MIA > Archive > Tim Hector
Fan the Flame, Outlet, 4 July 1997.
Online here https://web.archive.org/web/20120416011318/http://www.candw.ag/~jardinea/fanflame.htm.
Transcribed by Christian Høgsbjerg.
Marked up by Einde O’Callaghan for the Marxists’ Internet Archive.
One of the amazing things I just came across in West Indian history while reviewing the Federation, struck me like a bolt of lightning.
Dr Eric Williams a Caribbean historian, of great note, himself a prime mover in the West Indies Federation devotes no more than five lines to the entire Federation of 1958–62! It is absolutely incredible. The most significant event in the modern history of the English-speaking Caribbean gets this short, very short shift from Dr Eric Williams, the justly famous author of Capitalism & Slavery. This is all Dr Eric Williams, Premier, and Prime Minister of Trinidad and Tobago, for all of a quarter century, had to say in Columbus to Castro.
“The Federation of the West Indies, inaugurated in 1958, collapsed in 1962 with the secession of Jamaica. Its failure was due to the two rival conceptions, Jamaica’s weak central Government and Trinidad’s strong central power.”
Full stop and stop. There endeth the lesson from a distinguished historian looking back on a major historical event, in which he was a pivotal figure. This brashness and brusque dismissal of the major historical event in our story is not accidental. It is rooted in the very collapse of the Federation not as subjective factor, but as fundamental cause of the collapse.
For to dismiss the Federation with three lines, says that our history is not important. There is no need to explain to coming generations, who must grapple with the sweep of events from Columbus to Castro, why we have remained insular, marginalised territories, independence or no independence, on the periphery of world history. Clearly like Henry Ford, to Dr Williams our Federal history was bunk.
I want to suggest to you that this profound failure of Dr Eric Williams, this brusque dismissal of the West Indies Federation from 1958–62 in three lines is colonial through and through. That is to say our history, our major events, are not important, not even to ourselves for an understanding ourselves. Federation, in consequence, has been swept under the carpet in preference for insular power in woeful structural adjustment.
Worse yet, as one of the prime movers in the Federation, and himself an historian, Dr Williams did not even see the need in a major historical work to explain himself as the Representative of the Trinidad & Tobago people, to the people of the Caribbean whose history he was addressing. Not only was Dr Williams irresponsible and un-scholarly, he was utterly un-accountable like any colonial Governor. It is from that disease that the West Indies Federation collapsed, more than anything else – the colonial mentality which was seeking to decolonise these Colonial West Indian islands. The contradiction between colonial mentality, dyed deep in the ways and doctrines of colonialism, seeking to decolonise island colonies through a Federation exploded and the West Indies Federation of 1958–62 collapsed not with a bang, but a whimper.
As Derek Walcott wrote in what I call his requiem for the West Indies Federation –
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Albion too was once a colony.... |
I find now that I do not have any compassion for those who brought about the ignominious failure of the West Indies Federation. The catharsis of calm of mind, but not compassion.
For instance, Dr Williams’ argument for a strong central government was in fact an argument against the Federation itself. A Federation, by definition is not a Unitary State. A Unitary State has a strong central government. A Federation is one in which the participating states agree to co-operate for certain defined, or if you prefer, limited purposes. A Unitary State was inconceivable as a starting point for West Indian unity. It flew directly in the face of West Indian history itself. Insular colonies, could not move to a unitary state, except as Crown Colonies under a single central authority – the Colonial Office – backed by force. Dr Williams to me, raised the spectre of a Unitary State in order to ensure disagreeable disagreement. The ploy worked.
But I anticipate myself. Let us return from where we left off, the 1932 Roseau Conference, which produced a complete Federal Constitution with total agreement all round, in a single day. Even Cipriani was stunned by the rapid pace of those events. Yet the 1932 Conference after its grand beginning collapsed like a house of sand before the wind. It collapsed on a single point: adult suffrage, or the vote for all those over 21.
The Royal British Commission which had led to the convening of this Roseau Conference was adamant in its opposition to adult suffrage for the islands and declared itself against “the grant of universal suffrage until the present standard of education in the islands has greatly advanced.”
It would be a sentiment, a position which would appeal readily to the professional elite, whose superior status, rested only on their education. Education and education alone, differentiated them from the masses. They were more than anxious to keep that dividing line as rigid as possible. They therefore succumbed to this colonial red-herring about delaying adult suffrage “until the standard of education in the islands had advanced.” They forgot the obvious.
