It Could Happen Here - Grenada with Andrew, Pt. 2

Episode Date: December 18, 2025

In the second of two parts, James and Andrew talk about the downfall of the revolution in Grenada and what we can learn from the failure of the revolution and the New JEWEL Movement. Sources: Grenada: Revolution and Invasion by Patsy Lewis et al None Shall Escape by FundiSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an I-Heart podcast, Guaranteed Human. I'm Stefan Curry, and this is Gentleman's Cut. I think what makes Gentleman's Cut different is me being a part of developing the profile of this beautiful finished product. With every sip, you get a little something different. Visit Gentleman's Cut Bourbon.com or your nearest Total Wines or Bevmo. This message is intended for audiences 21 and older. Gentleman's Cut Bourbon, Boone County, Kentucky. For more on Gentleman's Cut Bourbon, please visit

Gentleman'scuturban.com. Please enjoy responsibly. Have you ever listened to those true crime shows and found yourself with more questions than answers? Who catfishes a city? Is it even safe to snort human remains? Is that the plot of Footloose? I'm comedian Rory Scoville,

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Check out my new episode with John Legend. I feel like, in a lot of ways, our careers are paralleled in some ways, but they just never intersected for some reason. I know. We should take it slow. We're just ordinary people. We don't know which way you go. Listen to Nora Jones is playing along on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, everybody, it's Chuck and Josh from the Stuff You Should Know podcast, and it's that time of year again when we knuckle down to do our annual holiday episodes.

We collected our best past classic holiday episodes and compiled them into a 12 days of Christmas toys playlist that the whole family can enjoy. That's right. Maybe you missed it the first time we detailed the history of Beanie Babies, Monopoly, or Yo-Yo's. and a whole lot more. So listen to the 12 Days of Christmas Toys playlist on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. CallZo Media. Hello and welcome to Icarapen here.

I'm Andrew Siege, your host, and I'm joined by... James again. Excited to be here again. I enjoyed our last episode. Yes, another host of Iqadapenia. There are two of us. Mm-hmm.

Yep. So James is American, British or British American, depending on how we want to order that. Yeah, yeah. And I'm Trinidadian, as you may or may not be able to tell. But in Trinidad, there are actually a lot of Canadians and descendants of Grenadians. Between our islands, it's been a lot of population exchange, mostly in one direction. But we're here to talk about a notable point in the history.

for my neighbour in Ireland, Grenada. If you missed part one, you should go and give it a listen. The gist is that after drawn out efforts to gain independence, Grenada finally did so in 1974, but unfortunately under the rule of Eric Gehry, an oppressive fixture of politics that the people wanted out. The underdog, the new Jewel movement led by Maurice Bishop, pulled off a bloodless coup while Gary was at a UN meeting in New York. and thus the People's Revolutionary Government was formed, led by Prime Minister Maurice Bishop.

They managed to stay in power from 1979 to 1983, so today we're talking about what they did in that time and what happened next, including the infamous U.S. invasion that is so often a footnote of history, and its aftermath on the people of Grenada that lasts up to this day. once again the research for this episode leans on grenada revolution and invasion by patsy louis et al along with none should escape by joseph edwards aka fundy so fresh off the victory of the new jewel movement the temperature of the populace was varied but excited you had people who had genuine revolutionary aspirations people who were passionately anti-imperialist and then the people who just wanted better health care and education and didn't really care where, who it came from.

And on that note, I would say that it's something that often flies under the radar or escapes awareness in the discourse because the most passionate, the most invested, the most proud on voices are all that we tend to hear. The vast majority of people pretty much go with the flow. Yeah. You know, they keep their heads down. their focus tends to be on their immediate needs, their immediate interests, and you have the ideologues in every camp and have every persuasion

who are aiming to push the country in a particular direction. But at least at this point in time, there was an ambivalence towards the how, the political, how much of the population, they just needed to see the results. And for a lot of people in the present day, the change, the revolution, whatever you want to call it, isn't it going to come from an ideological transformation, well-worded argument or arrangement of, you know, prose. It's going to come from a lived experience where their life has improved in some way, in some form of fashion, by action,

by a project that actually puts the change into practice. And so that's really really, what the Neutral movement had been about from the beginning, being part of the community, being part of the people, taking part in, you know, supporting them, which is why they had the popular mandate. And then once they got into power, all of their efforts were focused on, indeed, trying to actually put into place an alternative for all the flaws that it may have had, and I'll get to that shortly. And that they did. You know, they organized a center for popular education. They organized teacher training and sought to make secondary schools and colleges more

accessible to people. They introduced maternity leave for women. Nice. Although notably party members who were women were pressured to come back to work after having children. So again, we'll get to those floors. Yeah. There was still inequality in pay between men and women, but the neutral movement did make

efforts to mandate equal pay and to engage in some changes toward addressing the inequality between men and women in the country. However, a revolution was still needed within the revolution, as it has tended to be across these revolutions, you know, across these years. Usual stuff women were still doing the most of the housework and both sexes were expected to take part in political engagement. So you had women in the party, in the New Jew movement, but it was a sort of an expectation of equality in some respects.

