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Re: Beyond The Paint,The Belvidare of Central Depradine Street

Monsieur Louison,

Thank you for this thoughtful refutation – and I sincerely mean it. On the question as to why Sir. Gairy this can take a book. From the cradle to the graveyard Uncle was always driven by selfish desires and revenge for the indignities his class suffered at the hands of Grenada’s Petit Bourgeois class. This hardly fits into a decent definition of a true nationalist IMHO. The Petite Bourgeois Class of John Batiste Du Grand Marquis (St Andrew) was no saints either. So opportunity was ripe for a man who had learned the simple ways in Aruba to of exploiting the mistreatment of workers. The right place; the right time, sums it up as to the question of why Uncle. He was not that terribly hard to understand. Not to mention that his believers were terribly lacking in the whole understanding of the national consequences of his reckless political escapades. Their immediate concerns like all suffering people in any nation were self-gratification. This is something all Revolutionaries fall victim to when they try to rid themselves of Imperial and Colonialist powers. Gairy or PRG. The end results are the same. They will eventually be consumed by the masses whose personal needs take priority over national development.

There is a simple reason why WestIndian Federation failed: Our Islands “Leaders” back them were a class whose only status was the opportunity to an education in Great Britain that made them the big fish in a small pond that they were not willing to give up just yet as we struggle to ID ourselves. WestIndian federation would have made each individual leader less important in the eyes of the collective. As Jean-Baptiste Victor Hugues said to Fedon and his comrades: you cannot all be leaders of the Revo. It was the main reason for Fedon’s failure to liberate the Parish of John Baptiste De La Basse Terre (St George) from the British rule which could have liberated the entire island. Our ‘Father of Federation’ Monsieur Theophilus Albert Maricheau (Marucheau) – shamefully Anglicized (Marryshow), in the twilight days of his life admitted this to be the cause of Federation failure. This was no ordinary Grenadian man either. With parents P.I. Maricheau (Marucheau) and Euginia de Souze (DeSuze), he could not have been more a Gouyaveman. Both the Marucheau and the DeSuze Gouyave family paid big for their part in seeking independence from British rule. If there was ever a question as to why T.A. Marucheau, this Gouyave linage can easily answer that. As a real Gouyaveman, it was in his blood to resist servitude of any kind. In short what I am saying is: the focus should be a true Leadership. T. A. Marucheau was a true leader. He failed because too many of the other Federation leaders wanted to keep their newly minted status in their small pond.

Now heading into your question of our impossibility to demand a seat at the economic tables of our new masters to demand a fairer price for our labor and raw resources. I believe our old and continued way of going about this is wrong. Today what would have been the Federation of islands consume nearly all their products that can be produced in the federated Islands. Even if Trinidad and Tobago and “Little England” is left out of the party, we can make tremendous improvements on the road to self-reliance on locally produced products we consume. THIS MUST BE DONE BEFORE we start the begging process of getting a seat at the end of the table on the global market. We cannot go begging when we cannot get our own local act together. No need for big changes. We already have the EC$; let us use it better. Let us take control of it. Let us encourage local consumption and development with the resources we know for the last 400 years. If Mark Green could have revitalized a dead Cocoa market like you said our Nutmeg is today, then we can do it ourselves. And by local I mean within the economies of the small islands and not just Grenada. We need to find a way to create local business and manufacturing that is based on the Capitalist system like China did, and keep the greed on the low. Any other system where the selfish geed of human nature is suppressed by the state will result in poor economic conditions. We know that from the last 100 years of failures of these systems. And you don’t have to give up your unique Island national identity to accomplish this. The French are not Germans today because of the European Union. Grenadians will not be Bajans in a federation of EC islands! Thank God for that! But we can work together for common causes that will benefit the union more that we have today as loose economies consuming products from nations who barley know we exists except when it comes to immigration issues on their front doors. Japan has NO natural resources. It is small, and has fantastic human resources it put to work which get it a seat on the table with the other Big Six. No I know you are probably thinking this man is crazy comparing Japan to Caribbean islands. Once we get our local economy together, we as a federation can use that combined strength in production and produce products locally that can demand a better price on the global market. Even sunshine and sand could be better marketed. The current condition of our tourism market is a national disgrace. And the few hotels and areas that are up to standards are out of reach financially for an ordinary foreign visitor or visiting JCB.