That it was British colonialism itself which had hindered the advance of education and a Federation was a necessary key to unlock those very chains. At the same time, these West Indian islands were far more advanced in education than was any other colony, and if the ancient Greeks had applied a literacy test Greek democracy would not have existed at all. The British argument was specious. But the professional elite at the Roseau Conference, all save Cipriani, who was there, and Marryshow who was not there, bought it hook, line and sinker. They sank. With their Federal Constitution and all, which the West Indian professional elite could and did produce at the drop of a hat. Not a Constitution guaranteeing fundamental human rights, but a Constitution with manifold administrative arrangements, regulating the people to authority and not authority to the people. The colonial mentality was at large. It plagues us still.
It would come under attack, not at the Roseau Conference, but in West Indian society at large.
Brevity requires me to quote the same Dr Eric Williams, who had little by way of analytic acumen but who was an acknowledged grand-master at assembling empirical details.
But before Dr Williams this. A British Commission investigating disturbances in the Oil industry in Trinidad in 1937 had this to say: “the true origin of the disturbances can be traced to the more or less general sense of dissatisfaction for which there were no general means of articulation through recognised machinery of collective bargaining.”
I am going to be categorical and some would say even radical. But I swear I am not. To say that people rioted in the oil industry in Trinidad, a riot which embraced the whole of society, because they wanted “the machinery to collective bargaining”, which is to say, a Trade Union, was to impose a British preconception, even a prejudice, but certainly a pre-judgement on the movement of West Indian society.
What would have been correct is if the British Commission had said “that the true origin of the disturbances was due to the more or less general dissatisfaction of the people with society as it was.” Full stop and stop. People do not seek to overturn society merely to get machinery for collective bargaining. They do so for much more than that. Namely, a new life.
But a British Colonial Commission could not say that. They would have condemned the very colonialism they were prepared to ameliorate (to use the word of the time) and not discard. Only the West Indian people themselves could say that. They wanted much more than a Trade Union, they wanted new social and economic relations, which is to say, society freed from colonialism.
I am going to bet you that you are saying now that Tim Hector is imposing his own view on history and historical events when the events in no way portended what he now purports. I shall prove you wrong. And I will use Dr Eric Williams in all his empiricism to prove you wrong. Mark you, I am enjoying the argument with you dear reader. For it is by argument we learn. All else is didactic imposition or indoctrination.
Wrote Dr Eric Williams:
“The road to revolution [his word not mine, mark you well] had been marked out. The revolution broke out in the years 1935-1938. Consider the chronology of the fateful years. A sugar strike in St Kitts, 1935; a revolt against the increase in Customs duties in St Vincent, 1935; a coal strike in St Lucia, 1935; labour disputes on the sugar plantations of British Guiana [now Guyana] 1935; an oil strike which became a general strike in Trinidad, 1937; a sympathy strike in Barbados, 1937; revolt in the sugar plantations in British Guiana, 1937; a sugar strike in St Lucia, 1937; sugar troubles and strikes in Jamaica, 1937; a dockers strike in Jamaica, 1938. Every British Governor called for warships, marines and aeroplanes; total casualties in the British West Indies colonies 29 dead, 115 wounded.”
In other words British authorities in the Caribbean could not maintain internal order. Force, the force of the empire, had to be sent for, to restore and maintain order. Colonial British West Indian society had burst its social, economic and political integument. And the West Indies, to borrow a phrase from T.S. Eliot which had “in it no source of movement” found its source of movement – the people.
If nothing else is apparent, what is clearly visible, is that in their activity, the essence of humanity, that is, the combination of thought and activity, leading to movement, the West Indian people were as united as ever in their movement between 1935–38. All across the region people discovered, through oppression at work and without work, as well as away from work, that they had a mind of their own, and proceeded to act and think, indeed, to fight to create a new society in their own thought and likeness.
The problem was that the British colonial authority and the professional elite were able to confine that movement to providing “machinery for collective bargaining”, namely Trade Unions, and the formation of political parties.
Hence Trade Unions sprouted, the Bustamante Industrial Union in Jamaica, the Oilfield Workers Trade Union in Trinidad, the Manpower and Citizens Association in British Guiana, Grantley Adams’ Progressive League in Barbados, the West Indian Nationalist Party in Trinidad. The latter is a most striking name. It conceived of itself as West Indian and an umbrella party. It did not however get beyond conception. Between the contemplation and the reality falls the shadow. Eliot again.
