens,
Augustin Petioni , Richard Moore, W. Adolphe
Roberts, Reginald Pierrepoint and Wilfred.A Domingo,
among others) backed the integration efforts at home
and provided solid ideological, organizational and
financial support for the radical and anti-colonial
movements
throughout the region. The scholar-activists of the
West Indies Defence Committee and the West Indian
National Council are among the key builders of a
Caribbean intellectual tradition.
The call to create a single Caribbean nation was the
originating theme of the GCR but that was the easy
part, for now the organization must go from the call
for unity to the realisation of unity in what is
doubtless the most 'balkanized region on earth'. How
do we attain unity in a region where, according to
Christin Girault, "elements of diversity tend to
overshadow the trends towards unity"?
Tuitt and his GCR have their wuk cut out for them:
They must help us to understand the historical
forces that have balkanized the Caribbean region,
and as well they must create the conditions that
will help us overcome balkanization and envision a
Caribbean citizenship that will include Aruba, Cuba,
Haiti, Martinique and the rest of our Caribbean
family. This new federation will be based
on our historical and cultural affinities.
As a practising calypsonian,Tuitt is well aware of
the healing power of music and, in particular, of
the calypsonian's historical role as teacher. He
must know that the calypso is a true 'pedagogy of
the oppressed' , a nationalist poetry that has the
power to repatriate alienated souls. Tuitt's recent
release of a CD- "Theme Songs for Promoting Global
Caribbean Representation" suggests that he plans to
use calypso and his Christian faith as his principal
instruments of political and moral mobilization.
END.
Part II will review the songs on Tuitt's CD
For more info, please go to
lg_lg1601@netzero.com
or call 1-718 284 4453 |
