THE ROAD TO NATIONHOOD: A REVIEW OF THE CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY OF GRENADA.  
PART 1

Caldwell Taylor

The Associated State of Grenada, Carriacou and Petite Martinique became formally decolonized on 7 February 1974. Formal decolonization-"Independence"- was not the outcome of an independence struggle waged by the Grenadian people, it was instead an act of self-serving 'generosity' on the part of retreating
colonial power. The British, as Eric Williams (1911-1981) once pointed out, had sucked the orange dry and subsequently became mortally afraid of landing on the peel.

This debilitating fear of "stepping on the peel" was a key reason why the Britain pressed its West Indian "possessions" into the 1958 Federation. From the standpoint of the British-and also from that of the major West Indian political leaders of the day- federation was "the only enabling formula which would allow [the islands] to meet the test for full self-government and independence".  But the Federation came undone in just three years and the grand idea of West Indian decolonization en masse perished with it.

In the days following the collapse of the Federation the British warmed up to the idea of granting
independence to individual West Indian territories. The imperial mind no doubt was 'assisted' by the new and articulate anti-imperialism which was heard at the Bandung Conference in 1955, and also in the debates taking place in the United Nations, especially in the days following its adoption of the ground-breaking Declaration on the Granting of Independence to Colonial Countries and Peoples (UN Resolution 1514[XV).Operative paragraph number one declares that:

1. The subjection of peoples to alien subjugation, domination and exploitation constitutes a denial of fundamental human rights, is contrary to the Charter of the United Nations and is an impediment to the
promotion of peace and co-operation.

And according to paragraph three:

3. Inadequacy of political, economic social or educational preparedness should never serve as a pretext for delaying independence.

"INDEPENDENCE FOR ONE AN' ALL " -

Taking advantage of the new time and the new thinking Jamaica and Trinidad -Tobago proceeded to Independence in 1962- the former on August 6, the latter on August 31;Barbados and Guyana took their
respective grants in 1966, the Bahamas in 1973; and then came the "small" islands, Grenada in the lead.

GAIRY'S LETTER

Grenada's desire to sue for independence was first disclosed in June 1969 in a letter written by then
Premier Eric M. Gairy to his counterparts in the West Indies Associated States, the collective name
for five former colonies- Antigua, Dominica, Grenada, St Kitts-Nevis -Anguilla, and St Lucia - which
were transformed, in 1967, into "States in association with the UK". This new constitutional status-Associate
Statehood -gave each of the islands "full internal self-government”, leaving the United Kingdom with
responsibility for external affairs and defense.

Statehood was just one constitutional moment away from independence and under the enabling legislation -
The West Indies Act 1967, the government of an Associate State could opt for full sovereignty by
(a) winning two-thirds of the votes cast in an independence referendum, or
(b) by terminating the association pursuant to Section 10 (2) of the the West Indies Act, a statute of the Parliament of the United Kingdom.

In his 25 June 1969 letter to the colleagues Eric Gairy pointed out that:

"The Grenada Government has had under consideration for some time the implications of the status of
independence either alone or in association with other Caribbean countries".

Mr Gairy's letter failed to elicit the desired response and so the Grenadian Premier vowed to "go it alone".

MEETING GODBER

Gairy went on to "intimate" his independence plans to Joseph Godber, the then UK Minister of Commonwealth Affairs, who visited Grenada in 1970. In his conversations with Mr Godber, Gairy
reportedly told the British official that he did not like the idea of going to independence via the referendum route: he proposed that the UK terminate Grenada's Associate status in keeping with the provisions of Section 10 (2) of the West Indies Act 1967. Godber told Premier Gairy that the British were likely to give their blessings to his proposal only if Gairy won an election in which independence was the major issue. With that
in mind, Gairy moved to the next stage of his independence plan-general elections with independence as the "major" issue.

