The Battle of St. George

Mao Tse-Tsung once said something that has always stuck with me. He stated that “the cardinal responsibility of leadership is to identify the dominant contradiction at each point of the historical process and to work out a central line to resolve it”.


In Grenada’s chequered political story, punctuated with periods of power and leadership struggles and marked by commas of uncertainty, striking pause into our democractic systems, this is apt and chillingly true. Bernard Coard misjudged this responsibility when he tried to chastise the People’s Leader, between chastening the ego of dear Maurice and mapping out a new route ahead for JEWEL. The National Democratic Congress was formed in 1986 when Francis Alexis and Tillman Thomas judged this responsibility accurately and defected from Blaize’s New National Party. Keith Mitchell again judged this contradiction accurately when he promoted himself leader of the Party forcing Blaize to form The National Party.

It appears that this moment was misjudged over the last week. Having been prodded and pressed and urged and cajoled to show his leadership muscles and bare his political balls, Tillman Thomas decided to re-shuffle his Cabinet. This should be an exercise straightforward in itself- it was done only last year when Karl Hood was demoted as Minister of Health. Alas, reshuffling a Cabinet is not the same as reshuffling a pack of well worn cards in a rumshop game of rummy. Fronting his PR man to make his announcement (bad move), he allegedly did not discuss the decisions in Cabinet nor did he afford the affected persons (much loved man about town Peter David, newly elected Michael Church and the well spoken Glynis Roberts) the chance to dissent or discuss. Mao Tse Tsung would not have been happy. The by then agitated appointees decided therefore not to attend the swearing in of the new Cabinet as they were not happy with their new portfolios- Church is now a mere Minister of State (brazenly and arrogantly confirmed by Thomas), Glynis Roberts is now Minister for Labour and Peter David is now not the much envied Minister of Foreign Affairs (with all the incumbent perks) but has been relegated to Tourism.

On the surface, part of me was visibly annoyed that these elected MPs had acted rather like petulant teenagers and had shown their hand as individuals who were more interested in their political egos rather than the general development of country. However, I was not surprised. It takes a very particular type of individual to run for political office and these are not usually shrinking violets. The events of Friday 19 November were critical, not because of the anecdotal value of the “walk-outs” but because it crystallised what many predicted as the internal combustion of Congress. Several points are now salient.

First, Tillman Thomas’ leadership style is not popular and this tacit confrontation marked the first open challenge to his leadership. And a challenge it is. The demotion of Peter David (who I like) was not just a demotion per se, but was a direct anointing of the anti-Peter, a tacit announcement that it was not he who was second in command. This reshuffle was poignant in what was not said but party insiders knew that it was a moment showing that the heir apparent was Nazim Burke. Were I Peter David who worked really hard for the party, I would not like this unilateral decision one little bit. Be warned, this is not a struggle between Thomas and David- this is rather David annoyed that he has lost to Burke.

These changes allegedly were the result of party advisors who appear to have colonised and overpopulated Congress’ ranks. Special Advisor for Press, Special Advisor for Policies, Special Advisor for who knows what- have all appeared to have taken on great importance in the party, reminiscent of Bristol’s warning of a “second Cabinet”. Being a fan of the democratic process, I would not even bestow upon them the word Cabinet, not even in inverted commas: they are unelected political appointees, some with skill and some utterly inept judging by the fact that the vast majority have not thrived in the private sector. These special advisors (and their sons and daughters) appear to be the most ample beneficiaries of the fruits of Congress- serving in prized positions, now it seems even at the expense of our elected representatives. Pardon me, but Dennoth Modeste, albeit a son of the Victorian soil, did not stand for elected office, neither did Glen Noel nor Ann Antoine nor Franka Bernadine, although I have every confidence in the latter. It cannot be right that it is seen that grace and favours and the privilege of speaking in the Prime Minister’s ear falls to those who did not sacrifice career ambitions and risk the possibility to humiliation to stand for public office, to the ultimate reality audience ever- the official polls. It absolutely cannot be the case or seen to be the case that certain of these individuals occupy more favoured positions? What is it that Dennoth Modeste can do that Peter David, an educated, well-spoken man cannot be seen to do, and if there is indeed something, why wasn’t he doing it during all his years in the diplomatic service? Is Glen Noel the only reasonable choice as Minister for Housing? Why not Osborne James, who was actually elected? It is not as if one is more qualified than the other. It may be that the public dissenters have a point, albeit not particularly well handled.

