The Grenada of the New Jewel Movement is in cultural upheaval. Grenadians have begun to examine and to counter both the cultural re- mains of colonial days and the re- lentless cultural pressure from the United States. But something new has also be- gun. You can hear it or see it in the poetry, in the calypso, in dance or in drama. Call it revolutionary culture. Grenadians are voicing their anger at past domination and are piecing together a vision of the future they want. The baggage of colonial days is seen in a teacher's contempt for a youngster's creole or in the stoical sweating of a man properly wearing a suit in 850 stickiness. The cultural domination by the United States is seen in the blond smiling faces of Charlie's Angels on the T-shirt of a black man. It would be impossible to unbraid all the historical strands that now make up Grenada and neatly label them colonial, neocolonial and voila, Grenadian. What must be started, as Amilcar Cabral, one of the founders of the liberation move- ments in the African Portuguese colonies, said in a 1972 speech en- titled "The Role of Culture in the Liberation Struggle," is a sorting out of the positive and negative ele- ments in a culture. No More Charlie's Angels One of the main groups involved in this sorting is Television Free Gre- nada. Ironically and inspirationally it is located at Sans Souci-the former residence of Eric Gairy, the labor leader turned dictator over- thrown in 1979. The television transmitter is in Gairy's old obeah room, the walls still soot-stained from offering candles. (Gairy turned to the voodoo-like tradition of obeah in his last years as a desperate way to gain some support among the older people of the island-and per- haps as a way to soothe his own fears.) Before Television Free Grenada, says Elaine Baly, until recently director of television, Grenadians watched only rebroadcasts from Trinidad or Barbados. They were watching "Charlie's Angels" or "The Odd Couple." The programs came from the United States and, to a lesser ex- tent, from Great Britain. "I find that U.S. programs are very imperialist in outlook, and some of them are very racist," Baly says. And they idolize violence. The role of Grenada's new televi- sion, Baly continues, is to preserve traditional Grenadian culture, to Support for change comes from all age gr "allow Grenadians to speak for themselves, and to educate. She gives an example of television at its best. "The community of Birch Grove completed its community center, and television went out to cover it. It was on the news, but the people of that community couldn't see it because no one had a televi- sion set. So we organized an even- ing, let everybody know, and took a television monitor out there. We showed them the news plus a movie. They loved it; they want to do this again." The fact that a television crew was able to cover the Birch Grove event at all is because of Elaine Ba- ly's philosophy of appropriate tech- nology. The usual pattern when a developing country wants to set up a television system is that it turns to the big systems in the United States, Germany or France, she explains. The big network advisers promote the $90,000 cameras "which can't go out into the bush where the peo- ple are." Or they recommend a mobile unit that is too large to maneuver the roads. Television Free Grenada uses three-quarter-inch industrial equip- ment. They have outfitted the com- plete system for less than the cost ":ups. E 0, 2e NACLA Report 36update update update update of one commercial camera. They rely on small portable cameras: "We can take the cameras to the people rather than have them walk into an imposing studio." The emphasis is very much on the average Grenadian, the people on the street. "One of the crucial tasks of television is to let people express their opinions about whatever is go- ing on here politically, socially, culturally or economically. Grena- dians resent being told what should be going on here. Grenadians want to hear from Grenadians." English As A 2nd Language Cultural modification or control has been exercised in Grenada for years through the system of educa- tion. When Grenadians recount schoolday stories, one prototypical memory comes up again and again. The youngster stands up in class to retell Grandfather's story from the night before. Grandfather's story was in creole, so the child's retelling is in creole. The child doesn't get very far into the story before the teacher interrupts to supply the "proper English" terminology. Creole in school was definitely not acceptable. And since lan- guage is a carrier of culture, the message to the children was clear: their culture was not acceptable. Now, however, creole is beginning to be encouraged in the classroom and English treated as a second language. The change is coming through a national teacher educa- tion project (NISTEP). "We are trying to teach teachers to be respectful of creole, not to squash the children and make them quiet," says Merle Hodge, one of the main coordinators of the project. NISTEP is trying to introduce classroom teachers to the struc- tures of creole so that they can recognize areas of interference with English. NISTEP's goal too is to convince teachers to give creole a respected place in the language arts curriculum-especially in drama, poetry and story-telling. A System Designed To Kill Caribbean self-contempt for language, culture and blackness is the ideological legacy of slavery, colonialism and neo-colonialism. Resistance to it did not begin, of course, with the New Jewel Move- ment in Grenada. What is happen- ing now carries on from the Fedon Rebellion (1795-96), from Rasta- farianism and from the Black Power movement. "The Black Caribbean has been deprived of dignity and has always been in search of that," says Jacob Ross-a poet, linguist, cultural an- thropologist and now, with some frustration, an administrator. Jacob Ross is very much a sym- bol of New Jewel Grenada: highly talented, university educated abroad, and running 14 hours a day on nervous energy and political ex- citement. Ross is the administrative coordinator in the Department of Culture of the People's Revolution- ary Government. In conversation Ross refers often to Walter Rodney, the Guyanese historian and Marxist assassinated in 1980. "Rodney said that the greatest miracle is the survival of the Caribbean man-because he was in a system designed to kill." Slaves had to learn mechanisms to live through that hell. "Our history is full of rebellion and of flight. This is fundamental. This is part of our psyche." For Grenada, one of the