Maurice Bishop’s one of a kind revolution
By George Alleyne
On the eve of the 36th death
anniversary of Grenada’s Maurice
Rupert Bishop who led New
Jewel Movement political party
members in the first revolutionary
takeover of a government
in the English-speaking
Caribbean, an academic has
contended that the 1979 takeover
of government was unique.
Chair of Africana Studies
at Brown University, Rhode
Island, USA, Professor Brian
Meeks, has said that not only
is 4 ½ years revolution the
first of the English-speaking
Caribbean, but something not
likely to re-occur though lessons
from it are aplenty.
“My argument is straightforward.
It is that lost in the
detritus waste / destruction
of the 1983 tragedy there were
initiatives taken that went
beyond any experiment tried
anywhere in the anglophone
Caribbean; and that if in the
future we are to rethink and
rebuild a Caribbean that is in
the interest of the people; if
indeed we are to emancipate
ourselves from mental slavery,
then we must not only learn
from what the Grenada revolution
did wrong, but also what it
did right,” Meeks said days ago
as he delivered a lecture on the
topic hosted by the University
of the West Indies, Cave Hill
Campus, Barbados.
Led by charismatic Maurice
nyc.pollsitelocator.com
Caribbean L 24 ife, OCTOBER 25-31, 2019 BQ
Bishop, the New Jewel Movement
took reins of control of
the Grenada government while
its elected prime minister, Eric
Gairy was attending a United
Nations meeting in 1979.
There followed, until 1983,
an unusual voyage for a Caribbean
nation into a people-oriented
form of governance with
a strong Leninist influence that
eventually broke up through
leadership disputes that led to
the execution of Bishop and
several associates on Oct. 19,
and an invasion by mainly US
forces six days later.
Meeks, a Jamaican, described
the tragic break-up of the revolution
as ‘those dark days in
October’ and said academics
should “gaze more purposefully
on the historical tributaries
that led to revolutionary
period, as well as the estuaries
that emerged from it and can
still be traced in the social and
political life of Grenada in the
decades that have accumulated
since those heady times.”
The author of several
books on Caribbean politics
said, “there is of course nothing
inherently wrong in trying
to understand the origin
and course of the 1983 crisis,”
but offered that, “this exercise
inevitably obscures the day to
day reality of some 4 ½ years,
more than 1,670 days of the
most remarkable social experiment
in Anglophone Caribbean
since emancipation in 1838.”
“We may never ever see an
upheaval and a rupture in the
way it took place in Grenada
in 1979 because these things
are rare. But also, the world
we live in today is a completely
different world, far more interlinked.
“It doesn’t mean that we
can’t look at what was achieved
and what was not achieved, on
a scale of good and bad.”
Meeks lecture was followed
by a symposium at which one of
the panellists, Associate Professor
of Caribbean and Diaspora
Studies, Arizona State University,
USA, Dr. David Hinds,
listed rebellion in Union Island;
protests in Guyana leading to
assassination of Walter Rodney;
insurrection that fell a Dominica
government; a St. Lucia
radical vote for change to a leftist
government; and revolution
in Suriname, all in the 1970s
and 1980, as the influencing
atmosphere for Maurice Bishop
and the NJM.
“All of these rebellions and
insurrections were happening
in the Caribbean at the same
time of the Grenadian revolution.”
Professor Brian Meeks. Photo by George Alleyne
VOTE EARLY OR VOTE
ON ELECTION DAY.
Pick the day that works best for you!
From October 26, 2019 to November 3, 2019 you can vote at your assigned early voting poll site.
Visit
to find your Early Voting poll site or General Election Day
poll site location and hours of operation
/nyc.pollsitelocator.com