Our history of discord

Anyone who is fascinated, as I am, perhaps even enthralled, by Caribbean history, would have to have noticed our disposition for disregarding what has gone before. A classic example is the current uproar, the latest in a string of such, over the various aggravations of our ruling cricket body, the West Indies Cricket Board (WICB). It is going on decades now that the discontent with the WICB has been before us, and, in parallel, calls for some sort of unified regional response to solve the problem. While one can empathize with the need to fix matters, surely it should have sunk in by now that when we propose a unified regional response to a problem we are ignoring the fact that such a scenario is not part of our history as a region. Time and again, various efforts based on that premise have failed (the list is too long to enumerate here) but we continue to offer it.

This week, we see the well-intentioned Prime Minister Keith Mitchell of Grenada, resigning from his position as Chairman of the Caricom Sub-Committee on Cricket, and calling for a regional sports summit to propel change. According to an online article in Grenada Sports, the Caricom spokesman “cited contradictory statements by some leaders which he believes may have been ‘fodder’ for complacency among regional sports administrators”. He said: “The problem is that we have to speak with one voice. When you have some of us (leaders) going off in different directions, especially when we make decisions at the Caricom level, and one or two of us go off on our own and make opposite statements, it becomes divisive and unhelpful, and it gives those who wish to continue to do as they want, the opportunity to do so; that is unfortunate because the region is the one that is losing.”

The reality however is that the dilemma Mr Mitchell is identifying is simply part of the historical record in the Caribbean. The lack of unity he cites is not a new problem; it has bedevilled us from the beginning. Volumes have been written about it; panel discussions have engaged it time and again on radio and television; political hopefuls have hammered at it in campaign speeches; regional businesses have tackled the problem, and civic groups have engaged it. For anyone interested in the subject I recommend highly The West Indies: Federal Negotiations by John Mordecai published in 1968 by George Allen and Unwin Ltd. Be warned that the book is out of print and not easy to find, but it is a classic. Mordecai, the one-time Deputy Governor-General of the Federation, has produced a work that is beautifully written with extensive detail – it is an almost clinical discussion of the subject by someone close to it ‒ but he has also given us fascinating insights into the personalities and methods of a host of Caribbean legends of the time (Norman Manley of Jamaica, Eric Williams of Trinidad, Grantley Adams of Barbados, Eric Gairy of Grenada), and in the course of his patient unravelling we see the very conditions of disunity and suspicions that Mr Mitchell is referring to among us now. It is almost chilling to read the comments by the Grenada PM today and recall the similarity with what Mordecai wrote some 60 years ago.

Read carefully, the former Deputy Governor-General’s book quickly debunks the simplistic contention that the Federation collapse was Jamaica’s doing. In a chapter entitled ‘Confrontation’ he cites the clashes and animosities among the leading actors in the unity drama. He tells us that in the very first session of the Federation’s Parliament, “the session had scarcely begun before the Opposition coined the phrase ‘back-seat driving’…with one speaker after another contending that Ministers’ lives would be unbearable unless they repudiated ‘back-seat driving’ from Manley and Williams. The Trinidadian Albert Gomes denounced the two leaders as ‘people who had a positive genius for chronic error and egregious stupidity’. [Mr Gomes was obviously retaliating to Mr Manley’s public reference to him in Barbados shortly before as ‘an egregious ass, having no more brains than the man in the moon.’] …A stage was reached where these personal attacks had to be curbed, the Speaker’s declaring stricken from the records all indecent references to Mr Manley and Dr Williams.” Such was the climate in our first regional Parliament, and Mordecai goes on to say, “For, in establishing from the outset a pattern of using the Federal floor as a whipping block on which to flay political adversaries in their unit parliaments, they were at once damaging the prestige and effectiveness of the Legislature as a forum of conciliation in the difficult days ahead. It was Federation itself which would suffer. The fact that heads of the two major governments had been the first chosen victims, increased the potential damage.”

From this we can clearly see that the much touted “Caribbean union” was a rhetorical position which fell away at the first sign of individual national agendas coming to the fore. Carefully spelled out in the book, the conflicts are too numerous and too complex to be iterated here but they include differences about what the Constitution should say, a Trinidadian furor over Jamaica signalling its intention to create its own oil refinery, fierce disagreement over the implementation of a Customs Union (the difficulties there remain alive to this day), and with Jamaica and Trinidad each holding contrasting views on the matter of a central government – Eric Williams was pressing for a strong central government, while Manley wanted reduced Federal control with more power going to the units. (Indeed, indicative of the dissensions, the Grantley Adams followers made up a third group opposing Williams and Manley’s views.)

In a gripping section of a gripping book, Mordecai highlights the fascinating aspect of Manley, Williams and Adams, our principal leaders at the time, at war with each other. He writes: “The three leading negotiators were men of the highest education and long public experience; all three were graduates of Oxford University, two of them barristers and the third a distinguished historian. Starting as close friends and allies, they had, within twelve months, alienated each other’s confidence by inconsiderate handling of their mutual relations. To be sure, there were serious issues at stake between them…but the fact that there were serious issues makes all the less excusable their disregard for diplomacy. At all points, the rough handling of the problems of this Federation is more extraordinary than the problems themselves.” Mordecai points to “three years of open brawling and personal rancor … when dealing with issues”.

There is something substantial or intriguing on virtually every page of the book, but its greatest value today is that it shows us very vividly that the stormy waters of dispute and rancour that Mr. Mitchell and others have encountered in their unity efforts are not of recent vintage. Rather, they are examples of an old shibboleth being played out again and again. Whenever there is a rational push for Caribbean union for economic or other reasons – the Closer Standing Association; Federation itself; Caricom; Carifesta; Single Market; EPA; CCJ ‒ the old fears rise up and insularity triumphs. Keith Mitchell’s disappointment in not fulfilling the dream with the WICB is not unique; our history since independence is full of such.