7 The Development of St. LucianCulture

16 St. Lucia’s Men of the Century:Sir George Charles, Sir JohnCompton, and George Odlum

33 The M&C Fine Arts Award:An Independence Gift to theNation

FICTION & POETRY

11 Thanks, Rameau

14 Creole Canticles

24 The Passing of a Great Man

The Cinderella Man

35 CYCLES

SPORTS

5 A Summer to Forget:The Future of West IndiesCricket

by Anderson Reynolds

by Anderson Reynolds

by Jacques Compton

Poem by Modeste Downes

Poem by John Robert Lee

Poem by Modeste Downes

Short story by Mc. Donald Dixon

Poem by Mc. Donald Dixon

by Cletus Springer

26

MUSIC

12 Jany Williams: The Last Interview

ART

29 Cedric George and Organometrix

THEATRE

36 The Banjo Man:

A St. Lucian Cultural Institution

BOOKS

39 Beyond Medicine:

41 My Dog Harmish: A HumorousPerspective on Strategic Planningand Career Development as ViewedThrough the Life of a Dog

By Anderson Reynolds and Jacques Compton

by Anderson Reynolds and Jacques Compton

Reviewed by Modeste Downes

Reviewed by Modeste Downes

by Modeste Downes

A Medical Doctor’s Spiritual Odyssey

The JakoWinter 2005

Art Culture Literature

It is many years since an anthology of Saint Lucian writing waspublished. That enterprise had been undertaken when Mr.Edward Braithwaite, the Barbadian historian and poet, had

been at the Extra Mural Department of what is now the Sir ArthurLewis Community College. Nonetheless, there is agrowing army of writers in Saint Lucia, mostlyaspiring poets and, in the main, young people.There are also a number of Prose Writers andPlaywrights, some of whom are represented in thisfirst edition of this magazine,

Twenty-Five years ago, in 1979, the Devauxfamily and their business house, M&C, made oneof the most marvelous gifts to the new nation ofSaint Lucia when they established the M&CCrafts and Arts Awards. Not since the demise ofthe Saint Lucia Arts Guild, had an enterprisebecome responsible for the veritable flowing oftheArts in St. Lucia.

This first edition of is in commemoration of the

nation’s 25 year of nationhood, and is in recognition of thecontributions of the M&C Fine Arts Awards to the nation.However, we dedicate the magazine to the memory of the St. LuciaArts Guild that spanned the golden era of St. Lucian Art andliterature, and out of which emerged many St. Lucian Greats,including playwright Roderick Walcott, orator and man of lettersGeorge Odlum, novelist Garth St. Omer, painter The Honorable

The Jako

The Jako

.

th

Dustan St. Omer, and poet, playwright, painter, and NobleLaureate The Honorable Derek Walcott.

It is the aim of to take on the mantle, bring to thefore, and present to the region and the world beyond the best of St.

Lucian writing. Following in the footsteps of theArts Guild, and lending our voices to the M&CFine Arts Awards, we hope that this magazine willencourage the artistic expression of St. Lucianculture, and help the nation rediscover or renew itslove and appreciation of our rich cultural heritageand unbounded creative spirit. We hope also thatour writers will contribute liberally and that thenation will validate this endeavor by becomingearnest readers of the magazine.

There is an enormous body of worldliterature to which we can turn to spend our leisuretime. This magazine aims to contribute to that

body of literature. To read the best of that world literature is toembark upon a voyage of adventure and discovery. It is there and inthe other creative arts that we feel the temper of a nation’s mind, ofthe national sensibility, the national cultural identity, and find therethe unexplained aspirations of the human mind. Accordingly, wehope to have our readers experience the flights and depths offeelings and the palpitating humanity of the writers presented inthis and subsequent editions of

The Jako

The Jako.

—Jacques Compton

Introducing The Jako

CONTRIBUTORS

Jacques Compton

Anderson Reynolds

Cletus Springer

Modeste Downes

Mc. Donald Dixon

John Robert Lee

is a former Executive Director of Radio St.

Lucia and the Department of Culture. He is a prolific writer on

literature and culture, and he is a

is the author of two books: the novel,

, and the nonfiction,

is a former Permanent Secretary with the

Ministry of Planning and he is a columnist with the weekly Mirror

newspaper.

contributes regularly to the nations newspapers,

and is the author of the forthcoming book of poetry,

is a stage actor, playwright, director, poet, and

novelist. He is the author of the novel, , and the book

of poetry, Collected Poems 1961-2001.

is a poet, librarian, and cultural administrator. He

is the author of several volumes of poetry, including his latest,

Fellow of the Royal Society of

Arts, and a Chavalier De L’Ordre DesArts Et Des Lettre.

Death

by Fire The Struggle For Survival: an histori-

cal, political, and socioeconomic perspective of St. Lucia.

Phases.

Season of Mist

Artefacts.

SUBMISSIONS

ADVERTISINGAND CIRCULATION

The Jako considers unsolicited manuscripts, including poems,

short stories, essays, and reviews of books, music, art, film, and

theater. Correspondence should be mailed to: The Jako,

Gablewoods South, P.O. Box VF665, Vieux Fort, St. Lucia, West

Indies or emailed to: info@jakoproductions.com.

The Jako is published quarterly by Jako Productions, New Dock

Road, Vieux Fort, St. Lucia, West Indies. Printed in St. Lucia.

Advertising and circulation: Gablewoods South, P.O. Box VF665,

Vieux Fort, St. Lucia, West Indies, 758-454-7839,

info@jakoproductions.com, www.jakoproductions.com.

The Jako, Winter 2005. Copyright © 2004 by Jako Productions.All

rights reserved.

4 Winter 2005

Benjamin Disraeli describedtime as “…the great physi-cian” and Ovid, writing in

Remedia Amoris, considered time as“…the best medicine.” Well, I can onlyhope that one of these esteemedgentlemen is correct. While my spiritshave been buoyed somewhat by thatstunning defeat of England in the ICCChampions Trophy Final, I can’t seemy mind ever being purged of thepainful memories of the “whitewash”that was inflicted by the EnglandCricket team on a frail West Indiesteam, in the summer of 2004.

There are two things that aremaking it difficult for me to forget thisignominious defeat. One is thememory of the “Blackwash” bestowedby West Indies on England in thesummer of 1984. It was the 12th WestIndies team on a tour of England and itcame on the heels of outstanding Testvictories over India and Australia inthe Caribbean. I was on holiday inEngland at the time, and was present at theOval when the final nail was driven into arather bland England coffin. Oh whatjoyous occasion that was! A great furorwas unleashed throughout the UnitedKingdom and especially in The BritishParliament. At the end of it all, the Britishpreferred to take comfort in the alibi thatthe England team had been weakened bythe unavailability of some of its bestplayers who had been suspended forparticipating in an unofficial “rebel” tourof South Africa. But two years later WestIndies would undress that alibi with yetanother blackwash on a fuller-strengthteam that included Graham Gooch, MikeGatting and John Emburey.

What preserved the afterglow of the1 9 8 4 “ b l a c k w a s h ” — u n t i l l a s tmonth—was the indomitable spirit thatwas displayed by virtually every memberof the West Indies team. In the First Test, itwas Vivian Richards who ignored violentstomach cramps to score an imposing 117runs. In the Second Test, GordonGreenidge, Larry Gomes and DesmondHaynes stunned the gentry and plebs atLords into silence by 344 runs for the loss

of Haynes’ wicket, in four and a half hours,and with 11.5 overs to spare. In the ThirdTest at Headingley, Leeds, it was the turn ofthe “One Arm Bandit”—MalcolmMarshall—to reinforce the never-say-dieattitude of the West Indies team. A double-fracture of the left thumb, sustained while

fielding in England’s First Innings,prompted his doctor to instruct him to stayout of the game for 10 days. But Marshallhad other ideas. With his left hand in a cast,he returned to the game, first to help LarryGomes score a century and then to take 7wickets for 53 runs, in one of the best spellsof swing bowling ever seen, anywhere. Andin the Fifth Test, it was Skipper Clive Lloydwho literally walked away from his sick bedto score a fighting 70 runs that gave the WestIndies the foundation for victory.

The second thing that deepens the painand discomfort of England’s recent“whitewash” occurred in that same summerof 1984. Sri Lanka was touring England forthe first time since being accorded TestStatus by the ICC. In the only Official Testof that tour, Sri Lanka was “creamed” byEngland. Now, 20 years later, both England

and Sri Lanka hold higher rankings thanWest Indies in Test Cricket. How on earthcould the tables have turned so dramati-cally in 20 years? How is it possible that aWest Indies team that in the 1980s, had inreserve, scores of talented players of thecalibre of Andrew Jackman, Carl Hooper,Carlisle Best, Anthony Gray, JimmyAdams and Wayne Daniel, could havefallen from grace so ignominiously, in

such a short space of time?I can’t claim to have the answers to

these questions. I have only suspicionsand theories. The more appealing ofthese include the following: (i) we tookit for granted we would remain on top ofthe Cricket world without having tofight hard to stay there; (ii) we wronglyassumed our players were blessed withsufficient natural talent to be able totriumph at any time, over any opposi-tion; and (iii) we believed our oppo-nents were so lacking in pride that theywould allow us to walk over them, atwill. But perhaps the most irrepressibleanswer is that while others prepareddetailed plans to dethrone us, we had noplan to stay on top of the game ofcricket.

The evidence of our foolhardinessand neglect is there for all to see. Whenthe England and Wales Cricket Board(EWCB) took that brave but controver-sial decision, to limit the number ofoverseas players in County Cricket, we

did absolutely nothing to expose ourplayers to alternative, top-class cricket inour region. For nearly a decade after that,not a single day was added onto theschedule of our regional cricket champi-onships. While opposing teams wereoffering long-term contracts to theirpremiere cricketers to encourage them tokeep physically and mentally fit andcommitted, we did nothing. Instead, our

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“Of all the things that we need to get right, the captaincyof West Indies is undoubtedly the most important.”

by Cletus Springer

The Jako 5

approach of the top Cricket teams thatsuggests they will be relinquishing theirleadership positions anytime soon. Inaddition to having a larger pool of disci-plined, talented and committed players andcoaches to choose from, these countries alsohold a significant technological advantagethat enables them to quickly correct anyflaws in the techniques of their players andto decipher and exploit the flaws ofopposing players. Those who pay closeattention to the chatter of commentatorsmight remember that it took Jeff Thompsonjust one delivery to identify myriad flaws inTino Best’s bowling technique. Thompsonhad never seen Best bowl before. But afterone delivery, he was able to point out thatBest has no balance at the point of delivery;that on delivery, his left foot points in thewrong direction; and that Best doesn’t reallywatch where he pitches the ball. You canonly wonder how Tino Best was able toprogress from school cricket, to youthcricket, to club cricket, to regional cricketand finally onto Test Cricket, with so manyhorrendous flaws in his bowling technique.

Those who might want tosuggest that Thompson wasbeing harsh should take a look atBest’s returns in Test Cricket.The fact that he takes a rash ofwickets in regional competitionsdoesn’t say a heck of a lot aboutour own batsmen. Does it?

It is entirely possible that TinoBest may yet become the bestfast bowler in the world. I’m toldthat he is eager to improve. Buthe and those who have hisinterest at heart must take hisfuture seriously. Among otherthings, he and his peers (and that

top players limed, ate junk food, swilledlager and chased skirts. While othercountries were installing state-of-the arttechnology at their cricket grounds andclubs, we did “nada”. For years, very fewof our grounds were equipped with evenbasic technology, such as bowlingmachines. And while opposing coacheswere using multi-angle television replaysto analyze flaws in the techniques of ourplayers, our coaches walked around withempty hands …and as it turned out, witheven emptier minds.

And so it shouldn’t surprise us that weare in the cellar of Test Cricket with thelikes of Bangladesh and Zimbabwe. MyGod!

Despite incontrovertible evidence ofour shortcomings, there are persons,including some who are close to theleadership of West Indies Cricket, whobelieve it is only a matter of time beforeWest Indies returns to the top of TestCricket. They see our current predicamentas part of a natural cycle. I propose that aspecial prison should be built on the domeof some volcano specifically for personswho spew that kind of baloney. I insist thatthe only way we can return to the top ofTest Cricket is if our Governments,Cricket administrators, players andcoaches do more than our opponents aredoing, such as: placing decent cricketfacilities and qualified coaches in schoolsand communities; offering cricketscholarships to the UWI to our mostpromising and brightest cricketers; settingtougher standards for players vying forselection to any West Indies Cricket team;recruiting coaches whether from within oroutside the region with the requisite zeal,competence, creativity and commitment;making our Cricket administrators at alllevels more accountable; and imposingstiff discipline on all key actors in therealm of cricket, be they umpires, coaches,administrators, or players.

Frankly, I can see nothing in the

includes our own Darren Sammy) must eatwell, sleep well, exercise regularly;practice religiously, read prodigiously,(especially about cricket) and remainfocused.

Of all the things that we need to getright, the captaincy of West Indies isundoubtedly the most important. It mustbe acknowledged that no captain, howeverblessed with sound leadership skills, cantransform mediocre players into asuccessful team. While Clive Lloyd andViv Richards were capable and effectiveleaders in their own right, I believe thattheir success was also due to the excep-tional talent and professionalism of theplayers available to them. In his early daysin youth cricket Brian Lara promisedmuch as a captain, but the first time he washanded the mantle of leadership of thesenior team, he wasn’t ready for it. I don’tthink he is technically at the same level ofAustralia’s Ponting, England’s Vaughan,South Africa’s Smith and/or NewZealand’s Flemming. While Sarwan hasacquitted himself well in Lara’s briefabsence, I don’t think he is quite ready forthe job of Captain. He needs another twoyears to develop the requisite leadershipskills through a specially-designedtraining programme. I propose that CliveLloyd and/or Ian Bishop be appointed asMentor to Sarwan during this develop-ment period.

Getting over the disappointment ofthe summer of 2004 will take a very longtime. But the conscious implementation ofa clear and comprehensive CricketDevelopment programme will help mefeel a lot better and give me reason to hopethat West Indies will not easily suffer suchhumiliation again.

Winter 20056

����������������������������������by Anderson Reynolds

At 2003 Jazz On TheSquare, while listening toRonald “Boo” Hinkson

doing his thing, reveling in hisnew CD, , which itappeared was rapidly becoming ahit, I overheard a conversation inwhich a young man was trying hisbest to convince a young womanthat jazz wasn’t St. Lucian culture,rather it was music like calypso,reggae, and cadence. Of course,the young woman, who wasrocking away, would have none ofwhat the young man was offering.

I know a well established St.Lucian musician who takes everyopportunity to denounce countryand western as red-neck music andas such has nothing to do withblack culture and therefore is in noway St. Lucian culture. In fact, this artistgoes as far as to say that St. Lucian countrymusic lovers should be ashamed ofthemselves for loving a racist originatedmusic. And I know a carnival activist who(based on his discussions of culture) seemsto think that calypso and carnival are thebeginning and end of St. Lucian culture.

What constitutes St. Lucian culture isno doubt an intriguing conversation piece.However, what I want to focus attention onwith this article isn’t what classifies as St.Lucian culture, but how we as a societycan encourage and develop the artisticexpression of St. Lucian culture. Culture isthe visible expression of a people’s way oflife. So in that sense everywhere there ishuman life there is culture. Culturerequires no encouragement, for it is anatural outgrowth of human beings goingthrough their daily lives. What I amproposing to encourage and develop is thetranslation of this outward expression ofour existence into artistic expressions asrepresented by cultural products. Bycultural products I mean paintings, plays,movies, documentaries, musical record-

BEYOND

They are the people and groupscreating the cultural products. Iam talking about the writers,poets, musicians, calypsonians,painters, actors, video and filmp r o d u c e r s . T h e K e n d e lHippolytes, McDonald Dixons,and Adrian Augiers; the Pelees,Invaders, and Meshaks; theDustan St. Omers, CedricGeorges, and Stephan Pauls; theTravis Weekes’, Mathias Burts,and Kennedy “Boots” Samuels’.Having said this, how should theCDF avoid the trap of seeing itselfas the embodiment of culture andgo about promoting the artisticexpression of St. Lucian culture?To accomplish this mission theCDF need not simply wait for thecreators of cultural products to

come to it for assistance. The CDF needsto be proactive. It needs to seek out all suchpersons and groups and ask “how best canwe assist you in developing your craft, intransforming your creativity into culturalproducts, and in marketing and promotingthese products worldwide?” We havegroups like Chè Campeche and TanbouMélé who have acquired national acclaim,have already taken their act overseas, and,in a limited way, have produced audio orvideo recordings of some of their works.We have the pioneering southern dramagroup, Vizyon De Lavi / Iyanola Pictures,who so far has produced two movies, Tearsin the Valley and Ribbons of Blue nowavailable on VHS and DVD. How do wehelp them climb the next hurdle ofbecoming regional and internationalcultural icons? How can we help them torecord their work more extensively formass dissemination? In these respectsC&W’s Star Quest may have workedwonders.

Besides such groups or persons whoare now enjoying national attention, thereare a host of aspiring singers, musicians,

ings, books. In short, artistic expressionsthat can be readily disseminated.

he Department of Culture renamedt h e C u l t u r a l D e v e l o p m e n tFoundation (CDF) was established

to do just that. According to the CDF its roleis to create conditions conducive to theenrichment of St. Lucia’s cultural environ-ment, and to encourage, facilitate, andpromote cultural development and culturalevents. The CDF hopes to accomplish thisthrough training, advocacy, and effectiveadministration. However, a commonproblem with institutions set up to promoteculture is that the institutions themselvesquickly acquire the notion (or at the veryleast behave that way) that culture is allabout them, that they are the paragons ofculture, they are the creators of culture. Butif not the CDF, who creates culture? Whoamong us are actively engaged in givingartistic expression to St. Lucian culture?

The CDF has a Role to Play

T

“In this era of globalization, the ubiquitous mass media and the information superhighway, it is easy for the cultures of small societies like St. Lucia to be swept away

and replaced by the cultures of larger, richer and more dominant societies.”

Painting by Cedric George, featured artist of thisissue

The Jako 7

writers, poets, painters, actors, who havethe talent and motivation, but have limitedguidance, and who often haven’t a clueabout what it takes to uplift their craft tointernational standards. Through my visitsto our secondary schools to do bookreadings and to impress upon students theimportance of reading and education, Idiscovered that we have a profusion ofpromising student writers. With littleencouragement from anyone they arewriting poetry, short stories and novels.The sad thing is that they are receivinglittle guidance in the art of writing. Thereare no writing workshops to help themhone their craft, there are few avenues forpublishing their work, they have fewcontacts with established writers, andfrom where they stand they probablycannot envision writing as a career. So

graduation from secondary school oftenmarks the end of their writing and, in manycases, creative life.

A few years back the CDF launched aseries of islandwide workshops taught byJamaica School of Drama lecturer, PierreLemaire. The CDF had also sponsored awriting workshop at the Central Library,geared mostly towards members of theWriters Forum who, as a group, won the2002 M&C award for poetry. And in thepast the CDF has sponsored calypsowriting workshops. In a further effort todevelop the arts, the CDF has createdliterature, drama, and music think-tanksthat are charged with developing ideas onhow best to encourage and spur the artisticexpressions of our culture. So it would bemisleading to suggest that the CDF isn’tactively involved in developing St. Lucianculture. The problem with the CDF’sefforts is that they are sporadic and oftenit is only the well initiated that are aware ofthese activities. The CDF can go further inthe nurturing and development of craft.Workshops in the various artisticdisciplines could be institutionalized andmade into annual or better yet biannual

events. The CDF could team up with theliterature, music, and art teachers of oursecondary schools to help establish artprograms and art clubs. The CDF could setaside overseas scholarships for gifted andaspiring artists to further the developmentof their craft.

Besides the CDF, other laudableinstitutions that are playing a significantrole in the upliftment of St. Lucian cultureinclude the M&C Annual Fine Arts Awardsand the Jubilee Trust Fund whose recentundertakings included the staging ofSarafina and The Banjo Man (along withCDF) and the establishment of The GeorgeOdlum Grant for the CreativeArts.

ailure to encourage the artisticexpression of St. Lucian culture, andthe documentation of these artistic

expressions takes on a more serious tonewhen you consider that without urgentintervention there is a chance that someaspects of our culture will be lost to usforever. Specifically, I am talking about ourfolk music, the music that no one can andwould argue isn’t St. Lucian culture,because one would be hard pressed to findanother music or cultural expression moreindigenous to St. Lucia. St. Lucian folkmusic speaks to the genesis of St. Lucianculture. If we want clues about where wecame from, and who we are, there are fewbetter places to look than our folk music.But the sad fact is most of the paragons ofour folk music, the people who are notsimply performing songs passed on to them,but have created and are creating their ownmusic, are in the later part of their lives. I amtalking about the Rameau Poleons, and theYves Simeons of St. Lucia.

Monty Maxwell, one of St. Lucia’sleading jazz and blues musicians, a fixture

The Demise ofSt. Lucian Culture

F

of the St. Lucian Jazz Festival, andarguably the best musician to have comeout of Vieux Fort, is so taken by RameauPoleon that as often as possible he teamsup with Rameau on gigs. In fact, RameauPoleon features prominently on some ofMonty Maxwell’s songs in , his-soon-to-be- released debut CD. Byteaming with Rameau Poleon, Monty hascreated a cross between Jazz and St.Lucian folk music, a new genre of jazz. Infact, by fusing St. Lucian and Caribbeanrhythm with Jazz and Blues, Monty is nodoubt cultivating a new jazz or musicalniche. Therefore, the release of mayprove to be no less than legendary.