Like, yeah, come out to work, even though you just had children, because everybody else is coming out to work. And yet, it was like, oh, yeah, y'all can keep on doing the housework. We're not going to take on our load there. Yep, that's funny. I finished my book recently, but I have a chapter on gender. And there's this a communist militant in Spain who was fighting at the front line, but also they were saddled with that double burden, right? Because women were expected to be the ones amongst, especially amongst the communists who cooked and cleaned in addition to fighting.

But she has this famous line where she says, I didn't join the military to die with a dishcloth in my hand. Which I think is great. Yeah, it's a good one. I like it a lot. Yeah, yeah, but flaws with engaging with gender aside, there were, of course, other things the Neutral Movement was doing that was positive. You know, they encouraged agricultural diversification and local food production, moving away from that sort of exclusive or near-exclusive dependence on nutmeg production

that had defined the colonial period. You know, they got rid of the old Westminster-style parliamentary system in favor of a one-party system with some elements of mass-demand. democracy. Now, the degree to which that democracy actually empowered people is debatable, but there were, you know, efforts on the record. You know, they organized public meetings to discuss the national budget. They set up workers and youth and women's and farmers' organizations. And unfortunately, even though Bishop was influenced by C.L. James, he continued to pursue the sort of hierarchical leadership common in Caribbean politics. And so even with these

alternative organizations, you had that kind of hierarchy. But I think that is to be expected from any movement besides anarchism. Yeah. So I can't say I'm surprised. They closed the independent newspaper torchlight after an article highlighting a Rastafarian protest against lack of representation in government. So there were efforts to ensure that Grenada moved towards secularism, but freedom of the press was not something that was particularly high in terms of priorities, and there were still prejudices against religious groups and movements like the Rastafarians that had yet to be addressed. You know, these things aren't dealt with overnight, but... I think when all you have is a hammer, everything can sort of look like a nail.

Yeah. They didn't do anything too drastic in the economics fail. For the most part, they left people's private businesses alone. They implemented some state enterprises and they implemented some cooperative enterprises. So a fairly standard mixed economy, a mixed economy that can to very extent to be found throughout the Caribbean, whether they had a revolution. or not. But they did establish cooperative and friendly relations with Cuba, which was a real thorn on the side of the United States. Yeah, he didn't like them. And now this is, I would say, from 1979 to 1980. So their first two years in power, people were nervous-sighted. You know,

they were hopeful of the genuine decolonization and positive change taken place. But the excitement part of the Nova Sightment started to die down by 1981. The People's Revolutionary Government, PRG, became increasingly militaristic as time went on. They organized militias and armed people. They were essentially preparing for a Gary counter coup, but also potential CIA involvement. The police were replaced with military personnel. And I think this is the trap that a lot of these projects end up falling into. this concern about the enemy within and the enemy without leads these revolutionaries to

cannibalize themselves you know the revolutionary potential and excitement gets curtailed because there's so much fear dominating that some enemy is going to attack some violence is going to take place that they need to prepare for and so you over you militarize and you militarize and you stare the course of the project away from its original intentions to a point where it's not even recognizable to the people who initiated it. Yeah. You know, I'm not saying that they weren't right to be wary of U.S. intervention. History has demonstrated as much, but it was something that the people of the country

would become increasingly concerned about because it's a small country and it's, it's uncommon, you know, it's as strange, it's unusual, it's unnerving to see militias marching down your street. Now, the Neutral Movement was starting to become more focused on establishing a Vanguard Corps, the more they oriented themselves toward Marxism-Leninism. So, like I mentioned, before, they were making this shift away from the sort of popular mass democracy that people like Celar James was talking about, the more they read and they studied the works of Marxism lending so. And there were people within the party who became more and more convinced, again, remember