Having said all that, I have always admired Thomas in that he seems to be incredibly humble but like much of what we have inherited from our colonial past, we seem to always wish for a leader who is larger than life, with equal parts of ceremony with substance. Thomas has been chastised as not being able to “speak” because his accent is Hermitagean with accents of Sauteurs. I would say there is nothing wrong with that, but maybe because we are so small we suffer from what I call the “semblance of statesmanship” complex. In my eyes, there is nothing wrong with the way he answers questions- short, to the point, honest, unpolished by cheap spin and PR, but to the vast majority of Grenadians, he does not appear like the archetypal “Prime Minister”. Added to this, the abject failure of Congress (and I say this as an omniscient narrator without any fear or favour) to capitalise on the shortcomings of the NNP under his leadership, has weakened faith in his hand. Job creation is virtually at a standstill, the effects of the recession has had a toll on economic prospects, the tourism industry is still underdeveloped, the release of Bernard Coard was handled with a lack of aplomb, there has been no significant investment in infrastructure, the youth programme has been dismantled, among other things, it is not difficult to see why Grenadians are eager to have Thomas deliver on the change he promised.

The question now seems to be, will that change be a change without him, and not without David and his cohorts as he hoped. The decision he has made to make these changes appear to have inversely, operated as a judgment on his tenure as leader. The result seems inevitable. There will be a battle. Congress can continue without Thomas or David or both. I know that Thomas Jefferson said that he who cannot obey cannot command, but what occurs when the act of obeying will betray pride and ambition?

Cocoa seeds

A few weeks ago, I went to the Tate Modern to see Ai Weiwei’s much vaunted and critically acclaimed “Sunflower Seeds”. To the untrained, unlearned eye, it would have seemed unspectacular- a sea of over one hundred million of what seemed like small pebbles placed into a giant exhibition area, much like an expanse of Brighton beach indoors. This was especially so as Weiwei’s vision that we would touch and interact with the art was nipped in the proverbial bud by Health and Safety jobsworths as the herds of Londoners stamping on the seeds created some form of dust that was apparently unsafe. Bollocks. I think that the millions of Londoners walking away with a few seeds in their pockets and backpacks was more of an issue.

I say seeds, but this is incorrect. These were really porcelain replicas of sunflower seeds. They seemed identical but they were all unique and hand-crafted by families and individuals in the porcelain crafting region of China, Jingdezhen. Each ceramic seed was individually moulded, sculpted and hand painted by persons trained in the art working in family workshops and at home. By so doing, Weiwei turned the cliché of Made In China on its head: here it was in front of us- mass production alongside traditional craftsmanship. Weiwei explains in his video that sunflower seeds were a common street snack shared with friends which carried some association with Mao Zedong’s Cultural Revolution during 1966-1976 where Chairman Mao was depicted as the Sun and the people as sunflowers who turned towards him. The effort was poignant to me- the dignity and the desire to work of the Jingdezhen people was striking- they wanted and actively sought out more work and took pride in creating the sunflower seeds to perfection. It raised important questions about materialism and consumerism in today’s society. What is the dividing line between individuality and our mutual commonality.
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I couldn’t help, when viewing this exhibition, to ponder on the Caribbean condition. We have traditionally prided ourselves on our attention to detail, our individuality and our uniqueness- we are too small to mass produce anything. I couldn’t help making an analogy with the seeds that would be used to represent our condition, were such an exhibition to be launched. I thought we could use cocoa seeds- cocoa representing a traditional export that was meticulously grown and harvested, resplendent in their jewel colours of red and yellow, an export that has now become secondary to the cheap fast tourist product. I recall days of traipsing fields of cocoa, shaded by overarching canopies of nutmeg, breaking the prized pods open and sucking on the opaque, almost cataract pulp of the fruit, careful not to ingest too many in case, as legend had it, we died of short breath. We picked cocoa, we carried buckets of them back home on shaky donkeys, wide banks and unsteady heads. We laid it out to dry in the sun in huge cocoa drawers, careful to save them from a torrent of rain. We danced headily, turning these prized globules with our feet. Cocoa too, could be associated with periods of one man rule in our islands. Who could forget Uncle Gairy on Grenada's cocoa plantations, speaking to the workers and consecrating himself their Saviour?

