The revolution made out of words and slogans

Mar 04, 2019 Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom

On the 13th March 1979, the New Jewel Movement (NJM) created history in the Anglophone Caribbean when it toppled the government of Prime Minister Eric Gairy of Grenada. The NJM then discovered how little it knew about how to establish a revolutionary state.
Nineteen seventy-nine, the year that the NJM came to power in Grenada, was a dreadful year for dictators. Two months before the coup which toppled Eric Gairy, the, the Shah of Iran fled from Tehran into exile ushering in the Iranian Revolution.
One month after Grenada, military strongman Idi Amin was overthrown when Tanzanian troops invaded Uganda. In the same year, Patrick John was toppled in street protests in Dominica.
The most significant revolution took place in Central America where the Sandinistas toppled the Somoza regime in July of 1979. In the same month, military strongman Ignatius Acheampong was toppled in a coup. Park Chung-hee, the military dictator of South Korea was assassinated in the same year.
All of these events brought hope to the Guyanese that it could see the back of its own dictator Forbes Burnham had rigged his way to retaining power in 1968, 1973 and in the referendum of 1978. The WPA was in the forefront to bring about a People’s revolution similar to what happened in Dominica.
1979 was an exciting year to be alive. But was also a dangerous period to be alive in Guyana. In July, the Forbes Burnham regime charged Walter Rodney, Rupert Roopnarine and Omawale with arson. The regime also unleashed thugs against its rivals, breaking up political meetings, dismissing persons believed to be connected with the opposition and even resorting to political executions. Burnham’s sword was sharp and even targeted industrial workers in the bauxite industry – a traditional PNC stronghold.
The Grenada Revolution took place amidst all this turmoil in the region and in the world. But the Grenada Revolution, unlike the Cuban Revolution of twenty years earlier, did not inspire revolutionary action in the Caribbean. It turned out to be a bogus revolution.
Maurice Bishop, the Prime Minister of Grenada and head of the New Jewel Movement became known more as a political playboy than a revolutionary. He and his government were so overwhelmed by the task of running Grenada that he abdicated his responsibility to left wing forces, including in Guyana.
By December of 1979, Walter Rodney had lost respect for Maurice Bishop. In an interview with the United States Embassy in Guyana, Rodney described Maurice Bishop as a political and ideological embarrassment. Rodney was prophetic when he observed that Bishop was creating problems for other revolutionary movements in the Caribbean by his Gairy-like methods.
The Grenada Revolution devoured itself four years later. Bishop was murdered by his former colleagues of the New Jewel Movement in 1983.
The Americans merely inflicted coup de grâce. As Naipaul was to remark, it was a revolution of words and slogans.
And the WPA which by then had lost Rodney, became a victim of geo-political fatalism. It decided that the United States would never allow a left-leaning regime in the Caribbean and so it cowardly abandoned its revolutionary outlook. Like the Grenada Revolution, it became a party of words and slogans. Yet, it calls itself Rodneyite.

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