heroes of rebellion is Julien Fedon. The rebellion of the Freedom Fighters was waged jointly by the French and free blacks. For 15 months, they withstood attacks from the British, who had regained posses- sion of Grenada in the Treaty of Ver- sailles. Fedon and the rebels gained control of the entire island except Destabilizers They stirring up all kinds of strife trying to make man lose their life man we en tell them how to run their own affairs or their government but they so fresh to tell we just what we need and what friends to keep but they never want to realize it is we are the ones who fighting to survive. We en want no fight, we en want no war just leave we alone let we build we own but if they continue to destabilize tell them is fire, fire, fire. So many times we try to strive but obstacles just seems to rise for many years we had to scrunt for a meal and place to live well where were they to help we in them days of need no one took heed but now as the country start to strive every Tom, Dick, and Harry want to rule we life. They get up tight cause we unite they want to stir us up to fight those imperialist puppets wants to see us fall back to the dogs but we are strong and no how they could keep us down, down on the ground and though some ah we may fight and die Grenada will rise no matter what they try. Some news media in the area find great pleasure in propaganda they always spreading all sorts of bad rumors about Grenada but when it comes to speaking about the truth, they were mute but we are a united one a model to the rest of the Caribbean. George Peters SeptlOct 1962 37update update update update for the capital, St. George's. The British responded by sending out a fleet surrounding Fedon's camps, and finally defeated the exhausted rebels. Creole too was a form of rebel- lion, Ross adds. "We rebelled against the language of our mas- ters. We learned just enough to communicate; the rest we retained for ourselves." And the same held true for religion. The slave first and later the black people living under the colonial system may have been outwardly Christian. But shango and obeah, forms of spiritual beliefs brought from Africa, were very alive beneath the surface. The Power of the Drums "We needed something to be- lieve in and hold onto," Jacob Ross stresses. "Many people were look- ing for the same thing in Rastafarianism." Rastafarianism was one of the movements that had profound sym- bolic and psychological impact in Grenada. The other was the Black Power movement. Granted, it orig- inated in the United States, says Ross, but it found fertile ground in the Caribbean. Ross remembers his secondary school years in the early seventies: "Kids were reading [Stokely] Carmichael, Malcolm X, Angela Davis. They were identify- ing with the struggles in Africa. They would learn the speeches of Martin Luther King and Malcolm X and recite them to drums." Eric Gairy sensed the power of the drums. Many Grenadians now tell of police crashing into rooms or seizing upon groups in the streets to destroy the drums. With the New Jewel Movement, the destroying of the drums was over. The poetry, the music and the drumming that had been clandes- tine moved out into the open. More than that, the people's cultural ex- pressions were now encouraged. "We have to reconstruct the 38 psyche of our people," says Jacob Ross. To begin nation-building we must restore our pride. This is a cul- tural issue: we have to begin look- ing inwards, not outwards. We see culture as a tool for liberation-lib- eration doesn't just come with the gun, but with the understanding of self." One of the clearest voices now speaking openly for the Grenadian experience is poet Garvin Nantam- bu. He will undoubtedly become a folk hero or cultural star. When he walks through a crowd at a rally, one senses an appreciative rustle. On stage, he has presence. His poetry is direct, unambiguous, sometimes angry. He started writing in 1978, at the age of 13, inspired by an anti-Gairy cultural group and by the progres- sive lyrics in reggae. His poetry comes from everyday living. "At times an experience with a person prompts me-to write, or the exper- ience of a people. I write about the global struggle against the common enemy." There is no tradition of poetry in Grenada, he says. "It's a new way of expressing ourselves, and it is gaining momentum." His own pop- ularity started after he had read a few of his poems at public meet- ings. Now people come up to him and show him what they have writ- ten. "Their verses are simple, but it is beautiful-they are trying to reflect their ordinary way of life. It in- spires me to write." Bypassing Grenadian Music The Grenadian experience also comes through, not surprisingly, in calypso. Of course, calypso has long been a political statement set to music. But its strength has been in Trinidad. Mighty Sparrow, born in Grenada, went to Trinidad to make his politically satirical music. Now Grenada listens to "Innocent Blood," "Struggle for Freedom," and "Blackman See Yourself." George Peters was crowned ca- lypso king in Grenada's 1980 Carni- val for his song "Destabilizers." His calypso name is Survivor, "be- cause I lived to see the revolution." His band is, amazingly, the police band. (He has been with the police force for eight years-with an inter- ruption when he was kicked out for his outspokenness during the worst of the Gairy repression, to when he was rehired by the PRG.) He talks about the changes in the band's music as a symbol of the changes in Grenada. The police band dutifully produced tunes im- ported from England, he recounts. "We didn't even think we were by- passing the music of our people." Then their repertoire expanded to include U.S. pop tunes, "but we still didn't see our music." With the political changes came a musical convulsion. "Now we al- most don't want to play classical music. We want to play our own. We look at calypso as a messenger of the people, getting the informa- tion of the day, putting it into song and giving it back." The process Survivor speaks about is happening in popular theater, in dance, in the visual arts. The government is helping by spon- soring exchanges, exhibitions, per- formances and publications. But it is the ordinary Grenadians-office workers, teachers, accountants, farmers, students, unemployed young people-who are carrying the surge forward. Whether it is the billboard saying "Women Step For- ward" or the painting of Grenadian martyrs on a street wall in Gouyave, there is something palpable hap- pening. Survivor put it simply: "In culture, the people wants to get up."