Cocoa is still prized in the islands, but our brand of Trinitario has been overtaken by the cocoa industries of Ghana. We are not able to compete on size nor on production range and we have been beaten on prices and plagued by disease. In the early 1970s most farmers switched to production of bananas as the cocoa crop was too unpredictable. The end result was that cocoa was only grown sporadically and exported in its raw form to more profitable centres for production. Now, due to the fact that it is estimated that cocoa will soon be worth its weight in gold (a true fact), there is a renewed effort by the region in its cocoa producing capabilities, and rightfully so.  The EU has funded the Caribbean Fine Flavoured Cocoa Forum with a view to capitalise on the flavoursome Caribbean bean as opposed to the ordinary, bulk, cocoa beans. The potential can be enormous. Professor Denise Thompson of the University of Trinidad and Tobago noted that we were exporting raw cocoa at $3 a kilo, which was being sold in the market at $1500 a kilo. It is my hope that this project takes off, for the benefit of our people and for the benefit of our islands.

Maybe in two years time, a young artist would place an exhibition in the Tate telling the history of our revitalised love affair with these seeds, representing the bounty of hard labour.

Why Katie Price is a Feminist

I always get a lot of stick when I say this, but I really like Katie Price. Maybe it is because in spite of all her gold unitard wearing shenanigans, her story resonates with me a whole fricking lot. Here is a single mum, raising the disabled child of a deadbeat dad (shame on you Dwight Yorke for not taking care of your seed) and she is also the main breadwinner of a broken family. Her husband left her when she was adamant that she did not wish to end the marriage. Did she feel sorry for herself ? No, she spent a few weeks getting drunk in Marbella and then she emerged, feisty, fighting and back in form with a new boyfriend at her side. She was not born the most stunning woman in the world, nor the most intelligent, nor the sexiest or the most privileged, yet she has managed to be completely self made and to have created a market out of herself spawning homeware, clothing, No 1 Albums, bestselling books and reality TV shows. I think Katie Price is a feminist icon because if she can do it, the rest of us have no excuse.


The feminist movement in the early 1990’s were defined by a number of key issues: women’s suffrage, gender neutrality, equal work for equal pay, free choice of women to their reproductive rights but increasingly, women are disappointed with the fruits of the spoils. Men routinely deny that there is a glass ceiling, but the miniscule numbers of senior employees in corporate UK betray the lie. We have been told to work hard and assiduously and we will have the dream husband, the dream family and the dream house in the country, only to find that we are still left with the lion’s share of the housework and childcare whilst that man that we love so much chases DDs and salivates over Botox enhanced, silicon filled blondes. We were taught to be independent, to value the fact that we could purchase our own homes, our own cars and pay our own bills: no one told us that this was a stupid strategy. As Lil Kim says in the Moulin Rouge- why spend mine when I could spend yours? Meanwhile the girls at school who happily used their best assets and gave it up to the right bankers, lawyers, and IT personnel are enjoying the very same spoils, except for free and without the hassle of bank accounts, investments, mortgages and the like.