Monty Maxwell admits that RameauPoleon’s music inspires him. He lamentsthat Rameau Poleon has so many wonder-ful songs that it would be a great national

loss if the artist were to pass away beforehis songs were recorded. He says many ofthe songs are known only to Rameau. Thatis the reason he, Monty, takes everyopportunity to work with the folkmusician, and that is why he has volun-teered to help produce recordings of theartist, providing that sponsors can befound to finance logistics and studio time.

Now, the loss Monty is talking aboutisn’t simply that the world may never hearsome of Rameau Poleon’s songs. The losscould go much deeper than that. Toillustrate let us ponder Reggae. Or let usask the question: What are the roots ofReggae?

Well, long before there was reggaethere was Jamaican folk music. Then inthe 1940's Jamaicans came up with thebright idea of fusing all of this folk musicto form what was coined Mento, whichthey started recording in the early 1950's(the birth of a cultural product). In theearly 1960's, to Mento was addedAmerican R&B and the result was Ska and“Rude-Boy” music. A few years later,beginning in the mid 1960's, Ska wasmixed with Soul to give rise to Rock

Shine

Shine

Winter 20058

Steady. Then in the late 1960's, under thisrestless Jamaican creativity, Rock Steadygave way to Reggae, a term that encom-passed the many developing styles ofJamaican music characterized by thetrademark “skank’” as in skanking. Out ofthis skanking music, Dub and RootsReggae emerged in the early and mid1970's, and soon branched off intoDancehall, Lover’s Rock, and Hiphop,Now reggae, Dub, Dancehall, Lover’sRock and Hiphop have changed worldmusic and have become a multi-billiondollar industry.

Imagine that. If the various strains ofJamaican folk music had disappearedbefore they could have been fashionedinto Mento and then Ska, there would beno reggae, no Bob Marley. There would beno Three Little Birds singing at dancehalls, bars, discos, hotels and airportlounges, and the classy restaurants of theworld, and the millions of dollars ofincome and foreign exchange that Jamaicaearns from music each year may havenever materialized.

Imagine again. It is 2030. On an earlySunday afternoon a young musician isvisiting his grandparents. On top of an oldbookshelf lies a dusty CD that hasn’t seenplay in years. The CD catches the eye ofthe aspiring musician. Bored, he absent-mindedly slips the CD in a CD player. TheCD is The Best of Rameau Poleon.Suddenly, the young man’s boredomvanishes. The music has hit a nerve.Maybe it is a long forgotten song thatwhen he was small his parents used toplay. He picks up his guitar and startspicking a tune and playing a rhythm. Butrestless by nature, after half an hour hegives up on that and goes and hangs outwith the boys. Amid the talk and laughterof his friends, Rameau Poleon and therhythm keep ringing in his ears. So heleaves his friends, returns home andspends all afternoon and most of the nightdeveloping the tune that refuses to goaway. He has a few hours of restless sleepduring which the rhythm and RameauPoleon kept humming. By six in themorning he can take it no longer, so he getsup and returns to his guitar and the rhythm.Before long, the tune and rhythm takeshape, so by the time he has breakfast at9AM he has a fully developed song. Hecalls his girlfriend and says: “Guess what?I have just received a gift from God.” Butthe gift isn’t from God, it is from RameauPoleon and the people or organizationswho had had the foresight to sponsor therecordings. He records the song. It’s a hit.The world cannot have enough of it. So herecords a full album of songs with thesame basic rhythm.Anew musical genre is

way of life of our predecessors enable us tolearn from their mistakes, and, rather thanreinvent the wheel, build upon thefoundation they bequeathed us. We knowof past peoples, not because we were thereto observe their lives, but from the artifactsthey left behind. So we know of theRoman and Greek empires because of thebooks, architecture, artwork, music, etc.that survived them. Similarly, we knowsomething of the lives of ancientEgyptians and the people of the other greatAfrican Kingdoms like Zimbabwe andAshanti, because of the pyramids,hieroglyphs, art and artifacts that remainand the songs and stories that were passedon from one generation to the other. Artprovides a distilled representation of apeople’s way of life. Therefore, it shouldbe possible to study a people’s art andreconstruct how they lived their lives: how

affluent, how democratic, how religious,how peaceful, how happy they were.

In this era of globalization, theubiquitous mass media and the informa-tion super highway, it is easy for thecultures of small societies like St. Lucia tobe swept away and replaced by thecultures of larger, richer and moredominant societies. The concern thatmany St. Lucians raise about the ongoingAmericanization of St. Lucian culturesuggests that this issue isn’t just atheoretical one.

There are two ways of dealing withthis concern. One is to screen out or placerestrictions on the inflow of foreignculture: music, movies, televisionprograms. The second is to pay lessattention to what is coming in, and moreemphasis on the quantity and quality of

born; he calls it RamPo. In less than adecade, RamPo becomes a billion dollarindustry, placing St. Lucia squarely on themusical map.

otwithstanding the above discussions, what is the value of givingartistic expression to our culture,

and the value of presenting these expres-sions in the form of cultural products? Art,or the artistic expressions of our culture,provides a window, a looking glass, into ourway of lives. Therefore art provides us witha better or clearer sense of who we are as apeople: where we came from, where are weat now, where we are heading, and where

we should be heading. Art developsconsciousness. It enables us to becamemore conscious of ourselves as a people ornation or civilization (the West IndianCivilization). By clarifying the circum-stances of our existence, it helps us gothrough life by making conscious decisions,instead of simply reacting to circumstances,or acting out of necessity. Art provides uswith the leverage or mental fortitude tochange the very circumstances that shapeour lives. Through art we begin to have asense that we could be in control of ourlives, for it is the daily choices we make thathelp determine how our lives turn out.

Art is the avenue through which theculture, the way of life, of previousgenerations is passed on to future genera-tions. Knowledge and understanding of the

The Value of Cultureto Society

N

The Jako 9

what we are putting out. Meaning, fine,we are getting plenty of US televisionprogramming, but let us make sure ourpeople are exposed to plenty of our own.Fine, the radio stations are playing agreat deal of foreign music, but let’smake sure that we are producing anabundance of quality music which isgetting its fair share of air play. It is forthis reason I think that NTN (Channel 2)is a stroke of genius. My position is thatwhile others are influencing us withtheir culture, let us put ours out there inthis great world cultural pot, so we aredoing our fair share of influencingothers.

Case in point. Reggae, or morespecifically Bob Marley’s music, hasinfluenced generations upon genera-tions of writers and poets, not to speak ofmusicians. It is as if each new generationis pleasantly surprised to discover that aBob Marley exists. Bob Marley’s musichas changed the world. A visitor to theCastries, New Yorks and Londons of theworld cannot fail to notice the vast numberof people wearing African-influencedgarments and variations of locks (even ifmost are by no means Rastafarians andhave never smoked weed). Clearly, there isa Jamaicanization, or rather, anAfricanization of Black Culture through-out the New World. No small feat for athree-million-people country!

There is a lot of talk about the worldwide web and the information superhighway, but I am a little bit disheartenedbecause amid all that talk I hear very littlefrom our leaders about content. Besidesthe promotion of tourism, carnival, and thejazz festival, we are providing very littlecontent of our own. What I mean is, howmuch of our music, books, movies, etc,are out there? How many video andeducational games are we producing?How and when are we going to address thecontent issue? Clearly, in terms of culturalcontent, in terms of putting our culture outthere to mitigate the influence of otherpeople’s culture on us, the government andthe CDF have a role to play.

In dollar terms, entertainment (music,movies, theater, etc.) is the largest industryon earth. The greatest influence Americahas on the world is not through its military,nor its financial aid, but through the exportof its way of life, its culture: music,movies, books, television, fast foods. As aresource-poor country what are we doingto corner a fair share of this multi-trilliondollar entertainment pie? Continuingadvances in music, video, computing andcinematic technology are making thecreation of quality cultural products moreaffordable. The beauty about cultural

years of working at his craft before theartist can arrive at an acceptable level,and sometimes much longer before theartist’s work catches the imagination ofthe public. What often happens is thatthe artist’s home market is sufficientlylarge to allow the artist to live off hiscreativity, even while developing hiscraft.

On the contrary, one reality of smalleconomies like St. Lucia is that themarket is too small to fully supportartists. Too few books, CDs, or paintingsget sold to allow the writer, musician orpainter to recoup cost, much less earn aliving. For this reason businesses arereluctant to invest in the creation ofcultural products, and many artists tradetheir craft for gainful employment longbefore they have reached internationallycompetitive levels. Among those whocontinue to produce, few invest the kindof time and resources required to createa t i n t e r n a t i o n a l s t a n d a r d s .

Consequently, there is a paucity of books,music and other types of cultural productsauthored by St. Lucians and on St. Luciathat are marketable beyond our shores.

The sad thing is that while the cost tothe artist may far exceed the financialbenefits, the benefits to society can farexceed the cost. For example, of whatvalue are the story books we read aschildren, the books that instilled in us thevalues of civility that have shaped us intoresponsible and productive members ofsociety? Of what value are the works ofDerek Walcott? Works that have givenvoice to our voices, have placed us on theworld map and have made us proud to beSt. Lucians. Of what value is the music ofBob Marley to society? Music that haschanged the world, has helped forged acultural bond across the West IndianCivilization and across African descen-dants no matter where they live, music thathas become the voice of protest for thesuppressed and dispossessed of the world.Clearly, the value to society of culturalproducts can far exceed the cost ofproduction or the financial benefits to behad by the artist, particularly in smalleconomies like St. Lucia.

Because of that, cultural productsneed to be treated as public goods. APublic good is such that its consumptionby one person doesn’t exclude its simulta-neous consumption by other persons. Theinability to exclude others from consum-ing the good, makes it difficult forproducers of the good to recoup their cost,therefore, left to the private sector, thegood may not get produced or an insuffi-cient amount may be provided.Nevertheless, from the perspective of the

products like books, music and film is thatonce they are in place they face a potentialmarket of six billion people, and at highvolumes the per unit reproduction cost isnegligible. Furthermore, once therecontinues to be a demand for the product,production and sales can continue intoperpetuity (case in point, Bob Marley’smusic). At sufficient volumes, even if netprofit from the sale of any one unit wereonly a fraction of a dollar, total profits couldstill amount to millions of dollars. Oftentimes all it takes is for one song, one book,one piece of painting, or one movie toachieve prominence. Because once this onesong or one book achieves financialsuccess all previous and subsequent worksof that author acquire greater demand andvalue.

relevant question at this point isthat if the entertainment industrycan be so lucrative why do our

artists need financial and other support fromthe CDF or the government? The rewards tobe had should be motivation enough forartists to bring their craft to internationalstandards, and to produce cultural productsfor the world market.

Here is the problem.Alot has to happenbefore the artist arrives at a level where hiscraft is on par with international levels. Andeven when the his art is as good as what isproduced anywhere else, a lot has to happenin terms of packaging, marketing andpromotion before the art can enter the shopwindow of the world. Very often it takes

Culture as a Public Good

A

Winter 200510

society the benefit of the good may farexceed the cost of production, particularlysince once the good is produced it isavailable for simultaneous consumptionby all members of society. A perfectexample of a public good is nationaldefense. What often happens in the case ofpublic goods is that the state subsidizes orfully sponsors the provision of the good.

If the CDF and government are totreat cultural products as public goods,besides the above suggestions, what morecan they do to encourage the creation ofcultural products and how can they raisemoney to sponsor such activities?Presently if a cultural group is registeredwith the CDF it is eligible for a 50 percentexemption on imported equipment andproducts related to its craft. Musicalinstruments, video cameras, etc. are veryexpensive, so even with this concessioncustoms duties on these items are tanta-mount to paying twice for them. The costof musical instruments discourages theformation of bands, especially since themoney to be made from playing music inSt. Lucia is so limited. There are almost nobands in St. Lucia that are on par with thetop Caribbean bands. Were it not for themusical contributions of the police band (a100 percent government sponsored

Thanks, Rameau

Though my feet do not speak the languageOf the steps and rhythms of your danceMy heart understands the lyrics ofThe culture you unselfishly sharedThe pieces of our past you upheld.

I have seen you as you areNever as you deserve to be;On makeshift thrones of borrowed lumber

on Independence Day in the park,In naked country’s disused discothequesDrenched with the scent of the smelly white stuffDispensed from demijohns below the counter.

I have stood in sacramental aweImbibing each stanza of fluid noteThat flowed like magic from your vyolon’s lips;You are an alphabet of mystiqueEach time I have watched you play:Hat askew, fingers walking the bodyOf the thing you necked like a lover,Your feet light, tap dancing on the spot.

Entouraged, as your menu often shows,By gay and bouncy, dwietted chantwèls

That pause from homely chores or from sweating,Futilely, in the sweet potato fields,Chanting a desideratum;And the fellow on the goat-skinFingers recalling the ancestral kraalFingers itching, too, to shift the ashen cigaretteLocked in his chimneyed mouth;The others that dance and carouselThat for or ;Captivating as they always areIt is you, always you who spice upThe enchanting Kwéyol ambianceThat colours us different from our neighbours.

And so through you, a living legendI send a prayer for missing comradesWhose voice I still hear from the great beyond:Roddy who loved ’mas and lived for the stageAnd Eric the biggest voice in folk;To the Queen of culture, unparalleledTo the cultured priest who raised Kwéyol highTo you and others yet unrewarded:May you live, even though you die!

Now, play me that vyolon to a sigh!

—Modeste Downes

tanbou

bwiyé La Woz La Magéwit

activity), there may not have been a band toback the calypsonians.

In terms of music it would appear thatBarbados has far surpassed St. Lucia. To addinsult to injury, Barbados has taken ourcreole, mixed it with soca and then exportedit back to us. I should think that if any onewere going to fuse soca with cadence andmarket it worldwide it would be us. If youwere to walk into the major music stores ofNew York—the HMS’s, the VirginRecords’, the Tower Records’—you wouldfind the music of Square One, Krosfyah andother Barbadian bands and artists, but notone St. Lucian CD. Are we lockingourselves out of a trillion dollar industry?

We need to go much further than simplyexempting instruments from customsduties. We need to find a way to formallyfinance cultural development. How about acultural levy on cigarettes and alcohol?How about setting aside 5 percent of allgrants (no matter for what purpose) forcultural development? We have proven to bevery efficient in getting grants to buildstadiums, schools, jails, fishery complexesand commercial free zones. How abouttapping into international sources for grantsto finance the creation of St. Lucian culturalproducts?

If additional motivation for financing

cultural development is needed, considerthat a recent international study indicatedthat real economic development waspredicated on the health and social(cultural) development of a society. In thisworld of globalization our cultural identitymay be at stake. Besides, what’s wrong incarving for ourselves a piece of this multi-trillion dollar entertainment pie?

Monty Maxwell

The Jako 11

By many accounts the 2004calypso and carnival seasonwas a year of bountiful

harvest and Shakespearean drama. Itwas a year of record attendances atthe tents and soca and calypsocompetitions. It was a year thatcelebrated the history of St. Luciancalypso with a massive calypsoevent at Pigeon Island at which thebest twenty-five calypsos sinceindependence were performed bytheir respective artists to the crowd’shearts’ content. It was the year thatgave us and

, two songs that, giventheir freshness, tempo, rhythm, anduniversality, were bound to makewaves across the Caribbean. It was ayear where the soca was so captivat-ing and so original that St. Luciacaptured the first four spots of theOECS soca monarch competition. Itwas the year that the calypsocompetition was such that Invaderand Pep, two perennial calypsomonarchs, were unable to secure aplace in the finals. It was the yearthat welcomed back the legendaryAshanti, and Herb Black, the veterancalypsonian, who had become theconscience of St. Lucian calypso. Itwas the year of the youth, the yearthat all the crowns (road march,party monarch, OECS soca monarch, andcalypso monarch) were won by personsunder thirty and who were competingonly for the first, second or third time. Itwas the year that Lady Spice, the firstwoman to win the calypso crown and, uptill then, the only woman to have done so,caused the nation to hold its breath as,eight months pregnant, she strutted,gyrated on stage like a teenager without acare and pelted her calypsos like there

Down De Road WeMaking Love

most controversial and talked-aboutsongs of the competition, was aboutabortion and a woman’s right tochoose. The 2004 calypso seasonwas also the year of the women. Itwas a year when there was Jany andSpice and the rest. It was the yearwhen these two women blew thecompetition so far away that next totheir performances at the finals,multiple crown calypso kings likeEducator and Ashanti looked likechild’s play and it seemed theywould have been better servedstaying at home and recounting totheir grandchildren stories of theirpast glories. Above all, 2004 wasthe year of Jany Williams, who,remarkably, in her first foray intonational calypso competition, bothstunned and mesmerized a nation,when like a bud bursting into flower,or sunshine suddenly flooding aroom, she edged Lady Spice—thecrowd’s favorite, the one who hadhitherto captured the hearts andimaginations of calypso and non-calypso lovers alike—by two pointsto win the calypso crown.

We caught up with Jany on a lateThursday, September morningwhen the heat of the day was alreadymaking its presence felt. She waswearing a green top and worn out

jeans, both clinging tightly to her petitebody. Her yellowish hair matched hersunshine complexion. We were lucky.Since winning the crown, Jany’s alreadyhectic schedule had become even more so.This was our second attempt at meetingher.

Taking advantage of whatever littlebreeze there was, we sat in the balcony of ahouse on top Barnards Hill, a shortdistance away from the Cultural

were no tomorrow. She was to give birth theday of the calypso finals; so to avoid anymishaps and thus ensure her place at the topof the calypsonian heap, she added moredrama to an already drama packed seasonwhen a few days before the finals sheinduced forced labor and gave birth to ahealthy baby boy. Shakespeare could nothave scripted a more dramatic and thematicplay, for Lady Spice’s best and most popularsong for the year, which also was one of the

�����������

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“I also think that it is important for persons involved in the arts to take the bull by thehorns, do what needs to be done, perfect your art, work on your development, and

then something will definitely work out.”

12 Winter 2005

Development Foundation, overlookingCastries and its historical harbor.

The Jako:

Jany: Thank-you.

Definitely I am very happy, because Iachieved one of the goals that I had set outto do for the carnival season. But generallylife is the same, no great changes. But Imust say I am very, very happy about that.

Laborie is a very strong commu-nity, and growing up there the wholecommunity support was more like thecommunity raising the child, rather thanjust the parents or a family member. Ingeneral, going to school there, thecommunity was very open to beinginvolved in the arts, whether it wasdance, drama, or music. And in terms ofencouragement from the other commu-nity members, it has always been very,very high. Being from Laborie, I amvery proud that I was at least able to takehome the calypso monarch, because wehave been able to accomplish in otherfields but not really music. I know thatother Laborians are extremely happy aswell, and I’m just proud that I was ableto do it. I know I made a lot of myteachers and family members proud aswell.

The group I am a member of,Caribbean Vizions, have members from

Jany, I must first congrat-ulate you on winning the calypso crown.

With all the excitement that hassurrounded wining the CalypsoMonarch, how do you feel now about allwhat has happened?

Laborie seems to becoming ahotbed of music in St. Lucia. There isExtra Love, and I remember when wewere establishing a band in Vieux Fort,we could get few committed musiciansfrom Vieux Fort, most of the musi-cians came from Laborie, and hereyou are from Laborie, having won thecalypso monarch. I don’t think thereis anyone from Vieux Fort, per se,who has won the monarch. What doyou think accounts for that?

Yes, I am pretty sure of that,because this is a very big accomplish-ment, especially since this is only thesecond time a woman has won thecrown. So I think it is special.

Now, when I first saw you at theCultural Center, at one of the calypsotents, I said wow! This woman musthave had theatre training. Whatimpressed me most was the way youdramatized your songs, your perfor-mance. I sensed that you gave it your all,each line receiving its full dramatic flairand space. Have you had theatretraining? What has molded you intosuch a fantastic performer?

carry it over.What do you think?

The other idea I have about how topackage our calypsonians is to teamthem up with big European and

American artists. Maybe initially aswarmup acts. When Lady Spice firstjoined the arena I envisioned hersinging calypso and soca to largeinternational crowds who may nothave necessarily come to listen tocalypso or soca; maybe they came tolisten to a Janet Jackson, or a WyclefJean, or a Lauryn Hill, but oncethere, they get exposed to calypso,and if the performance is captivat-ing, the audience may get hooked. Ithink this is one way to help grow thecalypso and soca audience. I still feelwe have not done enough to interna-tionalize our calypso and soca. Thatis why I keep thinking of ways of howbest that could happen. I suspect it iswomen who will have to do it. When Isaw first Lady Spice and then youperform this is the idea that came tome. Watching the men performdidn’t bring out that idea.Now for the standard question

asked of artists. Who influencedyou? What got you started in themusic business in general andcalypso in particular?

I think that’s a very good idea,because my whole enjoyment of perform-ing calypso for the season was because Iwas able to be a lot more expressive than Icould have been when I do soca. I think itcomes hand-in-hand. Sometimes you maynot have props, but with the message yoursong is sending and how you perform, yourexpressions, it will entail that. But Idefinitely feel that would be a good idea.Probably will make it easier for a non-Caribbean person to understand what yousinging about, whereas a West Indianperson will automatically grasp themessage.