the in positions of power this point in time. So you're in positions of power and you're reading theoretical justifications for why you need to be in power. You know, you'll stand by those theoretical justifications because it lines up with your interests, your self-interest to, you know, further your position of power and the continuation of your role as an authority, as a leader. And so this vanguard core that they were pursuing, it ended up creating a hierarchy of in-group and out-group. You had the people who were in the vanguard, the people who were out of the vanguard, who didn't get picked, we didn't

make the cut, you know, it felt snubbed. And this was facilitating. It was fostering this an air of secrecy that people in the country were beginning to resent and look. trust in. Because imagine you're going from this sort of popular engagement with the people as you, you know, take part in these efforts to push Gary out of power. Then you have this sort of secrecy, you have this sort of militarism that is starting to remind people a bit of the exact Gary government that they wanted out. And then two major events took place in 1981. There was a bombing under the stage of a rally that killed some youths. And there was a car ambition as well. Both of these incidents were blamed on counter-revolutionaries in the country,

that famous buzzword, that famous catchphrase, that famous justification for any and every response. Yeah. So it further pushed the country and really the whole society into this culture of suspicion and repression and also resentment for the New Jewel movement. The New Jewel movement wasn't responsible for the bombings, but you can imagine people were probably saying when they were at the parlor, by the grocery, you know, out by the bar, down the street, they're saying, you know, at least they didn't have any bombings under Gary, you know, at least they didn't have

these car ambushings under Gary. Gary wasn't nice, but we didn't have terrorist attacks. And the sort of transparency and engagement people were accustomed to was starting to evaporate. The New Jew movement was starting to be seen by some as a secret society and if your society is already small right just about 100,000 people

yeah having a secret society within that small society where everybody knows everybody that's not good especially when the revolution is so new, so nationed you need people's trust and especially as well because people

were not ideologically for Marxism-Leninism most of them that is they were ideologically for Marxism and they're not ideologically neutral movement advocates. They just wanted Eric Geary out and they wanted improvements in their living

conditions. Yeah. They didn't have a particular political ideology they were committed to. And in this time, you know, the Caribbean is part of the rest of the world. The Caribbean is paying attention, has to pay attention to what's happening in the rest of the world. And especially with the northern

neighbor, the United States of America, and it's very infamous at that point in time, we're talking in late 70s, early 80s, Cold War rhetoric that people are getting in the media. The American media was still very, and continues to be very prominent in terms of what Caribbean people consume, because we are English speaking, the Americans are English speaking, and they have far more resources. So their media comes to us, and a lot of the narratives that Caribbean people get come

in a decent part from American narratives. So these Cold War era narratives about communism as a scale. was something that had yet to be addressed through actual demonstration of what communism could actually be for people. You know, people weren't worn over on communism yet.

It was still unfamiliar. And in this time, you really needed people who were open, who were accommodating, who were showing people what it meant in practice, who were, you know, sort of disarming these notions that could serve as

obstacles towards people's buy-in into the struggle. I'm saying this as a non-Marxist landist. I'm putting myself in those shoes. If I'm trying to get people invest in this, convinced of this, that sort of secrecy. It doesn't push things in a positive trajectory. Yeah. It's easy for the population to perceive that you've replaced one elite with another elite, right? Especially in post-colonial movements when we do this. Exactly. So it's a transparent one-for-one, you know? Yeah. I mean, not to say that people didn't see the differences. No, yes, correct.

They went to wear the nuances. They could tell the difference between an Eric Gary and a Maurice Bishop. They can tell the difference between, you know, one form of politics and another. It's not that they were just ready to turn, quote immediately. I mean, some of them still had the fresh wounds of the trauma being inflicted by Eric Gary. Yeah. But it's because of that trauma, so they were also sensitive to the potential of new traumas.

Yeah. Call it paranoia. Call it, you understand, and right-thinking suspicion. But they were wary of what was taking place. Yeah. And you know what didn't help? It didn't help that, okay, so you know how some people, they read, like, one or two theory books,

and they start walking around, like, their head is three times bigger than it is. They started walking around this kind of inflated sense of self-importance. Yes, I'm very familiar with that kind of person. yeah unfortunately that's exactly what started taking place amongst some members of the party they're reading all these books all these thick books from russia and germany and marx and lenin and all these people and it's and they're starting to carry themselves in a particular way yeah with a level of arrogance and i know it allness and and you know and this is worsen in a society