Katie Price has turned this form of delusional thankless feminism on its head. She has is a cacophony of contradictions. She has had an abortion, had three children and is undergoing fertility treatment to have another. They will probably have three different fathers, turning the idea of the nuclear birth family upside down and on its head. She has, to some extent, reinvented herself from the rubber clad, Lolita inspired pin-up of a Page Three Girl into a viable business enterprise, merchandising herself and her children. Nothing is sancrosanct, nothing is secret. Katie Price has cleverly made herself the brand and is marketing it (even unapologetically whoring it) with passion and enthusiasm. She is strikingly honest about her capabilities, surprisingly optimistic despite all the negative press, and has a dogged determinism and sense of not caring about the opposition that we only latterly see in men. She exploits the lad’s mags with knowing prowess- a pout here, a wink there, a bat of the eyelid. She can become the sex kitten at the drop of her knickers but can also be versatile enough to sell children’s equestrian gear in pretty pink. Isn’t this even better than Germaine Greer? A woman exercising her choice in all aspects of her life, refusing to be defined by the views of others and eking out a name and a place for herself? Katie Price has worked quite hard for her cars, her house, her horseboxes and her life but crucially, has done so doing it on her own terms, at her own pace and with her own vision. There are partners who are earning millions in brown suits at multinational law firms who cannot say the same.

Some may say that her overt sexualisation is actually demeaning traditional concepts of feminism and by continuing to pose for men’s magazines and on the covers of Nuts and Zoo, she reinforces stereotypes of women as objects. I beg to differ. Katie Price has taken her sexuality by the vagina and has released herself from the claws of society’s expectations of what is a “good woman”. She is the head of her household and plays a dominant role in her relationships. And there’s the rub- Katie Price probably best epitomises the central thesis of Germaine Greer’s The Female Eunuch. By her failure to fit squarely into the traditional, suburban, nuclear family which is both repressive and devitalising, she has become a metaphor for our times where women resist being separated from their sexuality. Katie Price more than owns her libido and her desire; she cognitively associates herself with it, and manipulates it for her own benefit. Isn’t this the antithesis of the female eunuch?

Not everyone is born to be a suffragette. Not every individual will fight for parliamentary freedoms or be the first to go to University or to enter into the professions. And we don’t all want to be pink pony toting women in a sea of hair extensions, hobbling with six inch heels to a celebrity event. But if a woman chooses this, and makes a commercial enterprise out of it, I am surprised that this is considered counter-feminism and counter the movements that preached that we were all needed to reclaim ownership of our choices.

Ten minus One Equals Nine

The heartless, baseless and utterly stupid comments of Kamla Persad-Bissessar in response to the devastation wreaked upon other Caribbean islands by Hurricane Tomas have almost left us”small islanders” in fits of almost epileptic quantums. That a leader of an island, that a leader of a sister Caribbean island at that, who is poised to take a leading role in the integration of the region should boldly blurt out in the aftermath of an humanitarian crisis, in the fashion of a tactless undiplomatic ignoramus, that any aid delivered to the islands would be contingent on some benefit to Trinidad and Tobago, proves to me, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that some individuals, whilst claiming to be educated, are actually dumb as shit. I take no prisoners- Kamla is a jackass of the higher order.

I was angry, on a deeper level, because this is Trinidad. This was the Trinidad of Eric Williams who was a beacon of Pan Africanism and regionalism, a forebearer of the Caribbean integrationist movement, the godfather of the Maurice Bishops and the petit frère of the Castros. This was the Trinidad and Tobago of the Spanish settlers who had no experience in tilling the land and where the slaves of Grenada and St. Vincent were exported to till the huge canefields of Curepe. This was the Trinidad and Tobago that many islanders migrated to in the early 1940’s around the period of war and who settled in Fyzabad and in other neighbouring districts to build Trinidad’s infrastructure. This was the Triniadad we Grenadians bestowed our greatest exports upon: Uriah Buzz Butler, the blueprint for Caribbean trade unionists and the Mighty Sparrow, Calypso King of the World. We even gave the island of Trinidad carnival. Prior to the French Grenadian settlers on the island, Trinidad had no Carnival. That is a documented fact.

