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The Rasta revolution
published: Wednesday | March 15, 2006


Peter Espeut

THIS WEEK, I find myself on a Caribbean island of 12 square miles and 4,000 residents with a very interesting history. In 1979 it had no secondary school and no hospital; a doctor visited the clinic once each month. In the dry season there was almost no water, and the little they had was of questionable quality. Fishing was the only industry; there was no agriculture, no manufacturing and no tourism to speak of. The seat of government was on another larger island, and residents of this little island felt totally neglected. Central government presence was a police station, a tax office and a small airstrip.

CHANGE

The archipelagic nation of which this island was a part was handed political independence on October 27, 1999, and there was to be a general election on December 5, 1979. The islanders wanted change, and threw their little political weight behind the opposition candidate. The ruling party did not even come to the island to campaign, and won the election by a landslide, even though the seat on this island went to the opposition. The frustration of the islanders reached boiling point. They wanted change, and it looked like their suffering would continue.

There was a small group of about 15 Rastafarians on this island led by a man known as "Bumber" [he must have had Jamaican connections]. On December 7, 1979 they got together and took over the island. They locked up the policemen in the police station (in the excitement one policeman was shot in the foot - by another policeman!) They took over the tax office and the airport and closed them both down. They then declared independence, with a Rasta government. They announced to the world that they were doing this because the government was encouraging foreigners to exploit their natural resources (fish and lobster), taking bread out of the mouths of local fishers; because the government was selling and leasing their islands to foreigners; and because of profound neglect by central government.

By now I'm sure you know where I'm talking about: Union Island, one of the Grenadines of St. Vincent. Their MP, James Mitchell, would later become Prime Minister of St. Vincent and the Grenadines.

CAPTURED AND DETAINED

The rebels held the island for a few hours before a contingent of heavily armed policemen from the main island backed by 48 Barbadian soldiers sent by Prime Minister Tom Adams, invaded the island and took control. In all, 46 people, including 11 women, were captured and detained; their locks were shaved off. Bumber and three followers fled to nearby Carriacou, a Grenadine island, politically part of Grenada. They were later extradited to St. Vincent by the People's Revolutionary Government of Maurice Bishop (who had come to power in Grenada a few months earlier by a similar method) to stand trial.

Later that month (December 1979), Barbados revoked the work permit of Dr. Ralph Gonsalves, Vincentian lecturer on the UWI Cave Hill campus; today he is Prime Minister of St. Vincent and the Grenadines. That same month a group of 200 Vincentian New-Year holidaymakers were refused entry into nearby St. Lucia, because the 60 Rastas among them were "a threat to security". Nearby Dominica passed what came to be known as "The Dreads Act" outlawing the wearing of dreadlocks.

I guess our equivalent in Jamaica is the blocking of roads. These islanders drew attention to themselves and their plight. Church leaders got together and asked that the reasons for the rebellion be investigated, but they were ignored. Nevertheless, Union Island soon got a secondary school, a hospital and a resident doctor.

Although I have been to St. Vincent many times, this is my first time in the Grenadines. Tourism has now taken over, and looms large. The islanders are still peeved at rule from the big island, and feel that revenue generated there should remain in Union Island to improve their living conditions. Rural underdevelopment comes in many forms.

SOURCE: http://www.jamaica-gleaner.com/glean...cleisure4.html

Source: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/086...Fencoding=UTF8

From the Back Cover

Rasta and Resistance is a study of the Rastafarian Movement in all its manifestations, from its evolution in the hills of Jamaica to its present manifestations in the streets of Birmingham and the Shashamane Settlement in Ethiopia. It traces the cultural, political and spiritual sources of this movement of resistance, highlighting the quest for change among an oppressed people. This book serves to break the intellectual traditions which placed the stamp of millenarianism on Rasta.

Absence of a political enquiry into the Rastafari of the Caribbean has always been an uncomfortable gap in the record of the Caribbean revolution. Now Horace Campbell has bade a big step towards the filling of that gap. This is not to suggest that Caribbean writers and thinkers (we should not confuse the two groups) have not done much investigation of the Rastafari way of life with all the clarity and depth which their areas of investigation permitted them; some have also ventured into the political dominion.

Cambell has many of the qualifications for the task he has undertaken. He has been struggling for some years to apply the scientific theory of society to the reality of African and Caribbean politics, and in the process has avoided the creation of false gods. -Eusi Kwayana

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Anything is possible under the Sun

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Agitate until we create a stable society that benefits all our people.
Instigate the nation until we remedy the injustices of society.
Motivate our people to set a meaningful path for coming generations.
Educate our people to free our minds and develop our consciousness

Mwongozi Cudjoe (Chedmond Browne)
Chairman of Free Montserrat United Movement