where remember we are fresh out of colonialism you know none of our independent nations are even a hundred years old yet much of the population still remember that colonial period yeah and much of the population like i mentioned before needed changes the education system because they didn't have educational opportunities so you had this vast educational inequality right and then you have this new joan movement and some of its members are talking to you like you're stupid yeah because you didn't get to go to parents to go to primary school, you didn't read all the thick books that they read, or you didn't get to go to secondary school, or you didn't get to go to university. And so you don't know all

the big words and you haven't read all the thick texts that they have read. And it could rub people the wrong way. Yeah. Yes. Right? Yeah. There can be too much theory. I think that often is too much theory, especially when it creates this idea, right? That reading is what distinguishes one as a revolutionary right as opposed to doing or just knowing and caring and it's a downfall of many movements indeed i think if you're coming from the background that some of these new joel movement members were coming from you need to put in that extra effort not to dumb the things down per se you still want to respect people as intelligence but you have to be aware of the dynamic it's something that i myself have to work on you know

because I think there's a sort of course of knowledge where you read so much that you take for granted what you know. You know, you read to a point where you almost forget that this is not common knowledge or this word may be unfamiliar to a lot of people and you really have to be cognizant of it, especially as you're approaching people

and make sure you're talking to them in their language. They don't feel as though you're carrying yourself too big for your bridges. Yeah, definitely. like the people who write the thick books can't be your like milieu you know they can't be there if used a stupid word but like if those are the people with whom you're sort of conversing in your head and then you begin to to speak in that language to people who aren't familiar with it it just sounds weird yeah like it's yeah as you say you get too big for your bridges and you sound

pompous if you're not careful exactly exactly Being a parent is basically a juggling act. Dinner, hockey practice, homework, a last-minute science project, and someone's always, always shouting for you from another room. So yeah, I'll take any shortcuts that actually works. And that's why I'm all in on HelloFresh. Fresh ingredients, super easy recipes, and over 80 options every week so everyone eats. No one complains, and I get to feel like I've got it all together.

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For more on Gentleman's Cut Bourbon, please visit gentlemen'scutturbin.com. Please enjoy responsibly. Hey, everybody, it's Chuck and Josh from the Stuff You Should Know podcast, and it's that time of year again when we knuckle down to do our annual holiday episodes. We collected our best past classic holiday episodes and compiled them into a 12 Days of Christmas Toys playlist that the whole family can enjoy. That's right.

Maybe you missed it the first time we detailed the history of Beanie Babies, Monopoly, or yo-yo's and a whole lot more. So listen to the 12 Days of Christmas Toys playlist on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And so for the, you know, big shot lawyer, as I say this, for big-shot lawyers like Maurice Bishop and big-shot economics lecturers like Bernard Cod

and some of the other folks that had been part of the core of the party, They had to approach people in a particular way and they were successful in doing so under Eric Gary and as they were part of the opposition but things were shifted. Also at the turn of the 80s we had a lot of moves against suspected counter-revolutionaries.

Imprisonment without trial. To imagine again, people are thinking this is what, the monk who's gang 2.0? Yeah. The fare was starting to overtake the society. It was starting to become cannibalizing, I said. So by the time we get to 1983,

we find ourselves with the people bereft of the early days of hope, in a house divided, which famously cannot stand. Unbeknownst to the public, there were tensions between Maurice Bishop and Bernard Cord since at least 1982, and Cord wasn't even part of the Central Committee of the Neutral Movement anymore for a while. But within the vanguard, the party members still preferred Cord to Bishop. Cord was seen as more intellectually equipped to lead with his knowledge of theory. They started calling Bishop egotistic and counter-revolutionary. I have to say, I love

the double-edged sword of these kind of willy-nilly thought timid in cliches, because they can be used by you and then they could be used against you, in a snap of your fingers. Yeah, indeed. It goes back to your thing about hammers and nails that you mentioned before. Indeed. So eventually the party decided to bring court on as co-leader with Bishop. Originally, Bishop agreed, but this started to create tensions. Things managed decently, but after a while, Bishop was starting to push back against the co-leadership arrangement, and the party started seeing it as him favouring his own ascendancy over the collective unity.

And then he went to Germany, he left the country on a trip. Do worry, there wasn't another coup this time, at least not yet. But he went to Germany on a trip, came back, there was not a welcome party for him. womp womp things were coming to her head the party did not have his back anymore he could feel it but he did know that the people

still had his back remember he knows he's charismatic he knows people love him and so all of a sudden this is in 1983 by the way a rumor was swirling that Cord wanted to kill Bishop yes

it's a dangerous rumor you know it shatters this facade of a united front that had carried the revolution, they had carried the government for so long. But since most people loved Bishop, as he rightfully assumed, in fact, they were on a first name basis with him. That's cool.

