The Race Mon­ster: Pt 5

The change af­ter the 1956 elec­tion was rapid and fright­en­ing. The poi­so­nous, gen­er­a­tions-long sense of en­ti­tle­ment nursed by the black up­per class, and fed to the un­der­class, once in prox­im­i­ty to pow­er, ig­nit­ed. The Guardian's ed­i­to­r­i­al of Sep­tem­ber 16, 1956, ob­served that Dr Williams's cam­paign was "rous­ing an evil tem­per in the mass­es." On Sep­tem­ber 26, 1956, the TG re­port­ed an ar­son at­tempt on Al­bert Gomes's house, and that one of his chil­dren was "at­tacked" in the streets. A rel­a­tive of Gomes told me the house and fam­i­ly were reg­u­lar­ly at­tacked by PNM sup­port­ers with garbage, dead an­i­mals, and stones.Vic­to­ry did not bring peace. On Ju­ly 21, 1957, ME Far­quhar wrote in the TG: "The gen­er­al feel­ing is one of ap­pre­hen­sion... The colony is in a state of un­healthy fer­ment." On March 13, 1958, the ed­i­to­r­i­al re­port­ed that civ­il ser­vice em­ploy­ees were spy­ing on their su­pe­ri­ors for the gov­ern­ment.

It wors­ened in 1958, af­ter the "hos­tile and re­cal­ci­trant" speech. By 1961, there were open race-po­lit­i­cal clash­es. The re­al­i­ty of PNM gov­er­nance man­i­fest­ed in the po­lice re­sponse to the In­di­ans' re­ports of vi­o­lence. In Sep­tem­ber 1956, a PDP mo­tor­cade in Ch­agua­nas was at­tacked, os­ten­si­bly by PNM sup­port­ers, but PDP sup­port­ers were ar­rest­ed.In 1961, the DLP re­port­ed find­ing fake ID cards, and ev­i­dence of vot­er-padding, but po­lice did noth­ing. States of emer­gency were de­clared in In­di­an ar­eas in 1961, which the DLP said were trig­gered by PNM vi­o­lence, as the po­lice did noth­ing. Sim­i­lar in­ci­dents were re­port­ed in the DLP news­pa­per, The States­man.

The as­sault was mul­ti-pronged. The pre-1961 an­ti-Eu­ro­pean rhe-toric large­ly dis­ap­peared af­ter in­de­pen­dence, and "na­tion­al­ism" was de­signed with In­di­ans, not colo­nial cul­ture, in mind. In 1957 the Di­vi­sion of Cul­ture was formed to be a mid­wife for na­tion­al­is­tic cul­ture (Car­ni­val). Many aca­d­e­mics have not­ed this, but Gor­don Rohlehr's es­say, "The Cul­ture of Williams...", is most de­tailed: In­de­pen­dence na­tion­al cul­ture was de­signed to es­tab­lish the "Cre­ole" world­view as na­tion­al.

This mes­sage was dis­sem­i­nat­ed in ways large and small: from the TTT sign-on voice over "Tri­ni-dad: Home of the steel­band, ca­lyp­so and lim­bo," to ca­lyp­so tents. Na­tion­al me­dia, fes­ti­vals, state sym­bols, and pop cul­ture ex­clud­ed In­di­ans. By the 1970s high­ly vis­i­ble Afro-Amer­i­can pop cul­ture pro­vid­ed a ready-made ethos, which the PNM ap­pro­pri­at­ed. (Iron­i­cal­ly, as African-Ame-ri­cans were be­ing op­pressed by An­glo-Amer­i­can big­otry in the US, In­di­ans were fac­ing PNM Afro-Cre­ole big­otry in Trinidad. Like Gold­stein in Or­well's 1984, In­di­ans were easy scape­goats for the fail­ure of the PNM in every sphere.)