My grandmother was a member of theLaborie choir, so automatically when Iwent to church I could sit nowhere else butin the choir. So you just became a memberof the choir by force, you didn’t really havea choice. But what really started it for mewas in primary school when in those daysthey had interschool folk competition.And I competed for my school, LaborieGirls Primary, as a chantwèl. I was achantwèl there. The two years I competedthere I won the best chantwèl award, sothat started it off for me in terms of reallytaking note of singing and music and beinginterested. I moved on to the conventwhere we did calypsos, not to competewith the other schools, but within theschool we had calypso competition, so I

different Caribbean islands. Our wholefocus is with the young persons in theschools and bringing across positivemessages to them. Our production entailsdance, drama, music, poetry and so on. Interms of the drama part of it, this is what I doin the other Caribbean Islands and at theschools, that is the experience I have interms of drama. The support system fromthe group, Caribbean Vizions, is tremen-dous as well, so in terms of rehearsal andgetting everything together the othermembers have an input in that.

Reggae has become international,but calypso and, to a lesser extent, socahas not made that kind of headway. Ihave thought a little bit about how best topresent calypso to the outside world.One thought I had was to present calypso

as theatre. What I mean is that the sameway the calypsonians perform in thefinals, with all the props, and so on, ifwhen they present the calypso toEngland, Europe, America, theyaccompany the calypso with theatre,maybe that might be one way of selling it.I’m not sure whether this has been tested,I know when I have seen calypsoniansperform, say, in America, they areusually straight up, with none of theprops. Furthermore, when they do goabroad, they cater specifically for aCaribbean audience. I suspect becausethe non-West Indian is not too au courantwith calypso. That is partly why I thinkthe theatre aspect of it might help to

13The Jako

represented my class every year until FormFour, that was in 1994, when the schoolfinally decided that we were going to becompeting with the other schools andentering the Junior Calypso Competition,which I did and placed first runner-up. Sothat was basically the starting of myinterest in terms of music.

We l l , a c t u a l l y m y f a v o r i t ecalypsonian has been Robbie. In terms ofthe persons who contributed to my love forcalypso and my being in the art-form, Ican’t say it is one person. The song that Idid in the finals, the surprise song, actuallydealt with that aspect of it. I learnt a lotfrom Pele, Pep, Educator, Ashanti,Invader, and Lady Lin in particular. As awoman she was the only one out there for anumber of years, maybe not the only one,but the most significant woman whoactually competed against the men. So allof them contributed in their own way to mebeing interested in the art-form.And whenyou see people working hard at somethingand you realize that they are at it year afteryear it has to be that they love it. And youknow generally it is not a career where youmake a lot of money, yet they keep doing it

So who were your idols in thesinging, music, or calypso world? Ofcourse, idol is probably too strong aword.

year after year, so that means they reallylove it and they respect that part of ourculture. I see myself as somebody wholoves culture, who is Caribbean in nature.Those are the persons I must say contrib-uted, all the calypsonians.

Thank you.

Yeah, you touched on somethingthere regarding artists. In terms ofmaking money, making it big as an artist,it is almost like buying a lotto ticket. Onecan do it all one’s life and nothing bighappens. For some, the first time theyare out and big things happen. So reallyif one is doing it strictly for financialreasons, it is very difficult to sustain theeffort because the outcome is so uncer-tain, so unpredictable. Talent mattersand hard work matters, but it is alsobeing at the right place at the right time.

Your second song at the finals blewme away, I think it blew everyone away,the shock factor, the unexpectedness of itall added to its effectiveness. It was abrave move. I have heard people say thatwhen you come up with a new song in thefinals you are taking a big chance. Theaudience do not know the song so theymay not respond strongly. But you tookthat chance and it worked quite well. So Ithink you should commend yourself foryourbravery.

I wouldn’t limit it to soca and calypso.I will just limit it to a Caribbean artist.

I am not now starting on a path, I amjust going to be continuing the journey Ihave started. Definitely continue in thework of my group, Caribbean Vizion. Asthe Calypso Monarch I now have moreresponsibilities on my shoulders in termsof bringing out positive messages tostudents, in particular those in St. Lucia.Presently, what I am going to be workingon with my group, Caribbean Vision, wewill be focusing on the schools, thestudents, definitely bringing out thosepositive messages to them via the arts,making them realize their education isvery important, as much as being involvedin any cultural aspect or any form of ourculture.

Caribbean Vizions is a group made upof artistic persons from differentCaribbean Islands. It was the brain child ofCurt Allen who is also my writer and the

Do you see yourself as basically asoca and calypso artiste?

So what are your plans in the nearand medium term future? For you havenow started on a path.

Tell me more about CaribbeanVizions. What’s the concept behind it?Who is behind it? What is its scope ofactivity?

Creole Canticles

In Memoriam of: George Odlum, Egbert Mathurin, Ruby Yorke,Lucia Peters-Charlery, Jany Williams, Florita Marquis, EvyMondesir. R.I.P.

1.

2.

Let us praise His Name with an opening lakonmèt,and in the graceful procession of weedova;let laughing, madras-crowned girls rejoice before Him in the

scottishand flirtatious moolala, its violon hinting of heartache.And while we forget time turning in quick-heeled polkas,pause during the tentative norwegian

for when the couples end the gwan won,you alone must dance for Him your koutoumba.

I was glad when they call me to go up in the Séwénal.The violon scraping my heart,banjo and kwatro thrumming my grief like their plectrum,and the guitar pulling my heel.

I only seeing her tuning the mandolin on her bosom

Then the shakshak shake me loose, insisting, insisting,

“wait for the bow, the bow and the courtesy,wait for the sax, the drum and the kwadril to start.” Selah.

.

And so, she has come: to the gold-flecked Wob Dwiyèt,its long train in folds over her left wrist,the clean petticoat adorned with lace,the satin foulard, the head-piece of rainbow madras

from the nondescript costume of the far city,from the profligate famine of Cardun's estates

to the embracing plenitude of Kwadril shakshak and violon,to that Bright Brooch on the glistening triangular foulard.

The cascading words of my handpluck His praise from eight-string bandolin and local banjo,place His favour on madras and foulard, the satin and the lace,plant His steps in mazouk, lakonmèt and gwan won;point His casual grace in yellow pumpkin star, pendular mango,plait Him a crown of anthurium and fern

He is the Crown, the Star of grace, the Dancer of creation,the Robing of righteousness, Tuning of the spheres,Hand of the Incarnating Word.

—John Robert Lee

3

4.

14 Winter 2005

director of the group. Caribbean Vizionslobbies for cultural and economiccooperation between Caribbean govern-ments and their people. Our focus ismainly on youth, young persons in theCaribbean. First off, getting them torealize that Caribbean integration,bringing to them the message of Caribbeanintegration, and finding artistic andcultural ways to send messages to them,the messages they would probably get vialectures and talks from parents. Try to getthose same messages across using the arts.Getting them to realize that being artisticdoes not prevent them from excellingacademically, but it could only enhancetheir personality, their whole being.

The marriage of education andculture is very important in the message ofthe group, that’s why we call it“educulture.” Everything that we do iscalled “educulture,” a combination ofeducation and culture. So that is the focusof the group. We focus on young peoplearound the region, we work with differentministries of education and culture, thevarious ministries involved in themessages that we want to bring across.Some of the topics that we deal withinclude keeping the education up, beinginvolved in culture, West Indian Cricket,Caribbean tourism, HIV and Aids, schoolviolence, mutual respect betweenthemselves, the teachers, the parents.

I am very glad to hear this. I think itachieves several different things. Notonly working with the children,inculcating in them an appreciation fortheir culture, instilling in them self-worth and so on, but liaising with thegovernments of the region may helpelicit greater governmental support forthe arts. It is often said that ourgovernments don’t respect artists, theydon’t give sufficient support to art andculture, they have not begun to realizethe importance of the arts to the society,and they are skeptical of the financialbenefits to be derived from the arts. So itis good that you all have so engagedgovernments and ministries of culture.

The other thing is that even in thebest of economic times, when, as in thelate 1980's, the economy was growing at7 percent per year, our unemploymentrate was still above 15 percent. In theUnited States when the unemploymentrate starts approaching 6 percent,Americans carry on as if the country isin a crisis. And I am pretty sure thatfaced with a 10 percent unemploymentrate, the US will go fight a war.Yet in St.Lucia and some of the other islands, a 20percent unemployment is the norm. Iam saying all this to say that the way to

deal with this high unemployment rate isto attack it from many different fronts.And one such front is by way of thearts—music, paintings, books, film, etc.By giving the artists greater supportthey can become big on the internationalscene, thus turning art and culture intoan important source of income andemployment. So I think the work of yourgroup is commendable.

In fact, your group’s approachwould have had the support of the lateSir Arthur Lewis. In his famous addressto the students at Cave Hill he urgedthem to be different and he made a strongcase for the introduction of the arts inschools, and for the governments of theregion to spend more money on the arts.

Have you been getting goodresponses from the ministries of thevarious islands?

How do our singers compare withthose of the other islands? How muchtalent do we have? Do we have the talentto be international artists? How do wecompare with Barbados, for example?

Yes, actually our group is an unfundedorganization. It is voluntary. We don’t getpaid for what we do. I think that is importantamong artists. Sometimes we always lookfor help before we make one step. WithCaribbean Vizions that was something thatwe said we would definitely not getinvolved in. We need to show our commit-ment, show what we want to do. Do what wesay we want to do. Achieve some of ourobjectives before we even stretch out ourhands. I also think that it is important forpersons involved in the arts to take the bullby the horns, do what needs to be done,perfect your art, work on your development,and then something will definitely workout. If we need to be seen out thereinternationally, then we need to beinternational ourselves, and a lot of us arenot that way. So we need to work on our art,do a lot of research, find out the number ofdifferent ways that we can get recognized.But generally since I have became calypsomonarch, I have paid courtesies to thedifferent ministries and discussed a lot ofdifferent issues I would like addressed,issues that need to be dealt with within theyear of my reign. And they have been verysupportive; they have pledged their supportfor the different activities we want toundertake as a group.

I am not very good at that. To be honest,I don’t really focus on other artists. Becauseof my preparation for this whole competi-tion, I haven’t been much updated withwhat’s going on outside of what I waspreparing for. But in terms of talent, I thinkthat we have talent all over. It is just amatter of getting to nurture that talent and

getting it to be developed to the standardthat is necessary for getting out there.

Yes, definitely. But like I said awhileago, we need to be prepared. In terms ofcontract, there is definitely a possibility ofme getting the contract, but I need to beprepared. I need to get an album together. Ineed to produce good music. So thechallenge now is producing music of theright standard that would be recognizedout there. But definitely I think that there isan opening for Caribbean music. We justneed to capitalize on it.

Yeah, first off, but still bringing outissues that deal with everyone, particularlyyoung persons, not just women.

Regrettably our conversation withthe calypso queen had to come to a close.“Educulture” was on her mind. She had tokeep an appointment with the Ministry ofEducation. St. Lucia could not have hopedfor a better and more dedicated calypsomonarch, a perfect ambassador for the art-form. I congratulated her once again onwinning the crown and I wished hercontinued success, but with her alertness,enthusiasm and sunshine smile it wouldhave taken no effort on my part to engageher all day. As Jany walked away, carryingher sunshine with her, I had the feelingthat the rest of my day, and even the rest ofmy week, would be quite dull in compari-son to the time I had spent with her. Andlittle did I know that this would be my lastface to face conversation with Jany, for amonth later, Sunday, October 24, a fatalauto accident would bring an end to herlife, leaving all of us in shock and disbe-lief.

I was speaking with Adam Gilmoreof Chronic Heights, probably the bestsound or studio engineer in St. Lucia. Hehas recorded some of the best CDs tocome out of the island, includingFreedom by Itoobaa and Awake byMeshak. He senses that there is anopening, a window of opportunity forCaribbean music on the internationalmarket, because right now there seemsto be a craving for Carribean music.Recent examples of that phenomenonmay include the success of Vincentian,Kevin Lyttle, with and theBahamian group with

, and now you, about whom there istalk of having received a multi-milliondollar recording contract. What’s yoursense of that? Do you think that this is avalid assessment?

Now, I notice that with both you andLady Spice, many of your songs focus onwomen’s issues. Do you see yourself asbeing on a mission to bringing out issuesof concern to women?

Turn Me On

Who Let the Dogs

Out

15The Jako

Amost propitious question to ask in

this the 25 year of St. Lucia’sindependence is: Who is the man

(or woman) of the century? Who aboveanyone else has helped shape the history ofSt. Lucia? Understandably, this is not anenviable task, because for a country thathas won two Nobel Prizes during its mere25 years of independence (giving it thehighest per capita of Nobel Laureates inthe world), there is no shortage ofcandidates for this honor. Nonetheless, insearch of this St. Lucian man or woman ofthe century, three names invariablysurfaced—Sir George F.L. Charles, SirJohn G.M. Compton, and William GeorgeOdlum. Two of these men are no longerwith us, and the one remaining is partiallyretired from public live. Therefore, in thispause in our nation’s history, this momentof reflection, it may be useful to dwell onthe lives of these men to, if nothing else,obtain a glimpse of what vision they hadfor their country, what circumstanceshelped shape that vision, and what legacydid they leave behind.

ir George F.L. Charles died in June2004 at the age of eighty-eight.Following his death there was an

th

George Charles And TheSt. Lucia Labor Movement

S

outpouring of praise and affection.Newspaper articles eulogizing his deathcarried titles like “A Man who Embodied aMovement and an Aspiration;” “A SecureHistorical Legacy.” In his tribute to GeorgeCharles the Prime Minister of St. Lucia, Dr.Kenny D. Anthony, said, “he was truly theFather of Decolonization.” The radiostations were inundated with citizenscalling in to talk about the goodness ofGeorge Charles, saying how he had takenmoney from his own pocket to help themput roofs over their heads, in the processlabeling him , little Jesus; others whocalled about how he had stood up to the thenmighty sugar plantation owners to securefor them better wages and workingconditions referred to him as the ,the little axe.As proof that the nation wasn’tsimply being polite to the memory of adeparted man, long before George Charles’death the nation had honored him bynaming a community, a secondary school,and the island’s busiest airport after him.And so as to ensure his presence was alwayswith the nation, a statue of his likeness waserected at the airport that bore his name.During the last two general elections(which the Labor Party won by landslides),capitalizing on the political capital orgoodwill embodied in George Charles, theLabor Party made sure that he was conspic-uously present, in full party colors, at allparty conventions. And not long before his

Ti Jezi

Ti Hache

death, the Labor Government establishedthe George Charles Foundation with thestated goal of institutionalizing theeducation of generations to come on thelife and contributions of George Charles.Clearly, from this national outpouring, SirGeorge F.L. Charles would indeed be oneof the nation’s candidates for man of thecentury.

The public life of George Charlesbegan at the age of thirty, when, whileworking as a time keeper on the 1945construction of Vigie Airport, and havingwitnessed time and again the futile effortsof unorganized workers to secure betterwages and working conditions from theadministrators of the project, he joinedwhat was then the first and only laborunion on the island, the St. Lucia WorkersCooperative Union.

George Charles’ entry into the laborunion was by no means special. Thedecade before, in which he had come ofage, had been almost as great a turningpoint in the history of St. Lucia and theother British West Indian islands as the1838 emancipation proclamation. For itwas the events of this decade that sparkedlabor and political movements throughoutthe West Indies. The sugar industry, thenthe mainstay of these economies, was indeep decline. Sugar prices (as well as theprices of most other export crops) were in adownward spiral. Under these circum-

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Sir George Charles William George Odlum Sir John Compton

by Anderson Reynolds

Winter 200516

demands. In response, the Union launchedSt. Lucia’s first ever Union strike that, afterfive days, forced the bakers to the negotiat-ing table where the Union won pay raisesand improved working conditions for itsmembers. Later that same year, the Unionled a march to the Government house,seeking pre Christmas season employmentfor its members. On the heels of themarch, complying with the Union’srequest, the government launched a publicwork program that provided jobs for mostof Castries’ unemployed workers. Then in1949, following a brief strike, the Unionforced the Colonial DevelopmentCorporation (in charge of rebuildingCastries after the 1948 fire) to thenegotiating table and won fringe benefitsand a more than 20 percent wage increasefor workers.

Just as it did for the labor movement,George Charles’s St. Lucia WorkersCooperative Union would catapult thepolitical movement in St. Lucia. The firststep in that process was taken when theUnion began setting its sights on theCastries Town Board, then as now, thesecond most important political organ inthe island. But penetrating the Town Boardwould prove no walk on the beach. TheBoard was controlled by the middle andupper classes, who saw the Union and thelabor movement as a lower class engage-ment that needed to be kept out of the TownBoard at all cost. However, unperturbed,knowing time was on its side, the Unioncontested the 1947 elections and won onlyone of the four contested seats.

The following year the Unionreceived some help in its fight for theCastries Town Board. On June 19, 1948,fire destroyed four-fifths of Castries,rendering 809 families or 2293 personshomeless. The fire being no respector ofincome, class or race, placed everyone inthe same homeless boat. This reality (andalso that the Union was directly involvedin the relief effort) helped erode classdistinctions, if not permanently at leasttemporarily, and engendered a feeling ofcooperation and togetherness. Thus, whenthe annual Town Board elections camearound, the middle and upper classes lent amore sympathetic ear to the Union’s cause.So, not too unsurprisingly, by the end of the1949 elections the Union for the first timein history gained full control of the Board.Once in control, George Charles promptlymoved a resolution to make the ChocCemetery a common burial ground for all,thus doing away with the stigma of thepaupers section which, according to him,was a “convenience for social discrimina-tion even at death.” This act of GeorgeCharles would be just the beginning of the

hours of work, no rest on Sundaysand public holidays, employment ofchild labor, little or no healthfacilities, no vacation leave, nocompensation for industrialinjuries and limited educationfacilities, 90 percent of our peoplewere illiterate and disenfranchised.

By the 1930s worker discontent hadboiled over into spontaneous strikes andrevolts, with sometimes disastrousconsequences. In St. Kitts, in 1935,police shot and killed three workers andwounded eight when a crowd of sugarworkers marched onto a sugar planta-tion to demand higher wages. In thatsame year, three workers were killedand another twenty-six injured when acrowd of workers in St. Vincent camepetitioning the Governor againstrecently increased custom duties. In1937, attempting to restore order duringan island-wide protest against thedeportation of a Union organizer, policein Barbados killed fourteen protestors,wounded forty-seven and arrested fourhundred. In Jamaica, worker upheavalsduring 1938 resulted in at least twelve

deaths and one hundred and eightywounded.

Growing up under these circumstances,it was by no means surprising that aneducated and socially conscious young manwould want to join the labor movement.However, what was remarkable aboutGeorge Charles’ involvement was that thismild mannered, slightly built, unassumingman of humble beginnings, with only asecondary school education, would rise tothe forefront of not only the labor move-ment but also the political movement in St.Lucia. Upon joining the St. Lucia WorkersCooperative Union, George Charles wasquickly elected secretary of the Castriesbranch, and made a member of theOrganizing Committee. A year later, in1946, he was elected to the ExecutiveCommittee as the recording secretary, thenin 1949 he was elevated to the post ofGeneral Secretary, and then in 1954 he roseto the Presidency of the Union.

With George Charles in its leadershipranks the St. Lucia Workers CooperativeUnion blazed a trail in the labor movementin St. Lucia. It took the island’s first everUnion action when in 1947 it sought andgained recognition to represent sugarfactory workers, and successfully negoti-ated wage increases, overtime pay, andeight-hour work days. Next, and in thatsame year, the Union tackled Castriesbakers, who initially had refused tonegotiate or meet the Union’s wage

stances, to keep wages as low as possible,plantation owners took to importingindentured labor from India and toestablishing laws and conditions thatwould keep workers tied to their planta-tions. Consequently, the masses were facedwith high levels of unemployment,unliveable wages, detestable workingconditions, deplorable housing, malnutri-tion, and low resistance to diseases. Worse,they had no legal avenue for voicing theirgrievances. The government of the daycomprised a governor (or his representa-tive, an Administrator) and an Executiveand Legislative Council, both of whichwere under the direct control of theGovernor since it was the Governor whoappointed all members to the ExecutiveCouncil and the majority of those in theLegislature. These Councils were invari-ably populated with white plantationowners or their surrogates. Therefore, thegovernment served mostly as an instru-ment for safeguarding the interest of theplantocracy even at the expense of themasses. Furthermore, these privilegedwhites were banded together in exclusivewhite-only social clubs, and the bestgovernment and business jobs werereserved for them. Laws forbade peacefulworker picketing. Trade Unionism andlabor protest was considered an act oftreason. Here is what George Charles hadto say of these conditions:

... it was a period of low wages, long

17The Jako 17

process of claiming St. Lucia for all of St.Lucians. Besides the issue of burialgrounds, the Union controlled Boardinstituted a new wage structure for itsemployees that included higher wages,vacation leave with pay, improvedpromotional opportunities, gratuity andpension allowances, and overtime pay. Intime a George Charles led governmentwould permanently enter most of theseworkers rights (and more) into the lawbooks of the nation. But before this couldhappen, a lot more work had to be done.

y 1950, with the Castries TownBoard securely under its belt, theSt. Lucia Workers Cooperative

Union, renamed the St. Lucia WorkersUnion, along with the Seaman andWaterfront Workers’Union, began runningfor seats on the Legislative Council, and,through petitions, mass demonstrations,and public meetings, joined their voiceswith those of other Caribbean islands,demanding that the British governmentgrant the islands Universal Adult Suffrage,and constitutional changes, including afully elected Legislative Council, and anExecutive Council with a majority ofelected members. To further articulatethese demands and to better advance thecause of workers, the Unions establishedthe St. Lucia Labor Party to function astheir political arm.