They weren't saying, Prime Minister Bishop, your Honourable Prime Minister Bishop, it was, Hey, Maurice, like that boy, Maurice. Yeah, that's always a good sign.

Like, it's one of the positive marks of the revolution in Rajava, right, is that everyone is a friend and everyone's referred to generally by their first name. and it's always kind of I've seen enough

read enough about you know revolution opposing a revolutionary hierarchy so that's always a good sign I feel like yeah so meanwhile you had Cod who people didn't have

the same kind of relationship with you know as far as they're concerned he's an enemy now because of that rumor and the party actually suspected that it was bishop that started the rumor. In fact, his own personal bodyguards suspected it. But Bishop himself denied it. Whether he did or did not start the rumor, we don't know. But the party was insulted by his

movements and put him under house arrest. What? What? Gasp. You're not see Jay's right now, but he just this shocked facial expression. Yeah, like a shocked Pikachu. And that's how the people were feeling it. Like, what? A prime minister arrested. You can't. could do that? That's a thing. Yeah. So, you see, the vanguard with all that secrecy at this point in time was operating on information that was not made available to the people. And the people were pissed at the party now. Yeah. The cracks in this political arrangement with essentially a secret society on top were starting to show. The people, generally speaking, regardless of what the party wanted, wanted Maurice Bishop. They wanted the boy Maurice, but the party was not

interested in what people wanted. The day is 19th of October 1983. The pro-Marice Bishop New Jersey Movement leaders, government ministers, and a mass demonstration of people, roll up to Bishop's house to set him free. There were guards, of course, assigned to keep him in house arrest, where those guards stood down. They refused to shoot at the people. So the crowd of people walked to Fort Rupert. Now, Fort Rupert wasn't always Fort Rupert. Used to be Fort George.

In fact, after the revolution ended, it again became known as Fort George. But Fort Rupert was named Fort Rupert after Maurice Bishop's father, who was killed by Eric Gehry, as you may recall. So they get there. but the majority of the neutral movement who were, like I said,

backers of Bernard Cord were at another fort nearby and boom three armored trucks pull up from the fort of Cord to Rupert's fort, Fort Rupert they start firing into the crowd people running all over the place

who once people died who want people scattered this event is a trauma for Canadians even to this day by the way to the court loyalists pull up and line up bishop unison whiteman who was the minister of foreign affairs nor is spain who was the minister of health and was actually not part of the neutral movement and jaclin preft who was the minister of education they lined them up against the wall and shot them summary execution others including trade unionists businessmen and high schoolers

were also killed at fort rupert jeez right after the this, the military curfew was announced on radio. Canadians were told to lock their doors. Violators of curfew were to be shot on site. A couple of days later, as people mourned if they're dead, the news came that the United States will invade Grenada. If this was a HBO series, I feel like that would be the end of the penultimate episode. So just to give you a bit of context on the US's position,

The United States did not like the way that Cuba and the Soviets and Grenada were becoming close, even though Grenada was technically non-aligned, like much of the world was trying to stay out of the hares of the U.S.S.S.S.S.R. in their Cold War. Yeah. But Grenada and the Canadians represented a serious risk. They were black. That's a big risk. They were English-speaking.

There were English-speaking black people close to the border of the United States of America as African-Americans were engaged in their own struggle for liberation in the U.S. As Horace Bishop noted, I mean, that's the threat. There could be communication, collaboration between these groups, a demonstration of an alternative close to United States with ease of communication with the United States. so the United States invasion was always a potential outcome but here it was flexing power in its fair in its backyard

the party rounded up a bunch of people to join them in defending the revolution if most people were traumatized they ran and they hid wherever they could some regardless of whether they liked the new Jew movement at that point in time or not stood ready to defend their island from invasion but many more were hidden and scared

and there were also others who, out of revenge for the revolution, they betrayed them, betrayed the revolution by expressing their support for the invasion. Now, me personally, that's something I would never do. I don't care how much I disagree with any government that I'm under. I wouldn't co-sign the invasion of my country by an empire, but I can understand the reasoning or the emotional position that some people were in at that point.

So the US's claim, by the way, for their invasion, was that they were there to rescue American students who were in Grenada. They said they're there to rescue these students from these commies. Perfect. American students wouldn't under any actual threat, obviously.

