Tony Rakhal-Fras­er

“Every­body wore red, in­di­cat­ing their re­spect for the dead; they were bear­ing…oh lord ah nev­er see so much crowd and every­body singing aloud and wey they singing, pow­er in the hands of the peo­ple now.”

The Mighty Duke saw it as a search for fun­da­men­tal change from the slave and in­den­tured so­ci­ety to one in which they, then the “Wretched of the Earth”, were seek­ing to take the “pow­er”, es­tab­lish them­selves in a coun­try, a so­ci­etal cul­ture, an econ­o­my which they had helped to con­struct, but one in which they were shut out from mean­ing­ful par­tic­i­pa­tion.

One group of the mass­es had been per­suad­ed by the Ox­ford his­to­ri­an, who had ac­knowl­edged that peo­ple of the coun­try had paid for his ed­u­ca­tion, and swore he had re­turned to help them; but alas 14 years af­ter, the chil­dren and grand­chil­dren, felt no mean­ing­ful trans­for­ma­tion to their sta­tion, and so felt free to dis­play their dis­sat­is­fac­tion with the slow pace of tran­si­tion; if in­deed it was be­ing at­tempt­ed as the so­cial and eco­nom­ic re­la­tions had not suf­fi­cient­ly shift­ed, if at all; the core of the econ­o­my re­mained the same, for­eign cap­i­tal in con­trol; white, high brown, and so­cial class dom­i­nance re­mained in­tact, in­deed, had widened; a mer­chant class con­tin­ued its de­pen­dence on the prod­ucts of the for­eign man­u­fac­tur­ers; while they, the promised, had to set­tle for the “crumbs that fell off the ta­ble.”

Uri­ah had wel­comed Rien­zi to or­gan­ise work­ers in oil and sug­ar in 1937; their grand­chil­dren thought it a fit­ting con­tin­u­a­tion to march to Ca­roni (Africans and In­di­ans Unite), to once again bridge the his­tor­i­cal gap caused by colo­nial­ism, and to con­tin­ue the at­tempts to bring sug­ar and oil, the base of the civil­i­sa­tion and econ­o­my, to­geth­er, and to up­date the “Uni­ver­si­ty of Wood­ford Square” to the “Peo­ple’s Par­lia­ment”.

But the his­to­ri­an and the Pun­dit-trade union leader im­me­di­ate­ly un­der­stood the im­pli­ca­tions of such a pos­si­bil­i­ty; while the Arch­bish­op (a good man) felt the his­tor­i­cal shack­les of the French-Cre­ole elite of the Church, which had al­ready been des­e­crat­ed; “Com­mu­nism” was the mag­i­cal re­sponse of the his­to­ri­an while pledg­ing his loy­al­ty to the cause; and when the rest­less and high­ly-trained sol­diers in­tend­ed to leave Tetron (Teteron), the war ships had al­ready set sail.

What is still to be mar­veled at is the mob­lised con­scious­ness in small town Bel­mont, Laven­ty/ Shan­ty Town, in San­do by Young Pow­er, pun­dits in Wood­ford Square, the UWI Cam­pus, Sir George Williams in the cold; Mo­town; in the trade union demos; by grad­u­ates and un­der­grad­u­ates; trade union­ists, led by groups and in­di­vid­u­als of dif­fer­ing ide­o­log­i­cal ori­en­ta­tion and am­bi­tions, but with a gen­uine un­der­stand­ing of the con­di­tion of those who had placed their faith in “doc­tor pol­i­tics” but had lost hope.

Car­ni­val is ah bac­cha­nal, yes, but J’Ou­vert 1970 was se­ri­ous and re­veal­ing for those with eyes to see and pulse to feel: “The Truth About Blacks Be­fore, Af­ter and Now” --- Pine­top­pers from Be­hind de Bridge, Bel­mont and San Juan. They had been read­ing Fanon, Gar­vey, James, lis­ten­ing to the black Mo­town Sounds and Duke preach­ing racial con­scious­ness.

“We did not in­vite the trade union­ists and mem­bers of NJAC; they came like can­dle flies to the light: Ged­des Granger, Dave Dar­beau, Nunez, Young and po­et Las­sana Kwe­si,” says a Pine­top­per, Lennox Tou­s­saint.

In St James, com­plete­ly un­aware of the de­pic­tions in town, “1001 White Dev­ils” pa­rad­ed, no con­sul­ta­tion be­tween the or­gan­is­ers of the bands from the West and the East; but the vibes were there, in­ter­pret­ing an his­tor­i­cal be­tray­al; “suf­fer­a­tion” re­sult­ed in “true, true” ole mas.

Black Pride had an awak­en­ing, In­di­an con­scious­ness arose and with in­ten­tion, the French-Cre­ole went un­der­ground; La Guerre, Sama­roo, Best, Mil­lette, Ja­cobs, Riv­iere and oth­ers con­tributed to the ris­ing con­scious; on the streets, Shan­ty Town and Sea Lots, Ca­roni and Scar­bor­ough be­came alert­ed to what was hap­pen­ing.

But the po­lit­i­cal par­ty cul­ture hit back to thwart and to di­vert from the grow­ing and com­bined ac­tion for a re­turn to “rum and roti” pol­i­tics, and to feed sus­pi­cions and in­se­cu­ri­ties; what had been start­ed in the 1950s in lo­cal pol­i­tics and had its con­sol­i­da­tion in Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment and De­mo­c­ra­t­ic Labour Par­ty trib­al as­so­ci­a­tions, took over; it has gained so­phis­ti­ca­tion, but re­mains as di­vi­sive as ever.

The drag bros en­gaged con­scious ac­tiv­i­ties, the black mid­dle-class swelled, per­haps in pom­pos­i­ty too and un­con­cern for the strug­gle: “Dey doh care if Ash Wednes­day fall on Good Fri­day” (Valenti­no); the In­di­ans, emer­gent from the cane fields, from bull cart to taxis, from small busi­ness to cor­po­rate suc­cess and high ed­u­ca­tion­al achieve­ment; who could jeal­ous them?

Par­ty pol­i­tics has cre­at­ed en­mi­ty, jeal­ousy and even hate in the fight over the spoils. First, gan­ja, now hard drugs have in­ter­vened and so too cap­i­tal. One man who make jail for the herb, told me the weed “cool down men”; I added, made them un­con­scious.

Is there hope for a new con­scious­ness to arise? It’s even more dif­fi­cult now; the pol­i­tics and politi­cians in­side and out­side are the great­est hin­drances, but still, the “mass­es” have be­come cam­atosed, easy prey for those Shad­ow called the “con­trollers”.

Tony Rakhal-Fras­er – free­lance jour­nal­ist, for­mer re­porter/cur­rent af­fairs pro­gramme host, and News Di­rec­tor at TTT; pro­gramme pro­duc­er/cur­rent af­fairs di­rec­tor at Ra­dio Trinidad; cor­re­spon­dent for the BBC Caribbean Ser­vice and the As­so­ci­at­ed Press; grad­u­ate of UWI, CARI­MAC, Mona, and St Au­gus­tine – In­sti­tute of In­ter­na­tion­al Re­la­tions.