INDEPENDENCE ELECTIONS

These elections were held on 28 February 1972 and the Grenada United Labour Party (GULP) won them,
"handsomely", taking 13 of the 15 parliamentary seats. It bears stating that only 6,000 votes separated the winning GULP from the losing Grenada National Party(GNP), whose candidates in included four "young fellas": Unison Whiteman, Selwyn Strachan, Fitzroy O'Neale and Keith Mitchell, the current Prime Minister of Grenada. Whiteman and Strachan flew the GNP coop immediately following their electoral debut; O'Neal and Mitchell carried on for a while.

* GULP : 20, 155 votes
* GNP: 14, 086

Gairy won the '72 contest, but was "Independence" the major issue in those elections? The GNP answered
an emphatic "no" and to make their case they cited the following key facts: (i) Gairy revealed his
independence plans to the Grenadian people on February 21, 1972- just one week before the elections; and (ii) the GULP only commenced the distribution of their Independence Manifesto on February 23.

On the question of winning independence for Grenada, the GULP Independence Manifesto declared:

"The basis for all that we have done and all that we continue to do is INDEPENDENCE for Grenada and her people.  We have stated that in the past our full commitment is to full integration of the Commonwealth Caribbean. We believe that meaningful integration is only possible when all the units involved are independent.

"We do not pretend that the task which will lie before us as an independent nation is an easy one. We do not regard our size as any deterrent to independence. We are satisfied that we cannot achieve our full potential as a semi-independent country. We owe it to ourselves and to those who come after us to establish a full INDEPENDENT GRENADA and we therefore commit our Party and Programme to Independence for Grenada".

Gairy's independence plans drew fire from the GNP, and later on from the New Jewel Movement, founded in March 1973.

But the fire from the NJM and the GNP failed to stop the GULP steamroller which was backed government-sponsored hooligans. NJM leaders were savagely beaten at Grenville on Sunday, 18 December 1973 and several persons suffered serious physical injury when government thugs broke up an opposition-led protest demonstration in the Grenadian capital, St George's, on on January 21, 1974-Bloody Monday. Rupert Bishop,
Maurice Bishop's father was murdered on that day while holding a door against a posse of stick-weilding "roughnecks".

The Opposition-led protest demonstrations (and strikes) did not stop Gairy's plans for what the NJM called "meaningless independence". Hindsight points to many "obvious reasons" for the Opposition's failure to stop Gairy. First the GNP.

Formed in 1955 by dentist Dr John Watts, the GNP was perceived- by no means unfairly - as Party
of the "upper brackets": they lacked real  credibility in the eyes of the masses of Grenadian people.

The NJM was still a fairly an unknown quantity in 1973 even though it had a well-deserved reputation for being able to bring many thousands into the streets. But the NJM's mobilizational muscle was under-mined by its starry idealism and its theoretical and ideological incoherence. Indeed, these qualities gained lethal force when they became merged with State power and the Grenadian talent for make-believe and mimicry: The "Bolshevik" braggadoccio of October 1983 left a blood-encrusted reminder.

Independence came to Grenada almost one hundred years after William Galwey Donovan (1857-1929) revived the
the dreams of a Black people hood-a dream that animated the leaders of the 1795 Revolution.  "The Lion" was the foremost anti-colonial rebel of nineteenth century Grenada and the true true author and architect of Grenadian independence- he is our Marti.

Independence came 136 years after the abolition of slavery; abolition, in the words of Governor Harris of Trinidad, was freedom without nationhood. A peoplefreed, a nation aborted.

Independence brought an end to a little more than 200 years of British colonial rule and a political
apprenticeship served within a variety of constitutional forms, beginning with the Old Representative System and passing through Crown Colony rule in its pure and many modified configurations.

This short essay traces Grenada's constitutional evolution, beginning with the island's grant of the Old Representative System (ORS) of government in 1763.Such a review is meant to: (a) bring some fresh lumber to the task of nation-building; (b) examine the various constitutional outfits given Grenada during the years of imperial tutelage; and (c) show how these outfits shaped our political culture.

END OF PART 1

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