THE LEADERS OF CARIBBEAN INDEPENDENCE WERE REFORMISTS
March 23, 2016 | By KNews | Filed Under Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom, http://www.kaieteurnewsonline....nce-were-reformists/
There is something called false equivalence. This is when two things are presented as the same when in fact they are not.
False equivalence is a fallacy, and this fallacy was exemplified by equating the call, by the PPP, for the firing of the Minister of Public
Security, following the prison riots, with the demand, by APNU in 2012 for the then Minister of Home Affairs to be removed from office after the incident on the Wismar Bridge in which three persons were killed by gunfire.
APNU and the AFC had attempted to argue that a minister was responsible for the actions of the agencies that fell under him even if he was not in direct command, and that by virtue of this doctrine of ministerial responsibility, the then Minister of Home Affairs should resign.
The basis for the call for the removal of the present Minister of Public Security, by the People’s Progressive Party, is not based on that doctrine of ministerial responsibility. It is based on what the PPP sees as the failure of the Ministry of Public Security to prevent the riots. This is completely different from the doctrine of ministerial responsibility. It is therefore a mismatch to equate the two scenarios.
Recently declassified documents have nailed a lie which was being peddled by some supporters of the PNC. These supporters had contended that the Guyana Defence Force had trained members of the New Jewel Movement, prior to the toppling of then Prime Minister of Grenada Eric Gairy.
It is also a case of false equivalency to contend that the Caribbean was in a revolutionary upheaval at the time of the Grenada Revolution. This argument is self-serving, because it attempts to reduce the culpability of the People’s National Congress Reform for the death of Dr. Walter Rodney, by placing Rodney’s assassination in the context of revolutionary upheaval in the Caribbean.
The assassination of Rodney took place in the context of revolutionary change in Iran and Nicaragua. But the changes that took place in the Caricom region at that time were not revolutionary changes. The toppling of the regime in Suriname was a military coup and not a revolution. There was a political insurrection, not a revolutionary insurrection, in Trinidad and Tobago. The incident in Grenada was no revolution. It was a coup.
The toppling of the Eric Gairy regime by the New Jewel Movement was a pseudo–revolution. The leaders did intend revolutionary change, but they had neither the means nor the expertise to undertake such a task.
Maurice Bishop and his band of merry men did not have a clue of what to do to create a socialist state in a small island. They bit off more than they could chew and the so-called revolution ended up revolting against itself.
It is also a case of false equivalency to try to speculate what may have happened if the leaders who led the countries of the Caribbean to political independence had not become reformists. The leaders of the English-speaking Caribbean that led their countries to Independence, without exception, were reformists.
None of them, including Forbes Burnham, had any revolutionary mettle.
All of them were reformists. They were ill-prepared to challenge imperialism because they were not revolutionaries.
The English-speaking Caribbean had one revolutionary leader that held power, but he did not lead his country to Independence. In fact, he was deposed by the imperialism. He was the only true revolutionary among the Caribbean leaders and he is so recognized in the world.
That leader was Cheddi Jagan. The rest of them were political reformists who could never create revolution or bring about revolutionary change.