The West Indian Nationalist Party did not fulfill its name it is true. But the fundamental weakness of the Federal movement was that it lacked an organisational base in each territory educating the people of each territory, by activity, into the necessity for Federation and the necessities for a Federation. The Black Power era of the 70’s afforded that possibility once again, but the insular States prevented any such development by obstructive and punitive Public Order Acts, which all but made it impossible for citizens of one island-state to meet and speak in another territory. A wall of Jericho was built around each insular State. The trumpets are yet to sound loud enough to blow down these walls. CARICOM concerns itself only with the free flow of graduates and elite skills, not the free flow of politics from the ground up.
The Trade Unions and political parties which emerged in the wake of the West Indian “revolution” of the 30’s, though insular in intent and content, were an advance. The unorganised now had a means of organised expression. The historic spontaneity of the masses had produced mass organisation. But there was no Agrarian Reform. And no worker co-operatives.
After the mass upheaval all across the British West Indies, plantation society remained, virgina intacta, so to speak. Professional politicians of the middle strata had cabinn’d, cribbed and confined the mass upheaval to better wages and working conditions in the old arrangements of society against which the people had risen.
The next phase begins in 1947 precisely 50 years ago. Labour through the Trade Unions was to make a decisive intervention. On their way to Montego Bay the members of the Caribbean Labour Congress met in Kingston, Jamaica. The Caribbean Labour Congress to their eternal credit made Federation the sole business on their Kingston agenda. Bustamante, be it noted, was absent.
The Kingston Labour Congress made a most momentous contribution to Federation. They agreed unanimously upon a draft federal constitution and a programme. Key to the whole Caribbean Labour Congress “was a Federation providing for responsible government equivalent to Dominion status.” Independence, full independence, as it was called then Dominion status, was on the agenda. The Trade Unions not the professional elite had placed it there – and unanimously so. The Trade Union linked Federation to constitutional advance. Each territory at the institution of Federation would gain full internal self-government and said the Congress it rejected “any form of limited or partial approach to this fundamental goal.” The Trade Union leaders had broken with the gradualist, that is to say, colonialist approach. They, the Congress, had moved from their 1945 position of “Federation on any terms”. The professional elite were stuck in the mud. The mud was not quick-sand and they would rally and return again.
The Congress had gone further: since 1938 they had agreed on a programme, a programme to be carried out by the Federation. That programme was this: nationalisation of the sugar industry, the hub of economic life; co-operative marketing; state ownership of public utilities, free compulsory elementary education; unemployment insurance; a minimum wage; a 44 hour week.
It was a most advanced programme. Politically the Congress wanted a Federal Legislature elected by universal suffrage. So for the units, so for the Federation. It was and still is the high-water mark in West Indian politics.
However advanced the Federal Constitution drafted by the Caribbean Labour Congress, however progressive was the programme and policy of the Congress one thing is beyond dispute. It is this: Not one of the Parties or a single trade union in the region made public discussion of the Federal Constitution or the advanced policy and programme a part of its work of education. The Parties and the Unions, like the Colonial Office saw the people as backward and continued with the old politics of preaching road-repair, a stand-pipe here, an electricity pole there.
Then, as now with CARICOM Single Market and economy, there was no public education on the serious issues. A people with Federation were kept in the dark as they are now with the Single Market and economy. Plus ça change, plus ça la même chose.
The whole Congress Constitution and advanced political programme would be undermined at Montego Bay. Norman Manley, Grantley Adams, and Albert Gomes of Trinidad swore to uphold the programme of Kingston at Montego Bay. They did. But were overwhelmed.
Bustamante from his opening statement at Montego Bay was in opposition. I am not searching for a villain of the piece. Facts are facts, though. They can be interpreted this way or that, but they remain facts. Bustamante, it was said, let it be known that he was opposed to a “Federation of paupers.” As phrase-mongering it was in the grand mould. As politics it was subversive of reality itself. The West Indian islands were poor countries anyway, and words could not alter that condition. Bustamante, be reminded, was not just another delegate, he was the elected leader of the Jamaica Government. A pall was cast over the Montego Bay Conference. The programme which the mass upheaval of the 30’s had produced was now under siege.
The colonial office, opposed to Dominion Status had an ally in Bustamante. Norman Manley stood firm, as did Adams, as did Gomes.
