Our Wounded Nations

The shadows of past traumas hovered low but tamely when Grenada launched one year of 50th independence activities in the runup to February 7 observances next year. It was however instructive that Prime Minister Dickon Mitchell appeared unafraid to acknowledge some key challenges of history.

He noted at the launch, for example, that the National Organising Committee (NOC) had chosen the scenic Carenage in St Georges for the occasion - a location that was significant because it had seen, in the life of the country, “the best and worst times of Grenada.”

In addition, the event had been initially planned for October 19 - the 40th anniversary of the deadly end of the 1979 revolution. This saw the assassination of Maurice Bishop and other senior operatives of the People’s Revolutionary Government (PRG).

The organisers were promptly forced to rethink this plan and October 31 became the new date for the launch. October 19 is now National Heroes Day.

True, there is always awkwardness in recalling certain features of history. The October 19 anniversary of the tragic events of 1983, for example, is too long ago for too many to remember first-hand (the current median age in Grenada is just over 31), and too recent for many of us to escape the dense mist of proximity.

I once questioned Bernard Coard, now resident in Jamaica, about the degree to which his book The Grenada Revolution – What Really Happened, can be competently challenged by people who were there and can lay claim to knowledge of well … what really happened.

Late leader of the People's Revolutionary Army, Hudson Austin, also had a lot to say in a 2021 interview with journalist George Worme. Much of it would alarm you.

Excerpt of George Worme's interview with Hudson Austin

Mitchell’s apparent awareness of such undercurrents belies the fact that when Eric Gairy was peacefully overthrown in 1979, the current Prime Minister was just one year old. In 1983, when the revolution imploded, he had reached his fifth birthday on October 8 – 11 days before the dramatic events.

Yet, by citing the leader of Grenada’s “first revolution”, Julien Fédon, and the integrationist ambitions of T.A. Marryshow, the Prime Minister displayed an understanding of some of the dynamics worthy of capture in observance of the independence milestone.

Surely, upon revisiting Marryshow, it would not be inconceivable to witness the return of a Caribbean Court of Justice referendum during this period of reflection. As part of a 2018 plebiscite on a new constitution, the CCJ did not successfully cross the line. Why not give it another try?

Caribbean leaders, including at its start former T&T Prime Minister Basdeo Panday, were of the view that full CCJ status as both a court of original jurisdiction on matters of the Treaty of Chaguaramas and as a final court of appeal had the potential to “complete our independence” as Caribbean states. Grenada should permit itself this kind of opportunity on its 50th.

It would meanwhile be a grave mistake for us to ever start believing that what happened in Grenada between 1979 and 1983 and its experiment with illiberal democracy is/was of only peripheral importance to us in T&T.

By the time we faced the terrorist attack of 1990, there ought to have been a measure of acquaintance with the embrace of violence and accompanying political aberration.

The scenic Carenage in St George's was chosen as the venue
to launch the celebrations Photo: Wesley Gibbings

There had also already been Grenada, the remarkably bizarre Operation Red Dog in Dominica in 1981, Walter Rodney had been murdered in Guyana in 1980, and A Brief History of Seven Killings by Marlon James provides a brilliant narrative on events in Jamaica in the 1970s and 80s and their products in the 1990s.

For Grenadians, the anniversary of the collapse of the PRG had remained in relatively muted recognition - the kind of wound that is long in healing but to which attention is only paid when pain resurfaces.

It might well be, for Grenadians, that grand plans to observe half a century of political independence will provide opportunities for diagnoses beyond cold historical recall.

In the process, our close neighbour can perhaps help us over here and in the wider Caribbean come to terms with some stark realities that trouble us all too often, and in the process, contribute to healing some longstanding injuries of history.

Jamaica and T&T have crossed 60, we never took the time to do what Grenada now has the chance to consider. The wounds now run deep enough to challenge our options for recovery.