These were heady and feverish days.George Charles and his compatriots,young, bright, full of passion and fury andpossessed with the righteous knowledgethat justice, if not the law, was on their side,were giving their people, the poor, thedowntrodden, the dispossessed a voice;giving them hope of a better tomorrow,hope of better pay and working conditions,hope of a somewhat dignified life, hope ofoverturning history. The fight againstracial and class discrimination, againstexclusive social clubs, against plantationowners and the colonial government wason. St. Lucia, like the rest of the BritishCaribbean islands, was caught in thehurricane of a movement, the labormovement, and at the head of the St.Lucian movement was George Charles.

The pressures that labor unions andinfant political parties across the regionbrought to bear on the British Governmentbore fruit when in 1951 Britain introducedUniversal Adult Suffrage and institutedchanges in the structure of government that

George Charles And TheSt. Lucia Political Movement

B

an annual average of 142 percent, causinggross domestic product to more thandouble from EC$10 million ($147percapita) in 1950 to EC$27 million($303 percapita) in 1962.

After being crowned Chief Ministerof Government, here is what GeorgeCharles had to say about the socioeco-nomic effects of the banana industry on St.Lucia.

Interestingly, this overwhelmingLabor victory and the progressiveness ofthe economy would mark the beginning ofthe end of George Charles’ rather smoothand meteoric rise to the top leadership ofthe Union and the Labor Party. Ironically,this would happen just when the leader-ship of the party would be vested for thefirst time with real power in the form ofChief Minister of government, andironically, John Compton, one of the othercandidates for the man of the centuryhonors, was the one chiefly responsible forthe political fall of George Charles.

n John Compton George Charleswould have been hard pressed to find amore formidable foe. John Compton

was a man whose life was shrouded inmystery and myth. He was credited withtremendous sexual prowess and withsupernatural feats, such as what allegedlyoccurred during the 1993 banana strikewhen he drove through a furnace ofburning tires and other debris (set byprotesting farmers attempting to deny

The Banana Industry was in thepinnacle of this momentum and thesunlight of hope was to be seen on thefaces of large and small farmers,merchants, civil servants, teachers,fishermen, market vendors, specula-tors and workers. Small merchantsmushroomed overnight to formidablebusiness institutions, the moreestablished merchants filled theWilliam Peter Boulevard and BridgeStreet with business premises ofmodern sophistication. The RoyalBank of Canada which closed itsdoors to St. Lucia during the years ofdepressions returned eagerly seekingits portion of the spoils, then followedthe Bank of Nova Scotia all anxious toserve a developing St. Lucia. Theworking class felt free to verballydefend themselves before theiremployers.

John ComptonStakes His Claim

I

allowed greater electoral participation. Inthe general elections held later that year, thefirst elections that involved mass participa-tion, the St. Lucia Labor Party won five ofthe eight electoral seats, the People’sProgressive Party, formed also in 1950 andperceived as the Party of the middle andupper middle classes, won two seats, and anindependent candidate won the remainingseat.

On March 15, 1956, Britain introduceda ministerial system of government. Thus,as the party with the most members on theExecutive Council, the St. Lucia LaborParty of 1956 became the first governmentof the people and by the people. This firstlabor Government included GeorgeCharles, Minister of Social Affairs; Dr.Karl G. LaCorbiniere, Minister of Tradeand Production; Herman B. Collymore,Minister of Communication and Works; andClive A.M. Compton, Minister withoutportfolio. Taking advantage of its elevateds ta tus , the newly formed LaborGovernment quickly updated the labor lawsto address such issues as holidays with pay,workmen’s compensation, child labor, therights of trade unions, and hours of work.

General elections came again in1957 tomark the third such elections underUniversal Adult Suffrage. On contestingthese elections, George Charles who was bythen the President of the St. Lucia WorkersUnion was elected political leader of the St.Lucia Labor Party, and John Comptondeputy political leader. At that election theLabor Party, continuing its success at thepolls, won seven of eight electoral seats.

Three years later, January 1, 1960,Britain granted St. Lucia a new Constitutionthat, among other things, made provisionsfor a Chief Minster who essentially wouldhead the government. As leader of his party,George Charles became the country’s firstChief Minister, responsible for Finance,Internal Revenue, and Medical and PublicRelations. In April 1961, soon after theseconstitutional changes, the government, aswas required by Great Britain, calledgeneral elections at which the Labor Partywon nine of ten seats.

Coinciding with and propelling thisnewly acquired political autonomy was thedevelopment of the banana industry, whichsince its renewed inception in 1951, grewso rapidly that exports increased over ahundredfold from a mere 27 tons (worthEC$4000) in 1950, representing only 0.2percent of exports, to 3.8 thousand tons(worth EC$490,000) in 1954, or 14 percentof all exports. Eleven years later, in 1965, St.Lucia exported 84.4 thousand tons, valuedat EC$9.3 million and forming more than83 percent of all exports. In fact, over the1950-1965 period, banana exports grew by

Winter 200518

vehicularly passage), with seemingly nodamage to his car or his person, yet when atrailing vehicle attempted the same feat itburnt to uselessness. John Compton’sregular alternation between head of stateand banana farmer was no less mystifying.It was not unusual during the course of aday for the Premier to lead the debate inparliament or hold court with other worldleaders, then following this trade his tieand business jacket for banana stainedclothes and long rubber boots, jump intohis rickety vehicle, leave behind thesuffocating heat and crowdedness ofCastries, and head twenty miles south tohis banana farm at Mahaut in the deepinterior of St. Lucia, where with cutlass inhand he would tend to his bananas nodifferent from any ordinary peasantfarmer. Even John Compton’s birth was asubject of mystery and myth. At the turn ofthe century the Compton clan had movedto St. Lucia from the neighboring island ofSt. Vincent. The move forever brought intoquestion John Compton’s place of birthand hence his St. Lucian nationality. Manywere convinced that he was either born inSt. Vincent or on the waters that separatedthe two islands. For years to comeopposition political parties attempted touse the question of his birth place to denyhim the people’s vote. Nonetheless, JohnCompton never did lose an election, hisopponents’s barbs serving only to enhancehis mythical persona. It was often said ofJohn Compton that he could never hold asteady gaze, much less look one straight inthe eye. Obviously, this was meant as anegative, but it tuned out to be yet anotherone of the attacks on John Compton thatrather than harming him succeeded inelevating him above the ordinary affairs ofmen.

After graduating from St. Mary’sCollege, John Compton worked for severalyears in Curacao, and then emmigrated toEngland in the late 1940's to pursue hiseducation. When he returned to St. Lucia in1951 with a university degree in Law andEconomics, he found a country on themove—three labor unions were inoperation, Universal Adult Suffrage wasyesteryear’s news, and the island’s twopolitical parties (the St. Lucia Labor Partyand the People’s Progressive Party) hadalready contested a general election.George Charles and his brothers in thestruggle were on a high. Any and every-thing seemed possible. In that euphoricstate of mind both the St. Lucia WorkersUnion and the St. Lucia Labor Party weremore than welcoming of fresh and talentedmen who could help in the struggle. So,unsuspecting that the very cause of his joywould later cause him great grief, George

Charles, referring to the arrival of JohnCompton and Maurice Mason from theirstudies, wrote: “The Labor Movementheralded this youthful and professionalinjection with enthusiasm and MessrsCompton and Mason were quicklyembraced in the leadership.”

The years that John Compton attendedthe University of Wales and London Schoolof Economics had marked the beginning ofa new colonial world order. The wholeimpetus of world War II had been to defeattyranny and imperialism and to upholddemocracy. Consequently, after the war,European allies could not very well justifydenying democracy to others. Moreover,bruised and war weary, they had less of anappetite for overseas warfare to maintaincolonial rule. By 1947, two years afterWorld War II, India and Pakistan hadfought and won their independence, andstarting in the fifties the African continenthad begun its independence march. It wasunder this climate of colonial cry forfreedom that John Compton read his lawdegree. One could well imagine him and hisother Caribbean and African classmates, allleaders in the making, staying up deep intothe night, arguing and discussing theinjustices of colonial rule, fueling theirfeverish impatience to return home to jointhe fight against colonialism and take theirrightful place at the head of the govern-ments that would replace their colonialcounterparts .

So, understandably, John Comptonarrived home feisty and impatient.And rightfrom the start it was clear that he was aperson of independent mind, who, if needbe, was quite willing to go it alone. IndeedJohn Compton’s upbringing suggested thathe would have had to form a habit ofindependence. For although his yellow,almost white complexion would have givenhim greater access than otherwise in thisthen color and class conscious society, hiscomplexion and the question of hisbirthplace would have rendered him anoutsider in his own country. Throughouthistory this outsider status, this living on thefringe of one’s own society, has affordedone the insights of the observer, theonlooker, but has left one with no choice butto depend more than others on one’s ownresources.

The first clue to John Compton’sindependence of mind and which GeorgeCharles should have taken as a signal ofJohn Compton’s imminent challenge for theleadership of the Labor Party and thecountry came in 1954 as the Party waspositioning itself to contest the second postUniversal Adult Suffrage general elections.For this elections the Party had nominatedJames Charles as its candidate for the

Dennery-Micoud seat. However, JohnCompton had other ideas. He insisted oncontesting that seat, so he entered and wonthe race as an independent candidate. Thispolitical move alienated John Comptonfrom the Party, but unrepentant he took upwriting a column coined the “JackSpaniard” in the , a Unionnewspaper, in which according to GeorgeCharles he denounced “the aristocracyand social discrimination.”

During the famous 1957 sugarworkers strike, John Compton wouldshow his mettle once again when as aunion activist and elected representativehe entered the compound of the Dennerysugar factory to articulate the Union’sdemands, only to find himself staring atthe end of a gun held by the owner of thefactory, and having to draw his own gun to

bring the confrontation to a stalemate.This image, this symbol, of John Comptonlike David facing Goliath, singlehandedlyfacing the enemy of the people, the enemythat had enslaved their ancestors, andreturning unscathed and victorious, wouldfurther contribute to his mythical andepic-hero persona. This gun totingconfrontation did not however end thestrike. In responding to it, the magistrateinvoked the riot act. Police from Barbadosand Grenada joined those of St. Lucia. ABritish warship came to port. Sugarworkers were so readily arrested and jailedthat according to George Charles he andthe Union went broke bailing them out. InCastries, on their way to joining sugarworkers from the Cul-de-Sac Valley, it wasonly the quick reaction of John Comptonwhen he pushed George Charles from theback and tumbled over him that saved

Workers Clarion

19The Jako

colonial grip somewhat, but to some extentthe hands of George Charles and the otherSLP ministers of government were stilltied. Responsibility for financial matterswas still in the hands of the Governor of theWindward Islands. Legislation proposedby the Executive Council had to receivethe endorsement of the Colonial Office inEngland before they could pass into law.Heads of government departments couldoverride ministerial decisions by lodgingtheir disagreements or complaints with thegovernor for final ruling.An administrator,appointed by the governor, was stillpresiding over the Executive Council andwas in effect heading the government.Further constitutional changes in 1961abolished the post of the Governor of theWindward Islands. The role of theadministrator who had now become theQueen’s representative was reduced to amore ceremonial one, and the ChiefMinister had become the head of thegovernment. Still, George Charles’s SLPgovernment could not operate with fulldomestic autonomy. Since the 1930's St.Lucia had been operating under a Grant-in-Aid condition whereby Great Britain hadto approve of its annual budget before itwent into effect. According to GeorgeCharles, under fear of having eventually topick up the bill, England was bent oncrossing out important developmentprojects from the budget, even when the St.Lucian government was willing and able tosecure funding elsewhere. Convinced thatthis British policy was impeding nationalgrowth and development, in 1964, at therisk of forfeiting grants and other financialaid from the British, the SLP governmentopted out of the Grand-in-Aid clause.Clearly, throughout his public life andright up to the very end of his politicalcareer, George Charles had been fightingagainst the plantocracy, against class andracial divisions, against colonial rule, tosecure union recognition, workers’ rights,political representation for the masses, andto claim the island for the majority of itspeople.

Nonetheless, the accomplishmentsattributed to George Charles need to beseen more as the accomplishments of firsta labor movement and then a politicalmovement of which George Charles was amember. Therefore, an important questionto ask is: Why then was it George Charleswho rose to such status? This is a difficultquestion to answer, because at first glanceGeorge Charles may not have been one’sfirst choice for a national leader. Of slightbuild and mild demeanor he was by nomeans an imposing figure. He was agraduate of the St. Mary’s College, the besteducation to be had in St. Lucia at that

replaced George Charles as Chief Ministerof government. Following the elections,adding insult to injury, the Labor Party lostcontrol of the Castries Town Board.

After Labor’s defeat in the 1964general elections, although George Charleshad won his seat, his political stock fellsharply. In 1967 the St. Lucia Labor Partyelected Kenneth Foster as political leader,and two years later Charles Augustinreplaced George Charles as President of theSt. Lucia Workers Union. Following thisturn of events, at the prompting of thebanana carriers, George Charles estab-lished a new labor union, The St. LuciaAgricultural and General Workers Union.

When general elections came along in1969, the Labor Party found itselfembroiled in internal disputes over theassignment of delegates to constituencydistricts. To sidestep the internal strife,George Charles formed the St. LuciaLabor Party United Front, under which hecontested the South Castries constituency.Jean Reynolds, who unsuccessfullycontested the Vieux Fort seat, was the onlyother candidate of that new party. At theseelections, the Labor Party won three seats,United Front (George Charles) won oneseat, and the John Compton Led UnitedWorkers Party won the remaining six seatsto once again form the government. GeorgeCharles served out his term as electedrepresentative of South Castries and then(at the age of sixty) bowed out of politics,but by then and under his watch thegovernment had reclaimed the Morne fromthe British, had successfully negotiated thereturn of the Gros Islet and Vieux Fortbases, had gotten the Americans to build asecondary school in Vieux Fort, and hadsecured from them St. Jude’s Hospital,power stations, water plants and waterreservoirs. But more importantly, GeorgeCharles had helped lay the politicalfoundation and establish the industrialrelations upon which to build a nation.

To place George Charles’s accomplish-ments in proper perspective, it is importantto remember that his entire public life hadbeen an uphill battle in which he had neverquite reached the top of the mountain orattained a plateau that could afford himrespite. Universal suffrage and opengeneral elections came in 1951 but thebattle for claiming the island for themajority of its people had just begun. Inthese elections the SLP had gained a clearmajority of elected members in govern-ment, yet the first SLP resolution intro-duced (by George Charles) in theLegislative Council, which sought tolegalize holidays with pay, had met withdefeat. The ministerial system introducedby Britain in 1956 had loosened the

George Charles from the thrustingbayonet of a policeman, but not the arm of aworker who was trailing them. On adifferent occasion, police guards fired atGeorge Charles as he was walking out ofthe Cul-de-Sac Sugar factory.

By the fifth week of the strike theUnion concluded that if the strike didn’tend soon it would turn into a civil war, so tohasten matters it spread the strike to bananaworkers and banana carriers in Castries,which effectively placed a strangle-hold onthe country. A few days after, the factoriescame to the negotiating table. The rights ofthe union for collective representationwere recognized. Workers got wageincreases. The factories agreed to improvethe methods of transporting canes bywagons to avoid spillage and to constantlyinspect the scales used for weighing task-workers’ harvested canes. After thesettlement, John Compton was brought tocourt and convicted and fined for disturb-ing the peace. But thanks to his heroicsduring the strike, which according toGeorge Charles helped foster a feeling ofbrotherhood and camaraderie, the LaborParty warmly welcomed him back to thefold.

But unfortunately for George Charles,John Compton’s return to the party wouldbe short-lived. After the 1961 generalelections, disappointed that GeorgeCharles and not himself was the oneappointed Chief Minister, John Comptonalong with two other elected members leftthe Labor government and formed theNational Labor Movement Party. Then onApril 1, 1964, The Bousquet brothers(J.M.D. and Alan Bousquet ), resignedfrom the Labor Party, citing their dissatis-faction over the 1962 governmentrestructuring of the SLBGA as the reasonfor their departure. The Labor Party nolonger had a majority in the house, so ChiefMinister George Charles opted for apremature general elections.

o contest these general elections,the John Compton-led NationalLabor Movement Party joined

forces with the People’s Progressive LaborParty to form the United Workers Party. Atthese elections the Labor Party won onlytwo seats, while the United Workers Party,joined by the Bousquet brothers who hadrun and won as independent Laborcandidates, carried eight seats. After theelections the UWP elected John Comptonas leader of the party, and John Compton

The Fall OfGeorge Charles

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Winter 200520

the other Union leaders elected to theLegislature, proclaimed “a private in ageneral’s uniform is still a private.” On bothoccasions the doubters of George Charles’ability had to take back their words.Reporting on the World Labor Conference,Caribbean newspapers depicted GeorgeCharles as one of the stars of the confer-ence; and the author of the famous state-ment “a private in a general’s uniform is stilla private” later openly withdrew hisstatement on account of how impressed hewas with the performance of the George

Charles led SLP government. These twoepisodes suggest that all along the waythere were doubters of George Charles’qualifications or ability to lead, and GeorgeCharles had a habit of exceeding people’sexpectations of him.

To understand George Charles’appeal,one may have to examine the intangibles.Reports about him suggest that he was aselfless man who habitually placed theinterest of the union, the party, the countryabove his own. As mentioned earlier, radiocall-in programs commemorating his deathwere overloaded with calls from peoplepraising his goodness and generosity, someindicating that he had used his own moneyto help them build their homes.Agenerositythat must have come at some personalsacrifice because in George Charles’ lateryears it was the John Compton led UWPgovernment who had to come to his rescueand build him a home. Comments fromobservers and a reading of George Charles’memoirs suggest that he was totally

time. However, quite a few of his col-leagues had gone beyond a secondaryschool education: some were lawyers,some were doctors. There was nothingauspicious about his background andupbringing. He was of a working classfamily from Marchand. In fact, the onevisible trait that may have set GeorgeCharles apart was his performance on thepolitical platform. It is said that once upthere his diminutive figure would seem-ingly elevate to six-feet and he would roarlike a lion. Nonetheless, besides his

platform metamorphosis, one mayconclude that there were few tangible cluesthat would have foretold George Charles’political rise.

In fact, all along the way there werethose who doubted George Charles’squalifications for the leadership role. In1949 upon the invitation of the BritishTrades Union Congress the St. LuciaWorkers Union selected George Charles torepresent St. Lucia at a “Free World LaborConference.” The St. Lucian governmentpaid for his boat fare, while the BritishTrades Union Congress covered remainingexpenses. According to George Charles,the occasion engendered much debate inthe St. Lucia Legislature, as some ques-tioned his stature and ability to representthe island at an international conferencethat the government was helping tosponsor. In 1956 when the LegislativeCouncil was debating the change to aministerial government, a nominatedmember, referring to George Charles and

committed and dedicated to the mission ofadvancing workers rights and claiming theisland for the majority of its people. Fromhis memoirs one also gathered that hispreferred approach to arriving at decisionswas by consensus. This combined with hisperceived selflessness would havesignaled to his colleagues that with GeorgeCharles as leader there was no need to beafraid of being locked out. Unlike many ofhis colleagues, George Charles didn’t havea profession. After secondary school heworked as a clerk for a few years, then for ayear inAruba and then back to St. Lucia in1945 when he was swept into the labormovement. The work of the Union and thework of the state had been George Charles’profession. It appeared that he was a mansingular in purpose. All this suggest thatwhat George Charles lacked in physicalstature or education he more than made upfor in character, dedication and commit-ment.And what better man to lead, than theone most dedicated and committed to thecause?

Lead, George Charles did, but likeMoses of the children of Israel it seemed hewas never meant to enter the promisedland. For on March 1, 1967, three yearsafter the1964 general elections usheredJohn Compton into power, as if divinelyordained, St. Lucia attained AssociatedStatehood. The country took full control ofits internal affairs, while Britain remainedresponsible for its defense and foreignaffairs in consultation with the governmentof St. Lucia. Under Statehood, theLegislative and Executive Councils werereplaced by a Cabinet and a House ofAssembly, and the post of theAdministrator as the Queen’s representa-tive was filled by a local Governor. Thefirst Governor under this new Constitutionwas Dr. Frederick J. Clarke. The Cabinet,to be headed by a Premier instead of aChief Minister, would comprise fiveministers, the Attorney General and theSecretary to the Cabinet. The house ofAssembly would include the Speaker, tenelected members, three nominatedmembers, and theAttorney General.As theleader of his party, John Compton madehistory when he became the first (and whatwould be the only) Premier of St. Lucia.

With statehood, John Comptonacquired something George Charles neverhad—full control of the island’s domesticaffairs. This, along with a thriving bananaindustry that was transforming thesocioeconomic and physical landscape ofthe island, gave John Compton the tools tomove beyond the struggle for labor andpolitical rights, to laying down theeconomic and infrastructural foundationof the country.