The chaot­ic na­ture the coun­try in the 1960s, and the ubiq­ui­ty of PNM brutish­ness and sup­pres­sion, have been for­got­ten. CLR James and oth­ers were hound­ed out of the coun­try. Gueril­las made war on the State. Hun­dreds of strikes and demon­stra­tions in the 1960s were fol­lowed by re­pres­sive leg­is­la­tion (the In­dus­tri­al Sta­bil­i­sa­tion Act) out­law­ing strik­ing. Rohlehr's "His­to­ry as Ab­sur­di­ty" de­tails Williams's at­tacks on UWI. Aca­d­e­mics (like Kari Levitt) had work per­mits can­celled when they an­gered the ad­min­is­tra­tion in the 1970s.

Dis­sent was al­so "ex­port­ed" via post-in­de­pen­dence mi­gra­tion. Afro and In­do left (250,000 be­tween 1961 and 1990), in­clud­ing am­bi­tious Afro-Trinida­di­ans who were hon­est about what was un­fold­ing. The vac­u­um they left sucked hos­tile small is­landers in­to the black work­ing class, and peas­ant In­di­ans, who were un­pre­pared for di­rect con­fronta­tion with Cre­ole na­tion­al­ism, in­to the In­do mid­dle class. The In­di­ans' cop­ing strat­e­gy re­mained schiz­o­phre­nia: one cul­ture for home, one for the out­side.

This is al­so where the In­di­ans' hid­den his­to­ry re­turns to bite them. Bhadase Maraj had ced­ed DLP lead­er­ship to Dr Rudranath Capildeo to im­prove its elec­tion prospects. Capildeo was a ma­lig­nant nar­cis­sist (aka a mad a--), and frag­ment­ed the al­ready un­sta­ble Bhadase coali­tion. Af­ter this, some low­er caste In­di­ans sup­port­ed the PNM be­cause of their ha­tred of the Brah­min/caste ori­ent­ed DLP. An­thro­pol­o­gist Mor­ton Klass de­scribes the op­pres­sion of low­er castes by up­per in his study of Fe­lic­i­ty in the 1950s, and di­ver­sion of sup­port to the PNM.

The large pic­ture, how­ev­er -ie, what "na­tion­al­ism" re­al­ly meant -was clear. It led to a cul­ture of In­do an­i­mus-a deep mis­trust of Cre­ole so­ci­ety and its in­sti­tu­tions. This anger has been in­ter­pret­ed as "In­di­an ha­tred for Trinidad"-a clas­sic and par­tic­u­lar­ly of­fen­sive PNM trope. In re­al­i­ty, In­do peas­ants love Trinidad the way trees love the earth, and have no need to "prove" it (as il­le­gal im­mi­grants seem com­pelled to, by bawl­ing it out every five min­utes). Many In­di­ans de­spised (and still do) the PNM pas­sion­ate­ly for that, and it eas­i­ly elides in­to racist re­sent­ment, since there is no fo­rum (the "pub­lic sphere" is em­phat­i­cal­ly "Cre­ole") where this can be re­fut­ed.

De­spite the PNM's faint protests to the con­trary, they un­der­stand this dy­nam­ic, and per­pet­u­ate it. Most In­di­ans de­vel­oped cop­ing strate­gies to "get along," but a con­se­quence of this re­sent­ment was a sep­a­ratist move­ment: the In­di­an Re­view Com­mit­tee's jaun­diced fan­ta­sy of a par­ti­tioned Trinidad-"In­desh." Nat­u­ral­ly, this po­si­tion was held up by PNM na­tion­al­ists, and the me­dia, as ev­i­dence of "In­di­an racism," of which all In­di­ans were guilty (be­cause "an In­di­an is an In­di­an is an In­di­an"-Wayne Brown wrote that in the In­de­pen­dent (Nov 13, 1998). It is, of course, now tak­en as ax­iomat­ic).

Sev­er­al works have sketched this post-in­de­pen­dence dy­nam­ic: Naipaul's The Mim­ic Men, Wal­cott's What the Twi­light Says, CLR James's Par­ty Pol­i­tics in the West In­dies. But on­ly mine (Break­ing the News) has ex­am­ined how and why it hap­pened a sec­ond time.To be con­tin­ued