Nobody was mining them or threatening them or anything, but they always have to have some kind of story, right? Yeah. So 25th of October, 1983, America's boots land on the ground, joined later by the military personnel of Barbados and Jamaica. There were more deaths, mostly Grenadians, but also some Cubans who were there working on the new international airport. an airport that later became known as Maurice Bishop International Airport,

an airport that just over a month ago, the United States requested to use for its military operations in the region. The United States kept the media out of the island for two days after the invasion. They were sure to curate an image of the communist threat. They wanted to paint a picture for the media to tell a story back at home about how, yeah, they were actually preparing to work with the Soviets as a staging ground to attack the United States. So this invasion was the first overt, as opposed to covert, use of force since Vietnam. The party in power at the time needed an easy win. So party members, this is neutral movement party members, were imprisoned.

An interim government was established by Grenadians living abroad, and the revolution was over. Being a parent is basically a juggling act. Dinner, hockey practice, homework, a last-minute science project, and someone's always, always shouting for you from another room. So, yeah, I'll take any shortcuts that actually works. And that's why I'm all in on hello, fresh. Fresh ingredients, super easy recipes and over 80 options every week so everyone eats. No one complains

and I get to feel like I've got it all together, at least for dinner. And the best part, you're in total control. Skip a week, pause anytime, pick what works for you. It's dinner on your terms. They even have 15 minute recipes. Perfect for those nights when everyone's hungry and patience is officially off the menu. And with so many options, even my pickiest eater found something they loved, which means no more backup mac and cheese. Try HelloFresh today and get 50% off the first box with free shipping. Go to Hellofresh.combe, rescue 50. That's Hellofresh.ca promo code Rescue 50. Have you ever listened to those true crime shows and found yourself with more questions than answers? And what is this? How is that not a story we all know? What's this? Where is that? Why is it wet?

Boy, do we have a show for you? From smartless media, campside media, and big money players comes crimeless. Join me, Josh Dean, investigative journalists. And me, Roy Scoville, comedian, as we celebrate the amazing creativity of the world's dumbest criminals. We'll look into some of the silliest ways folks have broken the laws. Honestly, it feels more like a high-level prank than a crime. Who catfish is a city? And meets some memorable anti-heroes.

There are thousands of angry, horny monkeys. clap if you think she's a witch and it freaks you out he has x-ray vision how could I not follow him honestly I got to follow me he can see right through me listen to crimeless on the Iheart radio app Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcast I'm Stefan Curry and this is gentleman's cut I think what makes gentlemen's cut different is me being a part of developing the profile of this beautiful finished product with every sip you get a little something different.

Visit gentlemen's cut bourbon.com or your nearest total wines or bevmo. This message is intended for audiences 21 and older. Gentleman's Cut Bourbon, Boone County, Kentucky. For more on Gentleman's Cut Bourbon, please visit gentlemen's cuthuburn.com. Please enjoy responsibly. Hey, I'm Nora Jones, and I love playing music with people so much that my podcast called Playing Along is back. I sit down with musicians from all musical styles to play songs together in an intimate

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nora jones is playing along on the iHeart radio app apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts Let's talk Aftermath The fall of the New Jewel movement and the People's Revolutionary Government of Grenada led to the disintegration of the Workers' Party of Jamaica It nearly destroyed Caracom the Caribbean community as a united bloc

as Jamaica and Trindad sided with the US in the invasion while countries like Trindad stood against the invasion that was a split in Caracom that took years to recover from and I think most crucially the fall of the neutral movement led to the death in all but name of the Caribbean left from distrust from infighting and from this resolute enforcement of the new colonial model for all the flaws that the revolution had it was a representation of an alternative that something else could be done besides business as usual

and that alternative first felt in fighting and then its fate was sealed by a belligerent invasion and so the Caribbean left not say it's actually entirely dead there are still figures from that era there are still people who

carry progressive or revolutionary politics but its heyday, its goal and age is no more. And that is in part as a result of that U.S. invasion. And within Grenada, the bodies of those killed were never found, in some cases. The families of those killed or of

the party members may even still be divided to this day. You know, you could imagine how they must feel the sort of social and political division that came out of that kind of action who sided with cord, who sided with bishop, who sided with the U.S., who stood against,

who brought, whose actions were responsible for the U.S. coming. If the revolution never happened, then the U.S. wouldn't have come. These people wouldn't be dead. Blame game, accusations,

political conflicts, all of that. You know, it's very easy to breeze over the deaths of people in historical events as just numbers. As just statistics. You know, it doesn't even...

click, you know, because I don't think our brains can fully handle that much trauma at once, so we compartmentalize it in a way. We package it in something that's a bit more digestible. When you hear figures of, you know, even just two people dead, that's two people, two entire human beings with lives, interests, passions, relationships, connections, future, snuffed out. And in a country like Grenada, I'm a small country, 100,000 people. And I mean, I'm from Trinat, right, which has a population of about 1.4 million people.