George Charles’ funeral procession

21The Jako

Between the time George Odlum leftSt. Lucia to study and when he took up thesecretariat position a lot had changed inAfrican, Caribbean and African Americanpolitics. The post World War IIAfrican cryfor freedom had for the most part beenanswered. Beginning with Ghana in 1957,three quarters or forty-two out of fifty-sixAfrican countries or territories had gainedtheir independence (Egypt and Liberiawere independent long before World WarII, and Ethiopia was never colonized). Themen who led and fought these nationall i b e r a t i o n m o v e m e n t s — K w a m eNkrumah, Patrice Lumumba, JomoKenyatta, Julius Kambarage NyerereSekou Touré just to name a few becamenot only national idols, but heroes to the

whole non-western world. As was tobe expected, in the euphoria ofindependence, the African continentwas adopting an increasingly panAfricanist stance. Not to be left out,the English speaking Caribbeanterritories of Jamaica, Guyana,Trinidad and Tobago, and Barbadoshad also gained their independence.By then the 1957 Cuban revolutionwas so firmly instituted that wher-ever there was a cry for help, FidelCastro in conjunction with CheGuevera answered with the gospel ofarmed national liberation andrevolution. In America, MartinLuther King had already led his CivilRights matches and delivered hisfamous “I Have A Dream” speech;

and the seeds of armed self-defense andblack nationalism that Malcolm X wasable to sow before his assassination in1966 was germinating into the BlackPanther and Black Power Movements.Worldwide, communism and socialismwere on the move and had become thedoctrines of choice for oppressed,marginalized, and colonized peopleseeking to rid themselves of their oppres-sors who more often than not were ofWestern European extract and exponentsof capitalism. Communism mixed withnationalism had become a potent catalyticbrew of societal change. In St. Lucia, witha concoction of Marcus Garveyism orAfricanism, nationalism, nature activism,spiritualism, Bob Marley, reggae musicand marijuana the Rastafarian Movementwas about to launch a social and culturalrevolution.

Apparently, all of these cross currentsof ideologies, doctrines, movements, andheroic personalities had found a home inGeorge Odlum, to which he added anastute intellect, a potent combination ofwell honed oratory, literary and theatricalskills, and, it would seem, a born-to-lead

,, —

Shakespeare’s “Julius Caesar.” During thattime George Odlum was also making aname for himself in theatre. He was amember of the famous St. Lucia Arts Guildout of which arose such art and literarygiants as Dunstan St. Omer, Garth St. Omer,and the Walcott brothers.

In 1956, at the young age of twenty-two, George Odlum left St. Lucia (appar-ently on his own resources) for London topursue his education. According to JonOdlum, he did not have an easy time there.To survive George Odlum took up somenovel occupations, including playing aTurkish dancer in a street festival; and forthe first time he took up barbering, hisfather’s old trade. Nonetheless, in EnglandGeorge Odlum’s fame followed him to both

the playing field and the classroom. For hisheroics between the goalpost the Englishfondly renamed him the “flying darkie.”George Odlum studied at Bristol andOxford Universities where he earned B.A.and M.A. degrees with concentrations inPhilosophy, Political Science, Economics,and English Literature. At Bristol he madehistory when he became the first blackperson to captain the university’s debatingteam.

With his Masters and his well-honeddebating and speaking skills in hand,George Odlum returned to St. Lucia in 1961to take up the post of secretary in theMinistry of Trade in George Charles’sLabor Government.After three years in thatpost and coinciding with John Compton’sUWP unseating of the Labor PartyGovernment, George Odlum returned toEngland where he worked as an Economistwith the Commonwealth Secretariat. Thenin 1967, at the age of thirty-three, GeorgeOdlum returned to St. Lucia to take up theprestigious position of the Secretary of theWest Indies Associated States Secretariat,and, judging from hindsight, to begin hispolitical career.

George OdlumMakes His Entrance

General elections came along in1974 and for the first time since the1964 general elections had

propelled UWP into power, the LaborParty would become a serious threat.Plagued by droughts, the banana industrywas in sharp decline. Mr. Allan Louisywho had recently given up his judgeship atthe Supreme Court of the West IndiesAssociated States to join the political forayhad brought a boost of respectability andintegrity to a Labor Party that hadbeen riddled with infighting andinstability. But above all, GeorgeOdlum, the third candidate for theman of the century honors, wouldjoin the Labor Party and make hisgrand entrance onto the St. Lucianpolitical stage, and in the processchange the politics of the country.

Even from his teenage yearsGeorge Odlum seemed destined forleadership, and no matter the field ofendeavor he stood above the rest. Itwas as if stardom was his birthright.At St. Mary’s college where he wasan honors student and later anEnglish, History and Literatureteacher, his goal-keeping (the best onthe island by many estimates) was sobrilliant and inspiring that teenageboys idolized and hero worshiped him. Ofthose days, Ramanus Lansiquot, a St.Mary’s College student of George Odlum,said: “It was an honor for St. Mary’sCollege students to carry George’s footballboots after a match on Vigie Playing Field,to his home on St. Louis Street, withGeorge leading the march all the way. Infact, we (boys) fought among ourselves tohave the great privilege to carry George’sfootball boots in the full view of cheeringfans.” George Odlum also carried hisnotoriety into the classroom, which byhindsight almost certainly was a trainingground for the spellbinding oratory skillsfor which he would become famous. Jon,his younger brother, said that as a teacher atSt. Mary’s College, George Odlumdelighted in “bamboozling” his studentswith Latin and Shakespeare quotes. VictorMarquis, editor of the Voice Newspaperand author of three books, recounted how,at his moonlight graduation party at RatIsland, he and his mentor, George Odlum,lay side by side on their backs, staring at themidnight moon and together recited wordfor word, from beginning to end,

Winter 200522

posture and self confidence. Thus GeorgeOdlum would emerge on the St. Lucianpolitical scene with slogans and ideologiesevocative of communism and blacknationalism, with a demeanor and dresscode seemingly patterned after revolution-aries like Fidel Castro and Che Guevera,and with a drama and theatrical flairreminiscent of Shakespearean plays.

Soon after George Odlum’s 1967return to St. Lucia, he took over theCrusader Newspaper and joined the St.Lucia Forum, an avowedly apolitcal think-tank that sought to educate the populationon the workings and policies ofGovernment, and to act as a watchdogagainst government corruption, as well asto variously advise, criticize, or praise thegovernment as they saw its actions andpolicies merited. Besides George Odlum,Peter Josie, a University of the West Indies(UWI) trained agronomist, working withthe St. Lucia Ministry ofAgriculture, alsofeatured prominently in the St. LuciaForum. Together, Peter Josie and GeorgeOdlum, would become one of the mostformidable political duos of St. Lucianpolitics.

One of George Odlum’s definingmoments as a member of the St. LuciaForum was with regard to the EducationAct. Before then the island’s educationsystem was mostly under the supervisionof the Roman Catholic Church. TheEducationAct, therefore, sought to free theschools from the hands of the Church andplace them under government control.However, interpreting the proposed Act asa direct attack on its authority, the churchopposed it, and since over 90 percent of thepopulation were Roman Catholic, thegovernment definitely had a fight on itshand. The Forum came out in support of theEducation Act. At a Forum rally hundredsof people came out to demonstrate againstthe Act and the Forum. Facing the hostilecrowd, George Odlum had marshaled thebest of his oratory and debating skills tofirst silence the booing assembly, and thenhave them applaud and agree with him onwhy the Act was good for St. Lucia.Following the rally, the Act received broadpublic support and passed into law.

n 1972, with the 1974 general electionsdrawing near, the Forum discarded itsapolitical stance, and joined with

Julian Hunte (the Mayor of Castries whohad recently defected from the UWP) and a

It’ll Be AlrightIn The Morning

I

few disillusioned members of the LaborParty to form the St. Lucia Labor ActionMovement (SLAM). By then the Forumhad gained a good deal of popularity andwas credited with improving the people’sunderstanding of the workings of govern-ment. It was also credited with instilling agreater appreciation of local products, andwith fostering pride in St. Lucia’s creoleculture. However, despite all thesepositives, SLAM’s public reception was atbest lukewarm. It didn’t help that the publichad linked the Forum, George Odlumespecially, to Black Power radicals, and thatthere was a suspicion that the Forum hadcommunist intentions. It didn’t help eitherthat at public meetings George Odlum wasdispensing such statements as: “We do notbelieve in party politics ... We must findanother way;” and “the next batch of St.Lucians to fool the people of St. Lucia willbe hanged in Columbus Square.”

May 1973, barely one year away fromgeneral elections, Geest banana workers atthe Cul-de-Sac and Roseau Valleys,protesting against low wages and what theyperceived as undesirable working condi-tions, went on a strike that would presentGeorge Odlum with yet another definingmoment and would allow him and PeterJosie to discover what John Compton andGeorge Charles had discovered long beforethem. That the quickest way to politicalfame was not by well meaning (much lessself-serving) intellectual forums, but byingratiating oneself with the cause ofworkers. Upon the promise of wageincreases to be negotiated among Geest,the Minister of Labor, and the AgriculturalWorkers Union (led by George Charles),workers soon returned to work. However,faced with a fledgling political party,George Odlum and Peter Josie refused to letan opportunity of getting into the goodgraces of the workers passed them by. Upontheir encouragement, the workers resumedthe strike and George Odlum and PeterJosie subsequently led a group of workers,allegedly mostly middle-aged and elderlywomen, on a protest march from the valleysto Castries where they hoped to force aconfrontation with Geest Industries. At theMorne they were confronted by police whoinstructed them to cease from the march andreturn home because according to regula-tions a march in Castries required a permitfrom the Commissioner of Police. Thestrikers responded that they would ratherdie than turn back. There was a stalemate.The police fired tear gas into the crowdthus turning George Odlum and Peter Josieinto saviors and heroes who were willing tostand with workers even unto death.

The Stoby commission that the

government had appointed to investigatethe strike and the problems of the bananaindustry wasn’t similarly impressed. Onthe contrary, though it would recommend

an increase in wages, the commission’sreport would state that because of lowprofit margins the industry could notsurvive the high wages that the workerswere demanding, and that the actions ofPeter Josie, George Odlum and TomWalcott, another member of SLAM, hadunnecessarily prolonged the strike.Indirectly accusing the ex Forum membersof foul intentions, the report also madeclear that acts of violence under thedisguise of Black Power or any ideologywere not to be tolerated.

Undaunted, following the strike,George Odlum and Peter Josie establishedthe Farmers and Farm Workers Union (ofwhich George Odlum was the firstpresident), thus institutionalizing theirstruggle for workers rights.

George Odlum and Peter Josie hadgained notoriety, but SLAM faced anuphill battle. At Vieux Fort and at Micoud,the stronghold of the Premier, crowdsjeered and stoned SLAM party membersoff their political platform. Defections andmembership apathy and disillusionmentwould soon set in, and before long SLAMwas reduced to only three active mem-bers—George Odlum, Peter Josie, andTom Walcott. On the other hand,weakened by defection and a long historyof political infighting, the Labor Partywasn’t in much better shape than SLAM tocontest the 1974 general elections. So, notunlike when the John Compton ledNational Labor Movement Party had

23The Jako

joined forces with the Peoples ProgressiveLabor Party to successfully contest the1964 general elections, just months beforethe 1974 elections, George Odlum, PeterJosie, and Tom Walcott of SLAM joinedforces with the Labor Party. So too didretired Supreme Court Judge, AllanLouisy. Hunter Francois, Minister ofEducation, who, calling John Compton aliar and a dictator, had resigned from bothhis ministerial post and the UWP, soonfollowed the example of the retired Judge.Finally, given this injection of newpersonnel, it wasn’t too difficult tosuccessfully convince some recentlydefected members of the Labor Party toreturn to the fold.

And so it was that it came to pass thatthe Labor Party would amass under itsbanner the most highly educated politicalplatform to ever grace the St. Lucianlandscape. Needless to say, unlike theLabor Party that John Compton had facedin the previous two general elections, henow had a more formidable foe on hishands. It didn’t help that with the defectionof Julian Hunte and Hunter Francois,considered two of the more capablemembers of the UWP, his party wasthought to have grown weaker. And as ifhis troubles weren’t enough, the bananaindustry was being strangled by anextended drought.

Yet, miraculously and further addingto John Compton’s mythical invincibility,the UWP won the elections by a ten toseven seat majority. But the electionswasn’t without drama and controversy.Despite his newly found fame in the Cul deSac and Roseau banana valleys, whichformed part of the constituency of hiscandidacy, and also despite the fact that hewas unquestioningly the best and mostcharismatic platform speaker of his Party,George Odlum, the man born to lead, losthis seat to Heraldine Rock, a relativelyunknown in St. Lucian politics. The LaborParty would have to swallow an even morebitter pill. The vote count on the night ofthe elections had the SLP candidate forVieux Fort winning by one vote, but comemorning a recounting of the votes pro-nounced the UWP candidate the victor byover thirty votes, an event so aptly capturedby the titleof a book by Rick Wayne. This irregularitymust have no doubt echoed déjà vu in theminds of Labor Party supporters oldenough to remember the 1964 electionswhen many were convinced that LaborParty candidate, Willie Volney, had won bysix votes, but only to lose to AllanBousquet, his UWP opponent, by threevotes.

It’ll be Alright in the Morning

The PassingOf A Great Man

Like a mighty oakin time’s forested valley,you came crashing downwith a pre-empting thud;And the smaller oaks around youtwirled and whimperedat your falling,While bigger, more towering oaks,In fraternal sincerityor impious ostentations,Bowed solemnlyand sang sweet hosannahsto your namethat detonated like a cannon.

Petty creatures in the ’hoodput on wings,and in unnumbered masses,volleyed over the voiled earthto see, perchance to touchThat felled thingthat had quaked the muted earth,Even beyond the rimsOf these pampered shoresthat awoke too lateto accept your worth.

And that calvaried place,The Golgotha of your sanitised

Hospital roomwhere your ghosttook leave of your mortal remainsand shuttled off to its maker,The tale is toldof how your tough bark,Your battle-scarred skinThat had weathered so many stormsseemed pitifully incapableof containing your hallowed sinews.

Our wretched world,like mummified Bedouins,now looks onat your gravel and mortar castlethat ill-befits your titanic mold,Vastly ignoring the message of your

dying:That the peopled earth is in fact one,as you squeezed that unityout of beckoned comrades’ flesh;And the last remaining of the Musketeerssqueezed flesh and a tearIn reading those potent lines,the confiteor of your political gospel;

In parting, you taught too,That truth is truth,though we spite the carrieror scorn the parchment on which it is

inscribed;

And that the forestthat grew that once mighty oak,Is no more incapable now,of producing other oaksto replace felled ones;That ‘the struggle’ that took your lifemust not die with your passing;And that, finallythe forest be shelteredby a canopy of love,that all may grow unwanting,Bearing fruit that is pleasing,till we face the Eternal Logger.

—Modeste Downes

John ComptonIs Dethroned

On February 22, 1979, amid heatedopposition from the Labor Party,St. Lucia attained its full inde-

pendence from Britain, thus completingthe work of self-rule and self-determination that George Charles hadstarted decades before. With independ-ence, St. Lucia’s Parliament wouldinclude the Governor General, the Houseof Assembly and the Senate. The Houseof Assembly would comprise a Speaker,who may be elected from outside theHouse, and seventeen elected members.The Senate would comprise elevenSenators, six of whom would be appointedby the Governor General on the advice ofthe Prime Minister, three upon the adviceof the leader of the opposition party andtwo in consultation with the generalcommunity. The Cabinet, which remainedthe decision making body of government,would include the ministers of govern-ment led by a Prime Minister whoreplaced the Premier as the ChiefExecutive of government. John Comptonmade history again when in addition tobeing the first and only Premier of St.Lucia, he became the country’s first PrimeMinister.

Besides Independence, 1979 was anelection year and despite John Compton’smythical prowess there were many signsthat foretold the fall of the UWP. Bananaproduction had remained stagnant.Teachers and other government workerswere on strike for retroactive pay andhigher wages. The island was plaguedwith sugar and gasoline shortages.

But equally important, with theexperience of one general electioncampaign under his belt, George Odlumhad arrived at the peak of his political

Winter 200524

prowess. Dressed in army fatigues, andweaving satire, vivid imagery, literaryquotes and St. Lucian creole into anintoxicating web of words, he held St.Lucians and visitors alike spellbound. Buthis objective wasn’t entertainment. WhenGeorge Odlum was studying in England hewas reported to have told a friend that heintended to be the Premier (PrimeMinister) of St. Lucia by the time he wasforty. Yet George Odlum was about to turnforty-five, and he had tasted not even aparliamentary representative seat, muchless the Prime Ministership. Clearly, the1979 elections was for George Odlum amatter of urgency. As the elections drewnear, his platform rhetoric, and that ofPeter Josie and some other members of theLabor Party was increasingly laced withpromises of a forceful take over of thegovernment if they were to lose theelections. They could be heard announc-ing, “if we cannot get into power by law,then we will get into power by violence.”

Also spelling doom for the UWP wasthe Labor Party’s success in painting JohnCompton as a dictator, lording it over aninept and corrupt government wherenepotism was the norm, and which was

intent on taking from the poor to give to thewealthy. The Labor Party wasn’t withouthelp in making their case. As exemplifiedby its frequent platform cry, “listen to yourmasters,” the UWP displayed greatarrogance and an attitude that they were thelords and masters of the people.

According to George Odlum and theLabor Party, conditions in St. Lucia weresufficiently dire or appalling to warrantdisposing of the UWP government by anymeans necessary. And it appeared that thesewere not idle threats, for it was rumored thatthe radical members of the Labor Party hada plan in place to overthrow the governmenta few days before the elections. There werealso rumors that the party had sent peopleto Cuba to train in the art of overthrowinggovernments, and it had received largecaches of arms from Cuba’s Fidel Castroand money from Libya’s Muammar al-Qaddafi. As if to match the platformrhetoric of George Odlum and Peter Josie,in this 1979 election campaign, there washardly a UWP rally that wasn’t aborted bybooing, and bottle and stone throwingcrowds of Labor Party supporters.

So great was the climate of fear and ofpending violence created by the unruliness

of Labor Party supporters, the allegedplots of overthrowing the government,and the platform rhetoric of GeorgeOdlum and Peter Josie, that many UWPsupporters were said to have stayed homeon polling day, hoping for a Labor Partyvictory and thus preclude the bloodshedthat may result from a coup d'etat. Theresults of the 1979 general electionssurprised no one, but brought great relief.The Labor Party won by a twelve to fiveseat majority. Referring to the pre-electionclimate of fear that the Labor Party hadspread throughout the country, a bitterJohn Compton said: “The SLP didn’t winan election. They hijacked a country.”

No matter. This time around GeorgeOdlum won his seat, so would he fulfil hisself-ordained destiny and become thePrime Minister of St. Lucia? Well, thenation would have to wait another sixmonths to find out.

Note: The second and final part of thisarticle, which will be about the samelength as the first part, will be carried inthe next issue of .The Jako

25The Jako

The planter, possibly a distant relationto the great W. G. stood at the crease in pot-bellied awe of a climate he had not known inthe shires of his youth, or in the mosquitoinfested jungles of Malaya where he hadbeen a rubber farmer until the bigger boys inthe trade bought him out. Sugar in the West

Indies was a thrivingbusiness and after a brieftrip back home to England,he boarded a Harrison

Liner at Southampton, to seek his fortune inanother far-flung corner of his Empire. Hewas a superb cricketer, if one judged bylocal standards and the dainty hand-clapping chorus which rose from the teatent. The arrogant snarl on his face as hewatched the ball race through the clippedgrass to the boundary further confirmed hisstatus to both players and spectators.Everyone turned out to the Sundayafternoon picnics to watch him bat. Wives attheir stations under the tea tent wouldsuspend their chores in expectation of ascintillating display of fireworks that was asrhythmic as the hips of village folk at anylocal dance. They watched as theirhusbands scurried to and fro in vain

attempts to outrace the ballto the boundary, providingcomic relief, to peals ofcultured laughter as theyskidded across the closecropped lawn, particularlywhen it rained.

The boy took note of allthese antics from his loftyperch in the coconut tree.He meticulously observedbody movements, anglesof delivery, the swerve ofthe ball leaving thebowler’s hand and inparticular the batsman ashe thrashed delivery afterdelivery past the latentgrasp of fieldsmen in abold cavalry charge,glorious, like a lostbrigade in a forgottenwood where conquest wasa solitary mood on themind of empire builders.On weekdays he watchedas sugarcane whitened

teeth with false smiles struggled todislodge the shilling on the center stump,where it substituted for bails. He sharedtheir pain of disillusionment at dusk whenthe planter pocketed his money andstrutted towards his bungalow not-outafter a long afternoon innings, leavingbehind the stumps and the matting for tiredhands to heave back to the garden shedbehind the kitchen. Someone alwayssecured the ball till the next day inanticipation of just rewards that nevermaterialized.