On a more personal level, this was the Trinidad that I ate, drank and lived everyday. I watched Gayelle TV with Uncle Fabien in the evenings. My Ipod is filled with the latest tracks from Machel Montano, Lord Kitchener and Faye Ann Lyons. I just purchased a ticket to see Destra and Saucy Wow tomorrow. This was the Trinidad into which I pumped thousands of dollars into the local economy to jump up in the heat for two days on the road in a cheaply bedecked pair of panties and a bra. I paid for the discomfort. Trinidad was ever omniscient in the Dixee and Crix crackers on which I was weaned, the Fruta, Trinidad Orange Juice and Orchard that I begged my mum to buy me in place of the sweet Swivel oranges laden on the trees outside, and the Mackeson and Stag that I now drink in place of our own local Carib. We feature Trinidadian artists in our local carnivals, we patronise Trinidad brands, we even read Trinidadian tabloids like the Punch. The CIA Factbook shows that the Caribbean purchases hundreds of millions of products from Trinidad and Tobago. Sure, the United States , Spain and Germany are amongst its biggest trading partners, but our contributions are certainly not minimal. The net gain of our generational straddling of the twin island Republic is that the economy is thriving and its people are a colourful amalgam crossing cultures and race, so much so that its President takes this for granted.

I am not upset in the manner of a petulant naive teen oblivious to the fact that deals are made via the back door on international aid projects. However, these are often on projects which have long term ramifications, never the initial response to a cry for help. There is a reason why the world help has only four letters, it is not meant to rebound to the donor. I strongly believe that an offer of conditional help to a country on its knees in times of crisis is not actual help at all. I am also annoyed by the silence of Trinidadians on the issue, as they should know better and in their refusal to speak out on Kamla’s misdemeanour, they tacitly agree. Quelle fuckerie. It is as if they really believe in the propaganda, that the other islands are the perpetual buskers in the underground of CSME and the OECS. This is very far from the truth. Whilst we are small, the islands do not survive by the largesse of Trinidad and Tobago, nor do we consider it to be an ATM machine. St. Lucia, Barbados, Jamaica and even the smaller islands of Anguilla, St. Kitts and Antigua do exceedingly well from the tourist markets. In contrast, Trinidad has been allowed to benefit from and exploit Grenada’s maritime resources for a number of years.

Kamla’s approach smacks of someone who has only had the benefit of learning and not an education; it is not a wonder to me that she was only able to soar to the dizzy heights of Norwood Technical College in SE27, an institution that was later scrapped. It is also ironic that she herself benefited from the regionalism that she seems to deplore. After receiving her teaching certificate, she was graciously accepted by St. Andrew’s High School in Jamaica as a lecturer, and later by the Jamaica College of Insurance.

I am more concerned however by what some say this aggressive and isolationist statement means for the Caribbean, for Caricom in terms of the integrationist movement in the Caribbean. The Caribbean Court of Justice is meant to be housed in Trinidad and Tobago. The very principle of neighbourliness seems to have been lost on TNT and it seems that the people there (based on the ignorant comments in the Trinidad Express) are vehement that they do not wish to be their brothers’ keepers, particularly when the islands are down and out, handicapped or crippled. It is a damning indictment of the short sightedness of the region’s leaders when even Europe the economic powerhouse that it is, is creating and strengthening alliances among its Member States, and in India and China. Instead, small Caribbean countries, which in the grand scheme of things, play  miniscule roles in the global economic landscape, have a puffed up sense of their own importance and start conditioning their measly dollars on vacuous ideas like benefit. Dollars which I may remind Trinidad and Tobago is so devalued compared to the EC dollar that they can keep it! We doh want it! What hubris! However, I am not convinced that this says anymore than  display Trinidad’s immaturity in its refusal to enter the spirit of the regional effort, and unlike Williams, I think this time we are not willing to let one spoilt petulant child spoil the family. I say let's march ahead without Trinidad. Jamaica has learnt its lesson- yes, its economy has advanced but it has ate humble pie and has realised that it needs its neighbours.

To Kamla, I have only eight words : “the consciousness of well doing is ample reward”. This was said very often by the Grenadian Principal of my school, who was sent to rescue a Trinidad Convent, no less.