And it still feels like you know somebody who knows somebody. The networks are so tight. And it's even tighter-knit, network-wise, in a Grenada or Tobago. You know, we're talking neighbours, relatives, split into sides. Cousin, blaming cousin. friend killing friend the decolonization

never fully began and never fully completed their social splits on the perspective on what took place you had the bishop was good crowd

the bishop was bad crowd the bishop was bad but the revolution was good crowd the revolution was bad but bishop was good crowd you get all sorts of

interpretations of these kinds of traumatic historical events yeah And the outcome, to this day, is, you know, fair, unhealed open wounds, the youth, the passionate radical youth of yesteryear, keeping their heads down and out of politics today. Unfortunately, very little has been done in Grenada to deal with the traumas of the invasion besides an attempted Truth in Reconciliation Commission, which failed miserably.

Due to a couple different obstacles, and unwillingness to reconcile among some, they continue under incarceration of certain individuals, unrecovered remains, anger towards entire sectors, the population at the execution of Bishop and others. And so in the years that have followed, there has been a subdued political consciousness among what through the population. They have risen to the challenge of the US inviting themselves to set up shop in Maurice Bishop International Airport. There were many actions taking place in Grenada to speak up and to stand against that intervention.

But for the most part, the populace has been disengaged from the sort of radical passion that you saw in that time period. And it didn't help, of course, that pretty much right after the revolution, you had a series of natural disasters. In September of 2004, after being Hurricane free for 49 years, the island was hit by Hurricane Ivan, a category three hurricane that resulted in 39 deaths and the damage of destruction to 90% of the island's homes. In 2005, which is the following year, Hurricane Emily, a category one hurricane struck the island and killed a person. In 2024, Hurricane Beryl struck the island of Kariaku. And so we're already dealing with the environmental instability of being a Caribbean island, but now you also have to deal with the political and social instability of such a dramatic incident.

Before we close, I do want to get into some of the critiques that I had of this project. You know, I'm not the type of way since look at these historical moments, no matter my allegiance to the espoused politics of the people in them, and want to paint them in a narrow or simplistic brush you know I see that tendency

across all groups yeah you know so the Marxist will talk about these revolutions in a very fawning and agitating way

but you'll serve the anarchists who talk about you know the Spanish Civil War they talk about the Paris commune they talk about these different projects

as if they were as if they weren't serious flaws in their uh structure and the analysis and their methodology is worth addressing. You know, it's very easy for nostalgia to take over. Yeah, definitely, like, something I think about a lot.

Like, I translated a piece for the strangers in a tangled wilderness zine a few months ago, maybe even a year ago now, by an anarchist fighter who'd fought in the international group of the Derruti column, who went by several names Charles Riddle with his first name. But he has his whole thing about how, like, anarchists tend to write hagiography. which is the life of a saint, right? Like they've tried to make the Spanish Civil War into these exemplary saintly people as opposed to actually looking at the mistakes people made

and his stances are like his friends died for nothing if we don't learn anything. And so if we don't acknowledge the very real compromises and mistakes and failures, then they have been defeated, right? And they all died for nothing. But if at least we can learn from it, then at least as something we can take going forward,

which is something I always thought was a great way of phrasing something, kind of like quite an admirable way of looking at something that he himself participated in, and it was obviously a defining and a very traumatic experience of his life. Yeah. It's something that I've rallied against, that sort of great manner for history. Yeah. But I suppose that brings me to my first critique, which is something that plays Grenada both before.

for during and after this revolution. When you have a political culture dependent on a maximum leader or a personality cult or just a grouping around a personality, whether that's Bishop or Gary or Cord. For one, it's a continuation of the colonial politics of the British in that sort of governor position. And it also, I think, leads to a contempt towards common people. Whether it starts out that way or not, it eventually makes its way in that direction. I still see personality politics rare in its ugly head in Trindon, even though we've been independent for even longer, you know, 1962 as opposed to created as 1974.