The boy honed his art in secret on apleasant patch along a riverbank, shadedfrom the rest of the world by cocoa leaves.He learnt to mould crude rubber balls fromthe sap of the balata tree, which swervedthrough the air without requiring seams.Already his young friends feared theaccuracy of his arm for he had masteredthe knack of getting this hard rotund objectto bounce, or shoot at will on any surface,even on glass, with the devastatingaccuracy of a guillotine. Usually hepracticed alone, bowling at a solitarybroomstick cut in half until he was able tohit it four times out of six. But for him thatwas not good enough. Six from six was histarget, inspired by the thought of being thefirst among his people to rock back theplanter’s sticks. It became his ultimategoal, an obsession. One shilling was morethan a day’s wage and to do so at least onceon an afternoon would guarantee a place inthe pantheon of local legend, together withTi Jean, Flor and other great names hisgrandmother frequently referred to in her

Aboy, saddled in the crown of a

coconut palm, surveys his worldfrom a great height. A breeze fans

the palm fronds and he sways with hismind on a magic carpet ride to some newfangled realm of fantasy, occasionallybaring his back to the soft afternoon sun.Earlier he had helped thewhite flannelled planter rollout and stake the coormatting to the pitch, with itspatch, which read; “Made in Malaya,British Territories,” diagonally across thecenter. Then as if in an effort to reinforcethis statement to the world, a miniatureversion of the Union Jack in black andwhite substituted for a full stop. The boyfitted himself snugly between a cluster ofyoung nuts and the crown of leaves, fromwhere he could look down on his friendsfrom the surrounding estates jockeying tobe the first to dislodge the silver shillingthe white planter had stuck to his middlestump as an incentive to whoever wasfortunate to dislodge it with the old leatherball that was no longer round as aconsequence of constant hammering andfrequent visits to the shoemaker to restoreits seam.

��������������� ���������������������������������������

by Mc. Donald Dixon

26 Winter 2005

stories.Another ambition was to be invitedinto the planter’s circle on Sundayafternoons, and become the first native tomeet them on their turf as equals and as amark of respect for his talents. Demonspossessed his mind; the euphoria ofambition lathered his dreams. He longedfor recognition, not only for himself butalso for those poor bastards struggling inthe afternoon light for a rendezvous withfame.

Bareback down to his waist, his bodybeginning to reveal the early warning signsof a lithesome figure, his ‘lats’ protrudingbelow his armpits like flying fish wings,ribbons of cloth flagging like buntingaround his legs fluttering in the breeze onEmpire Day, he begins his assault on thestatus quo, knowing that failure was not analternative. Clockworks wound toprecision—down to the infinitesimalsecond—allowing minimum margins forerror, he joins the older boys on the field ofplay. He had observed planter and labourerduel for two full years. He had practicedhis arm hitting the broomstick daily withalmost every ball. Still, physically, a shadesmaller than the older boys who foughteach weekday afternoon with religiousfervour for the elusive bob on the planter’scenter stump, he felt that he would bejostled around before he earned the respectof his peers when in possession of the ball.However, in his heart he knew his momentof glory had come. Fame was one ballaway. He gave the top he had carvedhimself from guava wood, along with afew chipped marbles to his siblings. Helost interest in all the other games that hadoccupied his boyhood except this one. Inhis mind there was room for only oneobsession, not even destiny could derail.

The first time he set foot on the field ofplay was a Wednesday afternoon after aheavy shower had made climbing almostimpossible and most of the older boys hadhurried to the cocoa shed to secure thedrying beans from the rain. He felt a heatrise behind his ears spilling over to hisforehead that soon engulfed his entirebody. It was the unearthly urge to declarehis presence. He was unable to controlmovement in his feet. They propelled himforward from the thicket towards theclose-cropped grass of the arena. Theplanter was his usual exuberant self,struggling to disguise his elation as hechipped away at the feeble attack withaccustomed ease. It was going to be a longafternoon for the fieldsmen, he needed toconserve his energies to be still at thecrease at twilight, which comes quickly inthese parts after an afternoon downpour.At first, the other players did not observethe nondescript fieldsman encroaching on

their space, increasing their number, untilthe planter heaved a full volley through thecovers with terrific force that scorched astraight line to the boundary. Anoutstretched hand snatched the missile—onfirst bounce—before it crossed theboundary line. Uncanny, with the ease of acat, he had come.Ashaft of light from undera cloud accompanied him on the field ofplay.

He was a somewhat reticent figure,almost stationary, less than a few feet withinthe arena, but when the ball came his way heuncoiled with economy in his movement; astretch sometimes, reaching forward topluck it from the grass, even if it moved atthe speed of light. He fielded with a felinegrace; without as much as a pause betweencupping and throwing the ball back into thehands of the bowler, who most times stoodimmobile at the wicket, mesmerized by thespeed of those young limbs. Less than asecond before the bowler had been rudelydispatched and was beginning to feel down-spirited when out from the boundary comesa thunderbolt of hope. It was his right tobowl but he did not claim it. He preferred tolimber up his muscles and await his turn. Heknew from spying from his lofty perch inthe coconut trees the older boys would soonbegin to feel the wear and tear on their legmuscles and go through the motions ofturning their arms over their shoulders moreout of an obscure sense of duty to their boss,than love for the game. The Planter knewthis too and was biding his time, conservinghis energies for the onslaught to follow.

The boy waited his moment in silence.He treated the others as though they werestrangers although he knew them from thesurrounding estates, their little brotherswere his friends. They did not treat hispresence with any measure of significanceeither, after all he had barely past fourteen,and some of them were a full four years hissenior. Besides, they were intent onwrenching the shilling from the planter andwould allow nothing else to enter their fieldof focus. The jostling which was robust inthe first hour was gradually slowing downas fatigue gripped calf muscles. Soonbowling would become routine: a gentlemovement, turning hands over head like anordinary reflex action that must becompleted in the hope of an unlikelymiracle. No miracle happened and thehumid afternoon bore on with its hazy sunheading westward towards the sea to signalthe advent of dusk. Two of the older chapswere alternating at the crease, without anysign of purpose in their strides. Thefieldsmen were going through their motionsreturning the ball to the bowling crease toone or the other, for they had lost the zeal tocontinue and were waiting for the Planter to

signal the end of the day’s play by takingoff his gloves. The boy could almost hearthem yawn and chuckled to himself. ThePlanter straightened his spine from thecrouching stance he had adopted earlier,and then started spanking the ball with thekind of ferocity attributed to exorcists inthe face of demons. It was time to strike.He squared his shoulders, then, waltzeddown the wicket with a murderous rage.The ball ricocheted off the meat of the batflattening the grass in its path. The boystretched forward, effortlessly to his rightand stopped it cleanly, evoking from thebowler a slight applause that spreadcontagiously—by instinct—to the rest ofthe field. The planter acknowledged with awry smile. It was then the unbelievablehappened. The boy tossed the ball gently inthe air, giving it a slight tweak with hisindex finger, then began marching slowlytowards the bowling crease. The planter’ssmile broadened into a grin. He glancedover his shoulders to reaffirm the positionof the stumps behind his back. The otherswere too weary to bother to claim theascendancy of seniority and allowed theboy his right to bowl without a quibble.

The shilling lying flat like a bail on thecenter stump filled his mind as he canteredin, with bounce and rhythm, to bowl. Thewind fluttered through the ribbons of hisshirt-tail flapping like a kite behind him.He was fast becoming a mystical figure;the proverbial Ti Jean from village folktales, the avenging hero, to the rescue ofhis brethren. His mind was still in a dazewhen delivered. The planter twisted andcurled as the ball curved into his body andnot till the last second did the bat comedown in a defensive prod to save thestumps from shattering. There was a loudapplause. This had seldom happenedbefore. In fact, no one on the ground thatday could remember anything that close.As a mark of honour the chap guarding thewicket threw the ball back to him andasked him to bowl again.

A new burst of stamina energized theground, every fieldsman was on his toes,some moving into defensive positions inthe slips and gully, others crouchingaround the wicket in the hope ofintimidating the planter, baiting him toloose his cool. There were words ofencouragement from those close to theboy; one convivial chap even patted himon the back. The next delivery came fastand furious belying a superhuman forcedisguised in those young shaping arms.The planter toppled forward, uncertain ofhis footing, as the ball curved away fromhis left pad, nicked the outer bottom edgeof his bat and whisked past within a hair’sbreath of the off stump. All hands went up

27The Jako

as the ball raced towards the long legboundary. The planter shook his head indisbelief. He was witnessing a miracle. Hisface reddened in fear. However, in the truetradition of his forebears he knew he couldnot surrender. He was confronted by aformidable foe and would fight on to theend in the true traditions of Eton andHarrow, without the slightest inkling ofdefeat. One of the older boys ran down tothe boundary to retrieve the ball and hethrew it directly to the bowler’s end. Theboy trapped it barefooted. It was a tacitindication of acceptance; a mandate forhim to continue.

The Planter went back to hiscrouching stance, the one that he had usedduring his first hour at the crease, when itwas important for him to gauge the paceand bounce of the ball off the matting. Inthe tropics it’s alleged that wickets sweat.Be it superstition or fact, The Planter wasaware. He knew when the leather orblanded on its seams and began to jump andshoot through the air like shells from theenemy’s field cannon, the wicket wasdamp. The only cure was a clear head,constantly ducking outside the line of fireand buckets of patience… His faceregistered no emotion, but he felt themarrow in his thigh-bones freeze. This wasnot one of the ordinary croppers; he knewit and was beginning to picture theoutcome in his mind.

The Boy came galloping in like athoroughbred in full steam, with the cheers

of all humanity shrieking at his elbows, hisarms and legs in perfect harmony. His focuswas the center stump, the one in the middlewith the bearded image of King George V, insilver, lying undisturbed on top of it. ThePlanter locked eyes with his adversary,tapping a nervous rhythm with his bat on thematting, timing the pace of the youngster’sapproach. The next couple seconds gavebirth to history. The Boy felt the ball twirloff his fingers at the point of delivery. Hesaw The Planter shuffle back, then acrosshis wicket. The Boy remembered seeinghim stick out his right pad in an unsightlylast ditch attempt to stop the ball crashinginto his stumps, only to fall flat on his face.

The shilling leapt into the air. The aftereffect produced shock. Gradually, it dawnedon everyone’s face, the fact that there was avacant spot where the center stump used tobe.

The Planter rose leaning on his bat, heremoved his mittens, cursing under breathand walked in a huff towards his house, avanquished warrior returning from a day atthe front with an army of ghosts behind him.A slow victory dance began with the boysfielding farthest away from the wicket asthey ran in to great the new ‘Ace’ in theirmidst. Some of the older ones scooped himup and began running a lap of honouraround the grounds. They circled ThePlanter’s house twice, jeering, but someoneadvised against a third lap as theprovocation might cause The Planter tobrandish the salt gun that year in, year out,

protected his estate frompraedial larceny.

Pandemonium broke looseas they entered the villagecarrying the boy shoulderhigh. Some of his friends hadalready heard the news andformed themselves into anhonour guard to subsequentlylead the group into the village.They armed themselves withwater buckets, tins, old emptykerosene drums, even a pieceof fence and paraded in themilitary style of conquerors.Everyone turned out to watch.Those from the neighbouringestates joined in and the crowdgrew larger and larger as nightcame. Sometime during theproceedings The Boy askedfor his shilling. No one knew,no one remembered. Theyeven pretended they didn’tknow what he was talkingabout. The Boy felt a sour tastein his mouth. Suddenly he wasovercome by an urge to washhimself in the river and forget

the hypocrisy around him. Slowly heslinked away, unobserved by themerrymakers, who were more bent ontelling stories about their involvement,when the most they did was to allow TheBoy to bowl. They never revealed whocapped the shilling but the flow of whiterum that evening indicated that they allknew…

The next morning, while The Boy wasin the process of completing his morningchores, the foreman on The Planter’s estatecame to see his mother. The Planter haddecided that he was employing a houseboyand his adversary had been given the post.No shilling ever graced the top of a centerstump again, nor did The Planter ever runthe risk of being further humiliated. Hegave all his gear to his houseboy andhelped him to build a team from among thebest players on the surrounding estates. Intime, The Planter developed the mildperversion of inviting his colleagues fromthe Town and Country Club to a Sundaymatch against the boys on his estate. Hewould sit back in his armchair behind theboundary, his tumbler filled with gin andcoconut water, gloating inside, as thehumble country boys delivered a firmthrashing to the bright sparks from thecapital. It was a subtle form of revenge forthe humiliation he endured that hazyafternoon when the rain flies came outearly to give him the excuse that one hadgot into his eye.

28 Winter 2005

Artist, Cedric George,said he has discovereda new method of

painting and a new philosophyof art. So much so, he has comeup with his own name for thisinnovation—Organometrix.Few artists can be credited withinventing a completely newconcept of painting equippedwith its own philosophy, andmost of those who have been socredited or who have initiated artmovements have originatedf rom Europe and Nor thAmerica, not St. Lucia, a 238square mile island of 160thousand people, where CedricGeorge is from. Should we nowadd Cedric George to the list thatincludes Sir Arthur Lewis and theHonorable DerekWalcott, St. Lucians whohave led the world in their fields ofendeavor? Understandably,looked forward with great anticipation tomeeting the artist and finding out whatOrganometrix was all about.

n first appearance, Cedric Georgedidn’t give the impression of anartist about to make a break

through in the world of art. He is a quiet,soft spoken man of average built, andunlike many artists, he didn’t dress or stylehis hair in a manner that pronounced himan artist. He is the type of man who would

The Jako

A Portrait of An Artist

O

easily get lost in a crowd. The modesty ofthe artist was further revealed when herequested that we made mention of his wife,Mathilda, a teacher at the BocageSecondary School; and that he was thefourth of eight children, four boys and fourgirls. The third child, a boy, had sadlypassed away at the early age of four.

But this impression of the artist quicklyvanished when in a voice filled with thepassion, confidence and conviction of aman who has found his calling, he pro-ceeded to explain his new artistic vision.Organometrix, he said, is a method ofpainting that combines geometric andorganic shapes to present a different yetholistic view point. Straight lines are used todepict the geometric dimensions of thepainting, while traditional shapes are used

to represent the organicfeatures. In Cedric George’sworld, the geometric repre-sents culture, man made, andthe organic is a manifestationof nature, God’s creation.Therefore, by combining thegeometric and the organic, heis bringing together nature andculture, God and man, to giverise to a new creation. As theartist explained the philosophybehind his art, I had the distinctimpression that he was playingGod. But with this thoughtcame another. Are not allartists gods? After all, didn’tGod obtain his legitimacy asGod through an act of

creation, an act of creativity, when Hecreated the heaven and the earth, andeverything therein?

Cedric George’s Organometrixpaintings are prominently displayed at theInner Gallery at Rodney Bay and on thegallery’s web-site. If the artist is modest inappearance, his creations are anything butnondescript, and would stand out amongany art collection. The colors are bold, thegeometric lines are straight and clean, theimages well defined. In fact, the paintings,acrylic on canvas, are so finely and cleanlydrawn that though they are no doubt theproduct of a very imaginative and creativemind, they give the impression that theywere drawn not by human hands but bymachine. Moreover, the artist usesvariation in line color, and the angles atwhich the lines meet or intersect to create

���������������� ��������������������������������������

By Anderson Reynolds and Jacques Compton

“I paint my feelings of the things of the world: its problems, its chaos, its poli-tics, its religion, its love and its races. Art is an open book to life’s mysteries,which I use to find answers. Once touched by that inspirational light, one is

forever and holistically dedicated to the cause.”

I’m Woman I’m Invincible

The Jako 29

the illusion of three dimensional worldsand multiple planes of existence.

Many of Cedric George’s subjects areplaced in tightly restrictive or constrainedspaces that remind one of imprisonment(for example, ). But, as ifresigned to their fate, the subjects displayno intention or desire to escape. Someappear to be under one test or the other, orat the very least they seem to be aware thatthey are being watched and judged. Still,though they are unhappy, they do nothingto change their circumstances, nor do theyplead for help, or seek sympathy. Whenthe subjects appear in twos or threes theyare in close proximity, sometimes huggingor enmeshed (for example,

) in each other, as if giving andreceiving comfort. Other times they areholding hands and dancing round a circle(for example, ), or theyare seated around a table playing cards,keeping each other company.

The subject matter of the paintings isas varied as it is colorful.

depicts three women (a brown,a black and a white woman) with bold,confident, and unapologetic stares.

portrays the plight of the workingman. In it a man with a pickaxe and ashovel is shown working morning,afternoon and night (MAN), notwithstand-ing a cast on his leg. , apainting with a man digging into deep bluesoil, further illustrates the plight of theworking man. , depictseve in the Garden of Eden, complete withthe serpent, a bitten apple, and of course

The burden

For Your EyesOnly

Long Time No See

I’m InvincibleI’m Woman

M.A.N.

Forking the Blues

Mystery Woman

the man who couldn’t do without thewoman. Then lest we forget that art can beserious business, Cedric George gives us

, a portrayal of the 9/11destruction of NewYork’s twin towers.

edric George’s journey to the worldof Organometrix began at the age offour, when he drew his first picture.

At that age, Cedric was terrified of thes (devil) that inhabited the “Devil at

Christmas,” a play by St. Lucian play-wright, Roderick Walcott. Young Cedric

Down But Not Out

PapaJab

The Making of An Artist

C

George was not the only victim of theses; dressed in rags and painted

with livid colours they petrified mostchildren. Luckily, having learnt a thing ortwo about drawing from his father, EdwinMcDonald Stephenson ‘Yankie’George, agraphic artist who painted billboards for aliving (and whom Cedric often accompa-nied on his jobs), Cedric decided to dosomething about his fear of theHe drew them, and in the process his feardissipated. “Since then,” said Cedric,“anything I didn’t understand, I put oncanvas and by doing so I gain a betterunderstanding of the subject.”

Cedric may have learned the rudi-ments of drawing from his father, but thehabit of memorizing, which is a form ofvisualizing, a process that is indispensableto the creation of any work of art, had to dowith his mother, Marie Madeline Edward.She would send him to the store topurchase a list of sometimes fifteen ortwenty items. She never wrote out the list,and she rarely went over it twice, yet hewas expected to bring back all that she hadrequested. Cedric had no choice but tomemorize the list of items. On that score,he never once disappointed his motherThat was his first training in the art ofmemorizing and visualizing. Emphasizingthe importance of this early experience tohis art, Cedric said, “One has to have thatvision of the object. We all have thatcapacity. What needs to be done is to trainit, to develop it. That power to retaininformation is in all of us.”

When asked about the early influ-ences on his art, Cedric George related thestory of his first and only encounter withHarry Simmons, the man who inspired awhole generation of St. Lucian artists,including Derek Walcott and Dustan St.Omer. Cedric said he was six years old andwalking out of the Castries Central Librarywhen he saw this man, standing outside,dressed all in white like a safari hunter. Heapproached the man, and asked, “mister,are you a sailor?”

“No,” said Harry Simmons, “I am anartist.Would you like to be an artist?”

Poor Cedric didn’t know what anartist was, much less what they did. Heanswered, “I don’t know.”

That encounter with Harry Simmonswould remain with Cedric for a long time,and it didn’t take him long to discover whatbeing an artist was all about. In fact, hewent out of his way to seek information onHarry Simmons and in the process got toview several of the artist’s paintings.Cedric was impressed, but several yearsafter meeting the one who called himselfan artist, he was shocked to learn that hehad committed suicide.

Papa Jab

Papa Jabs.

Down But Not Out

Cedric George at Work

Winter 200530

Nonetheless, equipped with theknowledge of what being an artist was allabout, Cedric’s interest in paintingdeepened. He visited the Central Libraryregularly to pour over art and pictorialbooks. He took a keen interest in the worksof Dustan St. Omer, St. Lucia’s mostrenowned painter, and whom many see asbeing to painting what Derek Walcott is topoetry. He attended all of Dustan St.Omer’s art exhibitions, and visited theartist’s home to view more of his work.Dustan St. Omer had a series of portraits atthe High Court in Castries from whichCedric said he drew great inspiration anddetermination to be a painter.The first timehe saw the paintings, he got so lostmarveling at them that he was lockedinside.

Cedric George may be modest indemeanor, but even back then there wasnothing modest about his ambition and hisneed to be the best. He said that all thistime he was marveling at and admiring theworks of Harry Simmons, Dustan St.Omer, and others, he kept telling himselfthat he had to paint even better than that.

In 1986, Cedr ic rece ived aU.N.E.S.C.O. scholarship to study at theJamaica School of Art, from which hegraduated with distinctions. He said that inSt. Lucia he had studied the works of themasters and had applied himself sozealously to his craft that attending theschool of art had not added much in termsof improving his technical ability.However, the program helped broaden hisknowledge and understanding of art.There he studied art history, becameacquainted with the various art move-ments, and was exposed to new methods ofexpression and a wider range of tech-niques.

An Artist’sSearch for Meaning

Ten years after his graduation, Cedricbegan getting restless with theRealism or Impressionism art that he

had been practicing. These methodsattempted to paint the world as it existed oras seen through the eyes of a camera. Butarmed with a profound understanding of artand a sure technique acquired through yearsof dedication and practice, Cedric wasready to move on. He said that by then hehad “an urge to concentrate deeply onphilosophic art where the subject matteralong with the content becomes moreimportant than the details in the painting.”Cedric’s muse was leading him away fromthe representational to the abstract, fromthe realism world to the expressionism andmodernism world where the emphasis is on

one’s own subjective reality rather than onvisual objective reality. In that regard,Cedric had no lesser teachers than Matisseand Picasso. He said that these two artistswere the ones who led the way in concep-tual art, and “it is because of their relent-less vision that the art of today has rivaledthe period of the high renaissance thatincluded Da Vinci, Michelangelo, Titianand Raphael.”