But the Secretary of State for the Colonies, Arthur Creech-Jones, and the Chairman of the Montego Bay Conference would use his skill and power to divert the meeting from the essential Congress programme. Rather than deal with a Federation with Dominion status, that is, independence, Creech Jones inveigled The Montego Bay Conference to set up a committee to see “how the Constitutions of all the separate territories could be made as representative and as responsible as possible.”
Manley, Adams and Gomes were adept at argument. Their forensic skills matched the best anywhere. They had prepared for the British in argument. But they were unprepared for British administrative manoeuvres.
The professional elite, who were nominated members in their respective legislatures played no small part in securing victory. They delighted in Committee work. It was their forté. As such then Douglas Judah of Jamaica, Sir Archibald Cuke of Barbados, Sir Courtenay Hannays of Trinidad and Mr Renwick of Grenada dominated these committees. They would secure the British colonial purposes. They have passed into history with uncritical approbation to this day!
In the end, the Montego Bay Conference was persuaded to this fateful conclusion:
“This conference believes that an increasing measure of responsibility should be extended to the several units .... whose political development must be pursued as an aim in itself, without prejudice and in no way subordinate to progress towards federation.”
This opened pandora’s box. Once each territory could move to internal self government without Federation, insular power for the respective leaders was being promoted at the expense of Federation. The insularists jumped at the prospect of personal power in their respective fiefdoms. This seed of the Federation’s doom would germinate into a virus which would destroy the Federation in the end.
It is well to remember that while the Caribbean Labour Congress had presented a bold Constitution allied to a policy and programme for transformation of society, it was silent on the technical and crucial issues of finance, trade, customs, union, and the division of powers between the Federation and the several units.
This inadequacy opened the way for the professional elite to work their pyrotechnics overlaid with fancy legalisms and the jargon so loved by the technocracy. All of this though would work either consciously or un-consciously in the interest of the gradualism so loved by the Colonial Office. The professional elite were not unmindful of ingratiating themselves with the Colonial Office, not for filthy lucre be it noted, but apparently for colonial honours. Despite their education the colonial dye had penetrated through and through the wool of their education. They became collaborators.
Sir Grantley Adams often unfairly characterised as the colonialists colonial, remained wedded to the Congress programme and Federation with full Dominion status without a gradualist approach. So too did Sir Norman Manley. However, they both went along with the Montego Bay Conference resolutions which separated internal self-government from Federation. Such like V.C. Bird here paid lip-service to Federation, but had really jettisoned the idea of Federation for internal self-government. The British in collaboration with the professional elite had opened the flood-gates of parochialism. Such as Bird damned the waters of insularity while they damned the Federation. Indeed while V.C. Bird supported the milk and water Montego Bay resolutions at Montego Bay, he refused even to adopt that to which he had agreed when it came time for the local legislature to ratify. S.T. Christian, the father of Sydney P. Christian, who also attended the 1947 Montego Bay Conference was shocked at Bird’s perfidy.
Norman Manley and Adams no doubt went along with the Montego Bay Resolutions, out of the sentiment that a Federation without Dominion status, was better than no Federation at all. However, the grant of internal self-government would undermine Federation altogether and the outmoded plantation system would keep insular economies tied not to each other, but linked to the Colonial power. The Congress progressive programme was doomed, as was Federation. I remind myself though, I view with the benefit of hind-sight and hindsight is nearly always 20–20 vision. Hindsight however is both the griot’s and the historian’s special preserve.
One last fact. An objective fact. American capitalism was then changing. The Second World War had left the USA a super-power. Corporations, that is, larger aggregations of capital, were replacing companies in the USA. Sharks were swallowing sardines by the score. These displaced companies in the USA would find in the Caribbean and Latin America new havens for their investment, once displaced in the USA.
Such US companies would come to Jamaica and the larger territories first. It would buttress the drive to insular power and undermined Federation. Bustamante’s secession from the Federation had as much to do with the objective movement of Capital, as were his subjective feelings about these small island “paupers” which did not yet attract American Capital.
I would be immodest if I did not say that no one in the region has looked at the objective movement of Capital, and American Capital and relate it to the demise of the Federation.
It is a way of seeing which we cannot repeat. Otherwise other attempts at Caribbean Unity would be bound in similar shallows and miseries. So differently from what the heart arranged.
Last updated on 30 May 2022