But the result of that kind of politics is, you know, it's ideological and policy splits are either non-existent or secondary to personality loyalties, familial ties. and in some cases ethnic loyalty. The United National Congress, the UNC, the party in power in Trinidad right now, party responsible for our current position, is a personality cult, led by current Prime Minister,

Tamil Pasadessor, and she's only one of many examples of this sort of party first, leader first, approach to politics that we see in the region a baggage that we see in the region. I know with radical politics, it's sad because you expect to do away with that kind of stuff. But the revolution, in my view, had a lack of decolonization away from the authoritarian tendencies of colonial rule.

That, I think, is why there was such an appeal in Leninist thought and rules to begin with, because it's a lot easier to approach. You know, it doesn't unpack the psychology of cluelism or untrue. pack how Gary's rule may have shaped their own approach to politics that another politics might, that another anti-politics might. And so they carried on this elitist authoritarian personality-based politics. You know, despite having a youthful beginning, Bishop was 29 when he started a neutral movement, which is the same age that Gary was when he got into politics. I know one could make a movie of the mirrors and their histories. But despite his useful beginning, the youth carried on

the mistakes of their forebears. They betrayed the excitement of people power that people had for the revolution, just as they betrayed the excitement of people power that people had for independence. And they continued a consciousness of deference to hierarchy. Again, I don't want to draw one-to-one comparisons between Gary and Bishop. I recognize their stark differences in their politics and in their engagement with the people of Grenada, they were not the same, but in some ways they did rhyme. I would wrap up, I suppose, with Bundy's sort of critique of Grenada's revolution, which what I just echoed, this continued consciousness of a deference to hierarchy.

A genuine revolution depends on people taking direct responsibility, not waiting for leaders or stages of development, not waiting on guidance. being empowered themselves. That sort of tired Leninist gradualism and bureaucratic control gets regular people no closer to actually having a sense of autonomy and control over their lives. And as Fundy emphasizes, especially in small Caribbean societies,

participatory, local, self-managed systems are entirely feasible. In closing, fondly suggested that Grina's Revolution failed because it moved away from this principle of immediate collective self-management and deliberately chose hierarchy. And from that hierarchy came a sense of eroding trust, came a sense of secrecy, became a sense of secret societies, and I created a culture of secrecy, a post-transparency that led to its down for. As I mentioned, it was gossip. a rumor of somebody trying to kill Bishop that got this ball rolling.

So today, I want to appeal directly to Caribbean radicals of all stripes to learn, to earnestly learn from the Canadian Revolution. I want to appeal not just to Caribbean radicals, but to radicals all across the world, all across our listenership. It is critical in times when the means of intervention and the means of intervention and the means of disruption and division and co-optation or more powerful than ever, that you engage in the sort of dissipation of leadership, that you engage in grassroots and dispersed empowerment, that you maintain an anti-authoritarian ethos that cannot be co-opted by a

charismatic power. But you take an approach to organization, there's not a lend itself to the vulnerabilities of hierarchy, that you consider moving like my courser, that you take on networks and free associations rather than the sort of X-Marxist spot, bullseye centralized parties, and the power struggles that ensue from them, from that thirst for power that led so many downfalls for the revolutionary imagination. Before we wrap up, I just want to ask James, if you have any thoughts? No, I think that's very eloquent the way you said it. Like, we have to build systems and ways of organizing or relating to one another that don't allow this to happen, right?

We have to be very conscious, like you say, of where it has happened. And I think the only way you'll be understand the value of that is through studying history. But like studying it from a place like you were saying right like i get death is a statistic or a number until it's a person and i think if we can study history from a place of like empathy i guess in solidarity rather than this would never happen to me or like you said like oversimplifying in a way that i think doesn't help and sometimes i think we do it to kind of absolve ourselves from similarity to think like, oh, how close could I be to this? It's one of the things I don't like about academic history,

that if we are people who are interested in making the world better, then we have to learn from all the other people all over the world who tried to make the world better, and especially from the ones who didn't succeed. Yeah. Because we don't want to do that again. Exactly. And the Times, the R.R.C. engine?

Yes, indeed. We have to approach that with our due diligence. You know, the strategies that were more relevant or more practical in particular context. May not be relevant or practical in your context? Yeah, very much so. All right. Yeah, that was great. Thank you, Andrew.

So all our listeners, thank you so much for tuning in. I hope that you can look at our region with clearer eyes and vigilance in the ways that history, repeats and rhymes. Until next time, all power to all the people. Peace. It Could Happen Here is a production of Cool Zone Media. For more podcasts from Cool Zone Media,

visit our website, coolzonemedia.com, or check us out on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. You can now find sources for It Could Happen here listed directly in episode descriptions. Thanks for listening. I'm Stefan Curry,

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