Picasso was one of the principalfounders of the Cubist art movement(1908-1914), a method of painting thatbroke from centuries of tradition byrejecting the single view point, usinginstead an analytical system in whichthree-dimensional subjects are frag-mented and redefined from severaldifferent points of view simultaneously.For this and other innovations and artisticendeavors, Picasso was considered themost versatile and influential artist of the

20 century. In recognition of the influ-ence of Picasso and Matisse in hisOrganometrix paintings, Cedric hashonored them with two of his cre-ations— and

.Cedric said that besides being

naturally drawn to conceptual art, anotherreason why he was tried to depart from thepast was because he had realized that theonly way to make a dent in the world ofpainting was to break from tradition, tocome up with something that was all hisown. Western art, he said, has producedso many major works that there wasn’tmuch value in continuing in the traditionalway, recreating what has already beendone. In his mind, the only way a modernpainter could get on par with these greatWestern artists was not by imitating thembut by clearing his own path. To empha-

size his point, Cedric said that Picassoleft an indelible mark on the world of

th

Matisse and Picasso DanceThe Last Picasso

Mystery Woman

Fork in the Blues M.A.N. (Morning Afternoon & Night)

The Jako 31

painting because he dared to break withtradition and introduce a whole new wayof conceptualizing the world. Similarly,from a more modern era, he made mentionof Jean Michel Basquiat, who, born ofHaitian and Puerto Rican parents, was oneof the most successful figures of GraffitiArt (1980s), named after the spray-canvandalism common in most US cities.Cedric observed that out of a total of305,000 famous artists, Jean MichelBasquiat (1960-1988) was the only blackperson to make the list. And in Cedric’smind that was because Basquiat hadhelped pioneer a new way of painting.

Fortunately for Cedric, just whenthese notions of breaking with traditionand of making an impression on the artworld were floating around in his head, hecame across the works of Georges Seurat,one of the leading exponents of thePointilism art movement (late 1890s toearly 1900s). Pointilism is a method ofpainting that uses many small dots of colorto give a painting a greater sense ofvibrancy, especially when seen from adistance. Cedric said that upon studyingGeorges Seurat dotted paintings, it came tohim that if the painter could use dots tocreate a work of art, why couldn’t he,Cedric, use lines. In his mind, lines hadnever been used in that manner. Soon,Cedric was populating his paintings withlines. But there was a difference betweenthe Pointilism use of dots and Cedric’s useof lines. In Pointilism the colored dotsseemed merely a method of applying oilon canvas to enhance color and lightperceptions, but in Cedric’s case thepatterns of colored lines produce the moreprofound Cubist effect of three dimen-sional worlds and multiple planes ofreality.

At first, Cedric saw his use of linesmerely as a style of painting. But then thelines started suggesting things to him.Looking at them, he started seeing texture,space, geometry, human concepts, culture.

It was then that Cedric said, “Ah!If God created organic shapes,organic life, and man madegeometric shapes, why notamalgamate the two and give it aname, Organometrix, a combina-tion of the organic and thegeometric.” Cedric said that in sodoing, he would simply behelping God to continue Hisworks. “He made me, He madeus.” Therefore, Cedric decided tointroduce this new philosophy ofpainting in all his works. He said,“So there we have God and manworking hand in hand.”

In further explaining his newart phi losophy, Cedric said thatOrganometrix is a vision and a statement ofhis values, preferences, and personality. “Itis not only about St. Lucia, but universal inits theme, that at times leans towards theabstract. I paint my feelings of the things ofthe world, its problems, its chaos, itspolitics, its religion, its love and its races.Art is an open book to life’s mysteries,which I use to find answers. Once touchedby that inspirational light, one is forever andholistically dedicated to the cause.”

edric’s dedication and hard workhave not gone unnoticed. In 1981,and again in 1994 he won St. Lucia’s

M&C main Visual Arts Award. In betweenthese M&C prizes, he made it to the finals ofthe 1986 Benson and Hedges CaribbeanWorld ofArt Competition held in Barbados.Then in 1996 he competed in the ArtistMagazine Studio Competition in the United

The Triumph of an Artist

C

States, where he placed 32nd out of a fieldof 2,500 artists, making him the highestplaced Caribbean artist in the competi-tion. However, it was after Cedric Georgeinvented Organometrix that he reallystarted to soar. For example, he won the2000 Caribbean and Latin American ArtCompetition, held in the DominicanRepublic, with his Organometrix piece,

. Two yearslater, the St. Lucia Nobel LaureateCommittee honored him with an exhibi-tion of his work during the Nobel Laureateweek celebrations. In 2003, Cable &W i r e l e s s U K a n d t h e R o y a lCommonwealth Society held an exhibi-tion of twenty-two of his paintings inLondon. At the conclusion of the exhibi-tion, the Royal Society pronounced hispaintings “bold, timeless, and immutable.”

Now for the big question. Is CedricGeorge the first artist to make use ofcolored lines in the manner describedabove? Is Organometrix, the notion ofcombing organic and geometric forms as amanifestation of culture working withcreation, man working with God, toproduce a new specie of artwork, truly anew, never before conceived philosophyof art?

A search uncovered Bridget Riley, aleading exponent of the 1960s Optical ArtMovement, as another artist who usedcolored lines and other similar patterns ofpainting. But unlike their use inOrganometrix, her use of lines was notmeant to necessarily capture geometricshapes but to achieve a disorientingoptical effect. And most certainly, her artwas not infused with the notion of cultureand nature working hand in hand. In fact, astudy of art movements from the Ancientand Classical worlds to the present (seefor a survey), found not one movementthat suggested a philosophy of art in whichnature and culture were explicitly orphilosophically being brought together tocreate art.

The importance of having a philoso-phy behind one’s art cannot be overstated.A conceptual framework helps one avoidgetting stymied in the details andtechniques of the craft, but helps in thesearch for the best means of capturing thephilosophy which the art is meant toembody. Today Cedric George usescolored lines to capture culture, andtraditional forms to capture nature. But itmay well be that ten years from now hewill invent a completely new and differentapproach to expressing Organometrix. SoCedric George may yet claim his seat nextto Sir Arthur Lewis and the HonorableDerek Walcott as St. Lucians who haveattained the apex of world achievement.

The Arrows and the Shadow

The Arrow and the Shadow

No Woman Don’t Cry

Winter 200532

On the occasion of Saint Lucia’sIndependence in February,1979,the Devaux family, who own the

business house, M&C,thought of a gift to the newnation. They initiated thescheme which came to beknown as The M& C Fine Arts ExhibitionandAwards. It was a most momentous andvaluable gift to the new nation.

The only other gift to mark theoccasion was the establishment of freeeducation in Saint Lucia, the brilliant ideaof the late Allan Bousquet who had beenappointed Minister of Education in thenew administration of which, JohnCompton, now Sir John Compton, hadbeen Prime Minister, Saint Lucia’s first

Prime Minister.That thoughtful and most worthy gift to

the new nation by the Devaux family wasinitiated for a five-yearproject. Such, however, hadbeen the popularity and theoverwhelming good of that

gift, which drew attention to the work andtalents of many Saint Lucians in the Visual,Literary and Performing Arts, that thescheme went on for twenty-five years.

Mr. Derek Walcott had already attainedconsiderable recognition and fame beforethe M&C Fine Arts Awards had started, buthe most certainly would have welcomedthat initiative, for he had always advocatedsome such initiative and had even gone

beyond that in his thinking, bemoaning thef a c t t h a t g o v e r n m e n t s i n t h eCommonwealth Caribbean were spendingtoo great an amount of money on Carnivaland other spurious events when suchmonies could have been put to muchgreater and more valuable use, such as thegranting of scholarships in the arts.

Artists do not like to work in avacuum, nor do they enjoy working awayfrom the environment from which they gettheir inspiration. The M&C Fine Artsscheme was encouraging Saint Lucianartists working at home to produce andshow their work not only to Saint Lucians,but to the world at large. It was designed topay laudatory tribute to standards ofexcellence in the arts.

People tend to misunderstand the roleof the artist in society. Individually andcollectively artists constitute the creativeelements in the society. Yet all too oftencreativity is regarded as the result of somenatural burst of inspiration on the part ofthe artist, someone who is naturally giftedin a particular art form.

Let us dwell upon that misconceptionfor a moment. We take an artist, one whopaints pictures, not on canvas, or carves instone, but one who uses words to paint on asheet of paper—the Writer. There has to beinspiration, true enough, in the creation ofany work of art, but in order to sustain thatcreative energy there has to be discipline.There is, indeed, some hidden order in the

creation of a work of art, aformal organization of thework which one will discover,in every great piece ofcreativity, be it music,literature, theatre, or sculp-ture. In literature, thatdiscipline is most apparent,but this axiom applies to allartistic creativity, as saidearlier; and that unconsciouscritical process in the formalorganization of a work of art isthe psychology of artisticcreativity.Art, therefore, is theembodiment of rigorousorganization.

T h e M & C F i n e A r t sExhibition and, later, theAwards, forced us to lookmore closely at the nature ofart. What makes a great workof art? That depends upon theartist’s powers of observationand select ion, and thevividness with which he canportray what he has observed.Those selections, what theHungarian author, ArthurKoestler in his book ‘The Act

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“We have produced some remarkable talents, herein Saint Lucia and in the rest of the Caribbean. Wehave more of them emerging every year with the

M&C Art Exhibitions.”

by Jacques Compton

33The Jako

of Creation’, calls the “selection empha-sis”, the artist makes consciously orunconsciously in order to represent thosefeatures or aspects which he considersrelevant; and determine, to a large extent,what we can identify as the artist’sindividual style.

In St. Lucia we see the results of thisprocess in the paintings of Mr. Dunstan St.Omer, those of Mr. Cedric George, thepoetry of Mr. Derek Walcott, and thecarvings of Mr. Eudovic. Those four SaintLucian artists have established standardsof excellence. Their works are thehallmarks of the greatest innovations.

More generally, one can point to theworks of the Irish novelist, James Joyce(‘Ulyses’), the novelist, Franz Kafka (‘TheTrial’) from Czecoslavakia, Picasso’s‘Guernica’, the film makers, MargueriteDuras (‘Hiroshima Mon Amour’), ofFrance, Russia’s Einsenstein, Sengal’sSembene Ousmane, Japan’s Kurosawa,Poland’s Roman Polanski (‘Knife In TheWater’), Italy’s Fellini (‘8,1/2’), France’sJean Luc Goddard and Jean Renoir.

Those artists inaugurated a new era,new movements in art by their particularselective processes, placing emphasis onsome previously neglected aspect ofexperience. “They compel us” says ArthurKoestler, “to revalue our values andimpose a new set of rules on the eternalgame”.

The works, therefore, at each M&CArt Exhibition, compel our attention,providing new excitement. Before ourfascinated eyes the artists conjure upscenes, episodes, people, who live forever.What the M&C Fine Arts did further was

to provide us, also, with an appreciation ofthe function of the artist in our society; asociety that is changing rapidly, and whichthe artist feels compelled to mirror. He isalso the guardian of the society’s traditions,traditions which are built on values whosepurpose is to transcend the historicalmoment. In a place like Saint Lucia, artistsfind themselves caught up in an evolutionwhich is shaking the very foundation of thepeople’s image of themselves.

It was unique that each year M&C’sideas for the exhibition and the Awardsbecame more innovative and exciting. Somuch so that other territories in the OECSare thinking of introducing similarschemes.

Twenty-five years was a long time forone business house to have sponsored theArts in Saint Lucia. The M&C Exhibition,an annually mounted event, became anexcellent avenue for offering the artists ofSaint Lucia the chance to develop theirtalent. That event became one to which allartists and the public looked forward withgreat expectations and enthusiasm, and atwhich selected exhibitors displayed theircrafts and paintings with great pride.

It was an event that, unlike the CalypsoCompetitions and the judging of CarnivalBands, was free from controversy; becauseit was generally accepted that once an artisthad had his works elected and displayed,that artist had arrived at a certain recognizedstage of development in his or her particularartistic discipline.

What excited me, year after year, wasthe quality of the works produced; and theseby people, the majority of whom had nevereven had occasion to attend an Art School.

They were, in the main, naturally giftedpersons. It could be, also, that the nature ofthe St. Lucian environment was whatinspired them to produce such magnificentworks of art.

I recall reading something about thisphenomenon years ago while carrying outresearch into Caribbean History andCulture in the British Museum in London.I had come upon a very slim volume whichhad been written by a man who had beenthe first headmaster of Codrington Collegein Barbados in the 19th Century. The littlebook was about the history of churches inthe Caribbean, but the writer made anobservation which, at the time, I thoughtwas worthy of note. He said that the WestIndies had produced no great artists andregretted that all that beauty around oughtto have been recorded in some way. Thenhe gave it as his opinion that there reallywas no need to paint all that luxuriousbeauty of the islands because the peoplesimply came out and enjoyed all thattropical beauty and loveliness. So, whybother to paint it when it was there, allaround and one had all day in which tobask and enjoy it?

Like the poet, Robert Browning, Iwonder whether that is true. ForBrowning, in his poem ‘Fra Lippo Lippi’,makes this observation:

Yes, and I agree with Browning when hesays, later in the poem, “Art was made forthat …” Indeed.

We have produced some remarkabletalents, here in Saint Lucia and in the restof the Caribbean. We have more of thememerging every year with the M&C ArtExhibitions. We saw, at those M&C annualArt Exhibitions, what the artists hadcaught and what they had to tell us aboutour rapidly changing society; caught up inthis turbulent evolution, an evolution, assaid earlier, which is shaking the veryfoundation and the very image of our-selves; changing, even, our physicalenvironment.

A true artist always feels the need totranscend the historical moment, and outof that yawning void, that emptiness,creates a future of possibilities, or points toa way of looking into a future which heforetells and for which he is preparing theway.

We can see, then, that the concept ofArt, properly understood, is not simply a

For, don’t you mark? We’re made so thatwe love

First when we see them painted, things wehave passed

Perhaps a hundred times nor cared to see;And so they are better, painted …

Celebrating Derek Walcott. Right, John Compton;center, Derek Walcott; left, Dustan St. Omer

34 Winter 2005

r e s t r i c t e d n u m b e r o f d i s c i-plines—Painting, Sculpture, Drama,Dance and Music—but a diversity ofcreative activities. Indeed, Art is a study ofMan in all his multitudinous creativeaspects, as represented at all the M&C FineArts Exhibitions and Awards. Whichpresents a problem, really, that study ofMan. For the artist has constantly to definehimself in relation to his society. Asociety, I repeat, that is undergoing acontinuous process of change and thattends to reject the scale of values to which,traditionally, the artist was attached; asociety, also, that spurns those who want toprotect and to support the artist.

Artists need protection, and byprotection I mean, not political protection,but protection from isolation; they need ameeting place for Art that can create anaudience and encourage talent; a placewhere artists, critics and audience meet todiscussArt.

That is where the M&C Fine Artsscheme was so important, for M&C hadbeen offering a substantial measure ofprotection, and had made it possible for St.Lucian artists to display their works in amanner, form and language that was notonly the most appropriate and agreeable tothem, but, above all, had made it possiblefor the re-establishment, the recognitionand the acceptability of the essentiality ofArt. For Art, as a product of the creative

imagination, is fundamental to the under-standing of our society, for it addressesproblems of self-definition, and give us avision of how our people perceive them-selves and their society.

I have used the Past Tense in this articlebecause the Government, through theCultural Development Foundation (CDF),after M&C’s twenty-five years of organiz-ing and administering the scheme, hastaken over the project. So, the CulturalDevelopment Foundation, will, in the year2005, organize the exhibition and the FineArtsAwards scheme.

Many artists had their misgivingsabout this ‘Take Over.’ Questions wereasked. Why did not the CulturalDevelopment Foundation and theGovernment establish their own Fine ArtsAwards, or a similar scheme? Why should aGovernment Department want to piggy-back or highjack other people’s ideas andprojects?

There are artistic activities that, clearly,could not have been undertaken by M&C:Training, the award of scholarships, andsuch like. TheArts needed to achieve loftierdevelopment heights, a goal a privatebusiness house could not achieve alone.

Clearly the M&C Fine Arts ExhibitionandAwards played a most significant role inthe development of the Arts in Saint Lucia.Indeed, the scheme initiated a veritablerenaissance of the Arts in the country,

served as a catalyst, as it were, andprovided encouragement and support toartists of all disciplines.

Now that the State has decided toassume the role of Patron of theArts, will italso assume the role of ‘Director’ of thenational culture and gain control throughits ability to emphasize or constrain artisticactivities by means of its allocations,selection of individual artists or culturaland performing groups for participation intraining, or representation of the State atevents? Participation at regional andinternational events demands the selectionof well trained, disciplined and profes-sional groups and artists.

The artist cannot be at his best if he beconstrained by political interference, orhis freedom to create is hampered as intotalitarian societies. That freedom, as anact of consciousness, is attributable only toMan, but although that consciousness isessentially free, it is not the gift offreedom, but, rather, freedom forged in thecourse of time because it is creative andpersonal.

Mr. George Lamming, the Barbadiannovelist, in the final of his quartet ofnovels, ‘Season Of Adventure’, discussesthe politics of freedom. He makes one ofhis personages in the novel, the musician,Great Gort, say : “I don’t care who makesthe country’s laws, so long as I can makethe country’s music.”

CYCLES

A film of stillness, opaque like tar coversthe water where mullets dance to twilight'sblinking eyes. Moss hardens like lead in the poolswhere crayfish once fished by the tail...All this,timelessly alive in memory. Wavesdressed in blue diothene parade; gramoxonespits from plastic pails through a river's mouthat cruise liners steaming past. “Hi Joey!Stop here! This scenery is for sale.”Dunstan, a fiery madness cramps his brush.I return to boyhood, lured by scent,To the cultured smell of yeast rising froma baker's wood. Here the lost is doomed, writingepitaphs to the damp demented air.Thoughts rebel, imprisoned in their prism of fear.I return…Dizzy, the whirl of tops gyringIn my head. This poem is a loose kiteEaster Monday, thirsting for a teaspoonof wind to lift it above Morne Fortune.On walls throughout my house these bold reminders glare…

A new kind of rain is falling from the skiesBoring through metal, devouring flesh

II

Banana leaves, proud heraldic emblems waveIn contradiction of the fury raging.Nothing is the cause we fight with tooth and nail,Our hopes and futures consciously suspended.Tell me how many died, or still adriftIn the middle passage, I need numbersTo color my speech; to sound real at the UNWhen I attack Cortez and PizzaroAnd the march of the Raj towards the setting sun.A noble pretence to postpone fate. To bottlePride and pen it in the Ghettos at Calcutta....All I need is a number to numb the tideConscience wears like a night dress without remorse:A number to put in the books where futureGenerations will read to rearrangeThe building blocks that will remould these islands,Like a placebo healing the pain of parched throats.A new kind of rain is falling from the skies,Transposing names on numbers, lessor mortalsBogged down by a cross. A coconut lobbedOn its copra slag engenders trade. Names,Like anchors, sink with misdeeds: History's asleepSnoring among the withering weeds.

—Mc. Donald Dixon

The Jako 35

Like many of the Walcott Brothers’plays, Roderick Walcott’s

draws heavily from St.Lucia’s folk culture. In fact, the play isbased on one of the most distinctive of St.Lucian traditions, the ‘La Woz’ flowerfestival of the ‘La Woz’ Society.Therefore, to place the play in its culturalcontext, it may be useful to provide a briefoverview of not only the‘La Woz’Society but alsoits culturally comple-mentary yet rival flowersociety, the ‘La Marguerite.’

According to Henry Breen, theforemost authority on early St. Lucianhistory, to attempt to establish the origin ofthe ‘La Woz’ and ‘La Marguerite’ flowersocieties is a leap into the impossible.Therefore, suffice it to say that theyemerged during the slave period, grewthrough the colonial era and according to

TheBanjo Man

Breen, were “revised … with unusual éclatand solemnity” toward the middle of the19th century. Judging by their musicalgenres, dances, dominant themes, accoutre-ments and personages, these societies bearthe common characteristic of a re-enactment of the English and Frenchsocieties that prevailed at differenthistorical epochs.

Each society is dedicatedto a religious saint: ‘LaWoz’, to Saint Rose deL i m a ; a n d ‘ L a

Marguerite’ to St. Mary Alacoque ofFrance. Each has adopted a unique symbolor emblem that its followers regard withreligious sacredness—the ‘La Woz’ has therose, while the ‘La Marguerite’ has thebachelor’s button, or such other flowers ofthat family referred to locally simply as‘Marguerite.’ The ‘La Woz’ society holdtheir annual celebrations on August 30,

while the ‘La Marguerites’ keep theirs onOctober 17. The celebration ceremoniesare preceded by several weeks ofpreparation when the groups meet incountry dance halls and other such venuesfor what is referred to as séance. On theday of the festivities there is much pomp,drinking and eating, and then following achurch service there is a grand marchthrough the streets, which is accompaniedwith lots of singing either in praise of thevirtues of the society’s own flower or inderision of that of the other society.

Directed by George Odlum, TheBanjo Man debuted in St. Lucia in 1971. Inthe following year, directed this time bythe playwright himself, Roderick Walcott,the play was staged in Guyana at the firstCaribbean Festival ofArts (CARIFESTA).The huge success The Banjo Man receivedat both staging belied its rocky history.The Roman Catholic Church in St. Luciahad so strongly opposed the play that itwas banned and denied its first staging toan international audience at the first WestIndies Festival of Arts (1958) in Trinidad.The church’s contention was that the playpromoted banality and that its theme was“contrary to the doctrine of the church.” Sointense was the ensuing controversy, andregard for the authoritative voice of thechurch being what it was then, therehearsing cast of the Arts Guild wasforced to discontinue, and St. Lucia’sfeature contribution to the Festival (whichalso included Derek’s Sea at Dauphin) wasaborted.

Notwithstanding, as a colorful,frivolous, witty dress musical, it is easy tosee why The Banjo Man had such massappeal. Scripted to a near even distributionof lines and singing, the performancebegins with a prologue (not part of theoriginal script) of craftily selectedfavorites from a repertoire that brings outthe intensity of the rivalry between ‘LaWoz’ and ‘La Marguerite’ and thepassionate dedication of the followers totheir respective societies. The players arecostumed in the traditional wear thatspeaks to their own colors, and if thesinging is sparring/punchy, the accompa-nying gestures, suitably choreographed,can be considered spearing.

The main body of the play, however,focuses on the ‘La Woz,’ and the eventsportrayed take place on the day ofcelebration, the venue being the traditionalcommunity dance hall. In keeping with thespirit and ritual of the occasion, the set ischaracterized by a dominant red and white(‘La Woz’ colors), with appropriate regaldesigns and other appurtenances, fit for aking and queen of ‘La Woz’ and theirentourage.

by Modeste Downes

by Modeste Downes

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36 Winter 2005

The production centers on leadcharacter, Estephan (The Banjo Man), anunconscionable village ram knownthroughout for his sexual exploits and hislove affair with his cuatro (banjo) that heblends with his enchanting singing as hegoes from one village to the next, from feteto fete, leaving traces of his conquests inthe form of broken-hearted females andcountless unfathered children.

The plot presents the community ofBelle Maison, a fictitious creation of theplaywright, on the day of celebration.Completely transformed from its routineagricultural mode to comprehensivelydecorative and celebratory ambiance thatis customary, the entire Belle Maison folkawait the arrival of Estephan, The Banjo

Man. Fete ‘La Woz’ cannot proceedwithout him, as ‘chantwel’ is the heart andsoul of the celebrations. This year,however, Estephan is late in coming andhis tardiness evokes consternation andpanic, though Adolphus, his friend ofmany years, never gives up. The first signof Estehan’s coming, to the surprise andrelief of everyone, is heralded by thedistant singing voice that is his trade mark:“

...; My name is Estephan,Estephan the banjo man ...”

The drama unfolds. Adolphusverbally attacks Estephan for the distresshe has put him through. Then with muchgusto he recounts tales of Estephan’sexploits around the country: his loveaffairs with some of Belle Maison’s ownwomen folk, including Adolphus’s ownwife; the many young women idolizinghim and whose hearts he has broken. Otherscenes are of disloyalty and female

Nom mwen c’est Estephan, Estephan thebanjo man

domination (as between Estella and Pascal);public exposure and individual embarrass-ment (as when Estephan informs theaudience of his sexual bout with shy Iris,daughter of Estephan and Ma Stanio,“behind the school”); and of the typical“exploitation” of the local populace bytraditional politicians (Waldron) and“foreign researchers” (Professor McKay).

Punctuated by singing, drinking andeven ridicule of the other flower group (‘LaMarguerite’), the celebration goes on to thepoint where Estephan, overhearing Iris’saccount of how he had broken her heart andthen shamed her, is finally brought face toface with the damage wrought by hiswayward ways. Overtaken by remorse, helistens to the voice of conscience and makes

an unhappy exit from Belle Maison, vowingnever to return.

The Banjo Man brings out Walcott’sintention of showing the flower festivals ashaving a more rustic than urban base by theconstant reference to those communitieswith a long and unbroken association withthem—Vieux Fort, Belle-Vue, Dennery,Babonneau.

Without detracting too much from thecelebrations, the play is heavily laced withsnapshots of the is land’s socia llife—religion, morality, infidelity, looseliving and the like. These Juxtaposedvarious aspects of local folkways (konteand the wakontè, for instance), show Mr.Walcott’s broad knowledge of thosefeatures of St. Lucian life which he allows tocolor the play either directly throughspoken lines, or ‘between-the-lines’ to goodeffect. So amidst the more apparent doses offrivolity, drinking and eating, merrymaking, dancing and singing that typify the

occasion, several of the weightier issues ofevery day living find due prominence andtreatment.

Mr. Walcott’s familiarity with othersocial and historical facts also enter intofocus: the important and powerfulpropertied Bernard family in the south; thepresence and dominance of East Indians ina corner of Vieux Fort at the time (whereSon Son the ‘La Woz’King went to get hisbeautiful Indian wife, Rosalie); the violentways for whichAux Lyon was then known(“…when malcochon finish and cutlassstart to fly”). And to the perceptiveaudience, there are shovelfuls of potent,not necessarily ‘La Woz’ related linesalong the way:

Waldron:“Here there is a season for everything.”

Prof. Mc Kaye:“Except making children,eh?”

Elsewhere, the lines are as poetic asRoderick’s twin brother, Derek Walcott,knows best how to craft:

ome thirty two years after it was firstproduced, as part of St. Lucia’s 25thyear of independence celebrations,

On Bar de L’Isle, I stopped to hear thesifflet montaigne sing his song just beforenight fall, where it’s so quiet you can hearGod singing vespers.

The Banjo Man Makes aCome Back

SThe Jako 37

The Banjo Man made a masterly return tothe stage in September 2004. Althoughpreceded by several stagings, the formalopening, or gala night, held Wednesday,September 15, was a treat that undoubt-edly closed the thirty-odd year gap, oozingsuch warmth and freshness, one mightthink that it had just stepped out of thetheatrical mint, as it were.

This time around, the play wasdirected by George ‘Fish’ Alphonse, andstaged at the Cultural Center in Castries.Among the key actors and actresses,Calypsonian Wulstan ‘Wally’ Alfred isEstephan, The Banjo Man; NathanielReynolds is Adolphus, Estephan’s oldtime friend; Ida Adolphe is Ma Stanio,Adolphus’ wife; Tassia Channel-Clementis Iris, the shy daughter of Adolphus andMa Stanio, and one of the victims of

Estephan’s sexual exploits; ChanelChristophe is Pascal, the submissivehusband; Natalie La Porte is Estella,Pascal’s domineering wife; Ben Quinn isthe intrusive Professor McKay; JasonAlcide is Waldron, the corrupt politician.Shane Cherry is Son Son, the ‘La Woz’King; and Nickita Clarke is Rosalie, SonSon’s Indian wife and the ‘LaWoz’Queen.

In general, if not younger, this cast wasdecidedly less experienced than that of the1970’s. The previous castings would alsohave benefitted from the stronger and betterpitched voices of Eric Adley, Elcock, andEgbert Mathurin. However, the choreogra-phy and casting were excellent, except thatWulstan ‘Wally’Alfred strikes one as beingunfair to The Banjo Man character asdefined in the script. The scripted charactersuggests a personage with an imposing

physique, whose very presence commandsattention. The Estephan this time aroundlacks this essential feature. Special kudosmust however be given to NathanielReynolds, as well as Natalie La Porte (asEstella), who to my mind were mostimpressive. In fact, Nathaniel Reynolds,asAdolphus, virtually carried the play.

The setting being a constant (MaStanio’s dancehall), more effective use ofthe lightning (color change, focus,intensity adjustment) could have beenmade. Intermittently, the light wasblinding and therefore somewhat of adistraction. It remained unclear whetherthe apparatus was lacking, or whether theproduction team had to make do with lessthan the best in terms of equipment. Theoriginal musical score of Charles Cadet isabsolutely enchanting. However, contrary

to what the script called for,the music was provided froma pre-recorded source. Onewonders what qualitativedifference a live band wouldhave made to the renditionsand the overall character ofthe performance.Notwithstanding, the 2004

performance of Banjo Manwill certainly have warmedthe hearts of the generation ofSt. Lucians seeing it for thefirst time, whilst stirringfeelings of nostalgia amongthose of us who are oldenough to remember the 1971and 1972 renditions. Hats offto the producers, CDF and theJ u b i l e e T r u s t F u n d .Congratulations to directorGeorge ‘Fish’ Alphonse andothers on a job well done.Vive ‘LaWoz’!

38 Winter 2005

Anyone who denies theexistence of God or evilforces will have great

difficulty understanding andinterpreting correctly the eventsof life on earth.

Thus affirms the author ofan unusual local publication inthe closing chapter of his book.But not only does he live by hisbelief in the quoted dictum; hesets about healing personsafflicted by the evil forces lessoften with syringe and pills thanwith the Bible. For skeptics, thismay be a hard pill (excuse thepun) to swallow; but for me, Irather suspect that with theprevailing trends in materialism,consumerism, church sexscandals, religious pluralism,promiscuity, all amidst aninformation revolution, it mustbe incontestably challenging forchurch ministers and others ofthis ilk to win the hearts, far lessthe souls of a largely duplicitousworld society armed only withthe Bible. On the other hand newforms of disease such as HIV-AIDS continue to wreak havocamong humankind, whilemedical science continues toponder the question, whathappened, rather than producinga cure.

No doubt aware of thisreality, and propelled by hispersonal experiences in the fieldas a medical doctor, counselorand preacher, Dr. Josiah Rambally trots acrusade trail that combines professionalclinical routine with Biblical doctrine totreat the myriad problems, conflicts andmaladies that afflict persons, families andsocieties.And judging by his accounts, theresults are sufficiently convincing to causehim to uphold a practice that sets him apartfrom his peers. Thus Rev. Dr. Patrick A.B.Anthony, himself a renowned spiritual

leader, has referred to him as ‘no ordinarydoctor.’

Flipping through the 136 pages of thebook, BEYOND MEDICINE, my firstimpression was that it was a similar productto one I had read a few weeks earlier writtenby a Dominican evangelist, Peter R. Regis.As it turned out, Dr. Rambally has com-piled ‘a Medical Doctor’s SpiritualOdyssey’ (subtitle) whose content docu-

ments detection, definition, analysis andtreatment of supernatural conditions in amanner I have not seen done hitherto.

In its opening chapter, the bookintroduces the writer, his family back-ground and the social milieu in which hewas born and grew up and which informedhis earlier formation. Born into a religiousfamily, his early and meteoric rise withinthe church’s inner circle drew him withpredestined accuracy to the center of thecrusade for winning souls and hearts and tohelping save minds and bodies.

One will easily discount thenotion of the author as being theproduct of ‘humble origins’, ashis family had acquired, by thetime of his coming, suchmaterial stock as to spare him,and perhaps even his eldersiblings, the hardships that theolder Ramballys encountered. Itis necessary to read all thedetails of his early life, as wellhis student history so that thenormality of that life enables thereader to appreciate the author’sumbilical link to his faith-in-practice. His earliest encounterswith divine intervention in hisown life at the time of theRavine Poisson Disaster andsubsequently make interestingreading. The reader may,however, be sometimes temptedinto wondering to what extentsheer good luck was what didthe trick.

For the most part, the book isa compilation of personalexperiences and accounts ofsubjects whom the authorattended to, either in hiscapacity as a doctor, counselor,preacher—or exorcist. Thecases are in the main psychotic,schizophrenic, devil-possessedand the like to whom he (and hisaides) administered non-clinical techniques wheremedical science was unable todiagnose or prescribe apermanent, or any cure, to aperceived condition.

The book is loaded with, notso much technical information onformulae or ‘churchy’ stuff, as it is withrepeated accounts of what appear to beworst scenarios of strange or deviantbehaviour and how they were handled.Some chilling episodes that describe theauthor encountering persons on death row,and his witnessing a double execution, aswell as his professional reflections on

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Book Reviewby Modeste Downes

39The Jako

historic murder cases, including theCastries Cathedral murders of 2000,should revive the debate on the merits andmorality of capital punishment. The readerwill be moved by his thoughts on thefamous Yamaha affair and his role inseeking justice and a fair trial, which weredenied.

One must keep in mind that the bookwas written by one who is not primarily awriter. Yet it would be fair to say that Dr.Rambally’s treatment of the subject matterdisplays a feature patently absent fromother known works on the treatment ofparanormal phenomena. This resides inthe fact that he always seeks to ensure thatmedical science has exhausted as much aspossible procedure and theory before hisspiritual prescription is applied. Thus thelatter chapters, particularly Eight and Ninemust be read. At this point it gets reallytechnical, even complicated, as it is herethe reader gets an insight into the method-ology invoked to identify and diagnosesigns and symptoms to tell that the devil isat play; how the determination is made toseparate the case for science from the onefor spiritualism; the doctor/psychiatristfrom the exorcist. Pages 123-125 are alsohighly recommended for their legalsubstance and for further discussion.

As dramatic and curious as the casesreported may sound, Dr. Rambally is heldin such high regard in his profession as torender them believable. The book showshim reaching out for medical knowledge,skill, and procedure, and combining themwith his spiritual gifts to assess, diagnoseand heal—and leave victims free to realizetheir potential to the full.

The book raises a number of ques-tions: Is devil-worship/possession ascommon as portrayed? Is it the case that‘Every illness whether it is mental,physical or spiritual is a direct result of theintroduction of sin into planet earth’? (Pg.106) Was Peter really demon-possessed;that it was the devil speaking through him(as in the case of Orban, pp. 79-97) at Mt.16:23?

The book is a challenge. It is achallenge to the faith of ‘believers’; achallenge to the skeptics; a challenge to thedevil-worshiper. It underscores the powerof the Bible, and of prayer and faith,particularly where science appearsimpotent in the face of unexplainablephenomena.

I cannot promise that you’ll sleep anybe t t e r a f t e r r e ad i ng BEYONDMEDICINE. Printed by Mayers PrintingCompany, BEYOND MEDICINE isavailable in paperback edition at localbookstores.

40

Is our world too serious? Should theteaching or learning environment bemodi f i ed and methodo log ies

revamped to make the experience morefun-filled, thereby enhancing perfor-mance? And if dog is man’s best friend,why do we seldom listen to what they haveto say?

The author of My Dog Hamish wouldno doubt have contemplated thesequestions and decided that not only was aless rigid approach to what obtainsdesirable, but that to help sell his message,he would both listen to the dog as well aslet the animal tell his own story sometimes,at least. The result is a 158 page ‘guide’ tostrategic planning, self-motivation andcareer development, ‘a humourousperspective…viewed through the life of adog.’ Other locals have written fun-filledstuff before— Jacintha Lee (Anansi) andVictor Marquis (Of Cabbages andKings)—but definitely, not with the moreserious twist of My Dog Hamish. Inreading My Dog Hamish one wonderswhether the author was perhaps inspiredby the comic series, ‘Peanuts’ by CharlesSchwab (remember Linus, Charlie Brown,Lucy and Snoopy, the dog).

But don’t be fooled, this is not a bookfor nitwits or stand-up comedians. Theauthor, Malcolm A.J. Charles, is a seriousman with a serious mission. A certifiedmanagement practitioner, he is aBusiness/Human Resource Managementconsultant with years of experience underhis belt. Seemingly a well-read individual,he is widely traveled and has attendedscores of professional courses and visitedschools and lecture-rooms both locally andoverseas, imparting his knowledge andmarketing his expertise on the themescovered by the book.

This book is written in an unconven-tional style that is chatty, personal andleisurely. It blends loads of humour withvarying episodes from the life of thea u t h o r ’ s d o g ( R o v e r , t u r n e d

HAMISH—main canine character of thebook) as well as about dogs generally, andwith snippets from the author’s own life andcareer experiences to convey the rudimentsof strategic planning in a manner that helpsone to absorb and have fun all at once.

Picture the scene if you can: the authoris urged to obtain a dog, which on the adviceof his brother, would be ‘self-supportingand self-motivating’, with the responsibil-ity eventually to ‘take care of security’while the author busied himself withprofessional matters, away from home. Thedog is obtained, brought home, andintroduced to his new environment. Theowner goes out of his way to acquire all thatwas thought to be necessary to make Rovercomfortable. But guess what? Not longafterward, he discovers that the ‘villainous’Rover has run-off. But as it turned out, theanimal had not ‘run-off’ but only switchedone position for another, which offered agreater degree of luxury and comfort. Thusportraying the dog as having made a

deliberate decision to terminate a situationhe was not satisfied with, and enteringanother that would change his life forever,the author seeks to drive home the pointthat by assessing our present status andconsidering the options, an individual candecide whether by appropriate and timelyaction he scales the ladder upward or slide(further) down the slope. As such, it is nolonger within the realm of humour tosuggest that when we fail to take hold of achallenge, even our dog could turn its backon us. (Read of the tripleA’s at pp. 148).

Perhaps not your idea of a typicaltextbook, as in a dozen or so chapters MyDog Hamish offers a virtual crash course,dealing with such significant topics asTime Management, Goal Setting, ActionPlanning, Career Development Basics,Communications, and the like. The authoraddresses common pitfalls associated witheach of these—how they can be avoidedand how these different processes can beeffectively employed in charting andpursuing a development path. For thecritical mind and for students alreadystudying the subject, the book offers muchmaterial for discussion, debate and groupwork. Some opinions expressed by thewriter can provoke controversy even, forinstance his treatment of what appears tobe a growing trend in a shift of loyaltyamong western workers, from the oldmode of long-term commitment to theemployer/organization to the individual(see Career Development Basics).

Consistent with the writer’s aim ofteaching the essentials through theperspective of his canine friends, Rover,renamed HAMISH, teaches one of thecrudest applications of strategic planningfrom the outset (as earlier highlighted).But whereas HAMISH used the radicalapproach to a better life—abdication of hisformer home and master—another of hispeers uses the subtler, indeed, moresophisticated route. However, the effectand lesson are the same: if one is at theright place at the right time, and makes theappropriate move at the right moment,positive results will inevitably follow. Inmy view, the reader will find the bestexample of strategic planning, theHAMISH way that is, in the story featuredin the section, ‘Unsung Heroes’. It mustalso be remarked that, in all honesty, thesubstantive information (on CareerPlanning, etc.) is dished out with thepassion and enthusiasm of someone withthe expertise Mr. Charles is known for.And he does succeed in maintaining thehumourous mood throughout.

Having extolled the virtues of thepublication, it must be said however, that

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Book Reviewby Modeste Downes

The Jako 41

at times I thought the ‘dog’was used, in thenegative sense, in that for large portions ofthe writing, the dog was virtuallysidelined, while the author drifted intorather extraneous themes. Frankly, takenby the title, I expected to see more ‘talking’by the four-legged star, of the type done inChapter 9. On the other hand, with entirechapters devoted to the unrelated details ofveterinary science and the causes of the‘terrestrial demise’ of dogs one is left withthe distinct impression that the author gotemotionally and socially carried away, andcomes across as having ‘given a plug’, asthey say in journalistic circles, to aveterinarian colleague and to his allies atSLAPS (the animal protection servicebased up north).

Not only that. At times Charlesdevotes large chunks of space, that couldhave been better utilized, to entirequotations or anecdotes, when a merereference would have sufficed, e.g. twofull pages (49-50) for ‘Desiderata’.

While giving the author high marksfor his embodiment of the essentials ofstrategic planning, one will admit that heoften betrays, unwittingly it appears, themindset of the class of managementpersonnel which is quick to find fault withthe working class. I select at random, threeinstances where it ‘escaped’ him. In thefirst, the author goes for a stroll in thegarden to ‘peruse the work of the garden-ers, whose work output I often suspected,was disproportionate to the level of time(and money) expended…’(p.20). At page65, explaining common reasons forbreakdown in communication: ‘Theemployees on the other hand, may think…in a unionized environment… “He isalways trying to rush us.”And in parenthe-sis, the author remarks, perhaps apologeti-cally, ‘did I say that?’ Finally at page 146he observes, not untypically, ‘…when allaround us, we seem to be faced with themalaise of more pay for an ever decreasingoutput.’ It is not unusual for successfulWest Indian men of business to pile allsorts of negatives on the backs of a lazyworkforce.

But then, Malcolm Charles isPresident of the Employers Federation!

Having secured the imprimatur of theCaribbean Office of the InternationalLabour Organization (ILO), My DogHamish is undoubtedly a useful handbookfor tutors or career guidance counselors, aswell as senior high school students orgraduates who are yet unsure wherethey’re heading. Management personnelmay also find in it some material for re-evaluating current practices or forretooling.

Winter 200542

OFFICE

OF THE NATIONAL

AUTHORISING OFFICER

Government Human Resource Development Credit Facility

The

was introduced byGovernment to assistpersons in accessingt e r t i a r y l e v e l a n duniversity education andt o p r o v i d e p e r s o n sdesirous of pursuingprogrammes of study withassistance in financingtheir education. Thisfacility started with ani n i t i a l a m o u n t o f$1,000,000 to facilitate theSep tember -December2004 term.

The Tables to the rightprovide the progress of thisfacility to date, andindicate the var ioussectors to which grantsupport from the HumanResource Developmentproject was directed.

For more information onthis facility, please contactthe office of the NationalAuthorising Officer.

Human ResourceDevelopment CreditFacility

Grant FundAllocated

Number ofStudent loans

Total Amount ofStudent loans

Average Amount ofStudent Grants

Number ofSkill loans

Total Amount ofSkill loans

Average Amount ofSkill Grants

750,000 250,000 1,000,000

25 13 38

1,063,425 589,992 1,653,417

11,584 6,346 9,792

32 30 62

593,984 589,740 1,183,724

7,975 5,583 6,818

Bank OfSt. Lucia

CreditUnion

Cooperative To t a l

National Authorising Officer, Office of the Prime Minister

Conway Business Centre, Car Park Building

Tel: 468-2180 / 2178; Fax: 453-6552; email: projects@candw.lc

Health 21Informatics & Communications 14Education 25Management & Accounting 26Others 4

Grant Distribution among Sectors

Grant and Loan Disbursements (EC$)