Project Independence – After 56 Years: Part 3

Project Independence – After 56 Years:
8 Years Later – Disappointment to Action
The mood of expectancy and hope that existed among the population when the Union Jack was lowered and the red, white and black hoisted outside the Red House at a minute past midnight on August 31, 1962 was pervasive.
With all the symbols of a newly-independent country – national flag, coat of arms and anthem, the streets of Port of Spain adorned with decorations and bunting and the singing of ‘nation-building’ songs, ‘our nation was born’.
Beneath all the pomp and ceremony, however, certain realities persisted. Those realities would undermine the Independence euphoria as the population almost immediately began to face the realities of the new emerging nation state.
The choices made in moving to Independence, particularly, the choices of economic strategy, political culture and governance architecture began to impact the lives and livelihood of the expectant population, not in ways they were led to anticipate.
The euphoria of Independence was more a sigh of relief given the tensions generated in the political sphere between 1958 and Marlborough Conference in May 1962.
The Atmosphere of Division
The genesis of threatening tensions was to be found in the consolidation of party politics and the 2-party system with the following developments:

• 1953 – formation of the PDP led by Bhadase Sagan Maraj who was 3 leaders in 1, political. trade union (ATSEFTWU) and the religious organisation (Maha Sabha), guaranteeing him wide support for the PDP in the rural sugar belt.
• 1955 – formation of the PNM led by Dr. Eric Williams whose association with the teachers’ group (TECA) and professionals in the Political Education Group (PEG) bolstered his appeal to an urban audience.
• 1956 – Elections postponed from 1955, PNM recognising the PDP as its strongest rival, adopted a strategy of portraying the PDP as a communal Hindu organisation. The outcome was PNM won the urban and suburban areas and the PDP remained strong in the rural areas. This geography expressed in demographic terms was the beginning of the notion of an African PNM and Indian PDP.
• 1958 - Federal Election. The DLP (an amalgamation of the PDP, TLP and POPPG a year earlier) won 6 of 10 seats defeating the PNM.
• 1961 - the General Elections, saw appeals to race become the strategy of both the PNM and DLP, now led by Capildeo. Political violence by PNM supporters against DLP meetings particularly in some areas of the East-West Corridor prompted a state of emergency, strangely in several rural areas, causing a suspension of DLP outdoor meetings.

By 1962, the polarised and divisive politics based on appeals to race was threatening the unity of the population on the eve of Independence.
Winner Take All Governance Approach
The already edgy atmosphere worsened when the PNM took a unilateralist, non-bipartisan approach on major decisions on the country’s future.
First, rather than seeking national consensus, the party convention was used as the forum for a final decision on the issue of federation.
Second, the PNM Government decided to unilaterally draft the proposed independence Constitution with no consultation with the Opposition only adding fuel to the atmosphere of division and tension.
At the Independence Conference at Marlborough House, only at the last minute, in the atmosphere of racial and political polarisation back home, did the PNM accept several constitutional positions advocated by the DLP including limiting the powers of the Executive, requirement for special majorities to amend entrenched provisions, an independent EBC and Service Commissions.
The PNM’s preference for ‘responsible’ trade unionists also led to mounting tensions between it and Butlerite union leaderships which were gaining strength in and around 1962:

• The rebel leadership of George Weekes in the OWTU (1962)
• the creation of National Union of Sugar Workers challenging Bhadase in the ATSEFWTU (1963),
• the creation of Transport and Industrial Workers Union (TIWU) by bus workers leaving another union.

All of these were signs of the strengthening of the ‘rebel’ leaders and there was growing tension between them and the PNM, starting with the OWTU strike at Texaco, Apex and Shell in 1960.
These factors all contributed to the undercurrent of tension in the atmosphere of high expectations on August 31, 1962
The Experience of Independence
The fall in world oil prices in 1961-62 triggered a downturn in the economic fortunes of the country at the dawn of Independence. Government’s fiscal deficit reached $56.4M in 1961.
This was one consequence of the economic strategy adopted by the Government even before Independence.
In the early independence years, several weaknesses of the economic choices became apparent:

• the offering of tax incentives to attract foreign capital left the state without sufficient resources to sustain economic development
• the manufacturing sector did not generate the expected increases in employment
• the drive for industrialisation led to neglect of agriculture
• the dependence on foreign industrial inputs and capital goods led to balance of payments problems.

In the course of the 1960’s the economic outcomes had certain impacts on the working and living conditions and social consequences for the population, for the workers in particular.
All the major commercial banks were foreign owned. So, was half of the land and 80% of manufacturing investment was by foreign capital. Most foreign investment was in oil.
There was a shift of the population from the rural to the urban parts of the country and out of agriculture. 
Proportion of Population     1946      1960      1970
Living in rural areas             36.4%    23.3%
 Living in urban areas                          40%       53%
Involved in agriculture
and related activities          27.5%     21.1%
 Involved in mining
and manufacturing             22.3%     22.5%     21%
 The rates of unemployment and underemployment were increasing. Underemployment rose from 14.5% in 1960 to 20% in 1970. Income distribution was a constant and worsening problem. In the early 1960’s the top 10% of income earners shared 33% of the national income. The wages for women were about 50% of their male counterparts.
A study in 1971 revealed that unequal income distribution was closely linked with racial factors. Acton Camejo showed that among executive and managerial staff in larger firms 53% were white, 15% were mixed, 9% Chinese, Indians 9% and Africans 4%.
The median monthly incomes, according to the 1960 census, for males was $500 for whites, $104 for Africans and $77 for Indians. This pattern closely resembled the situation in the colonial era which was supposed to be the past. Industrial development was not delivering full or close to full employment and unequal distribution of income persisted.
By 1963, the unionised workers were on the move again. Strikes were being called by almost all the major unions in 1962 and 63. In February 1963, BP workers went on strike over the planned retrenchment of 200 workers. In October 1964, the unions boycotted Tripartite Committee talks.
In February 1965 sugar workers went on strike against a wage freeze imposed by the company. The strike was supported by the OWTU. At the same time, there were strikes at Lock Joint, Federation Chemicals and even the CSA was threatening a go-slow over wage demands.
A State of Emergency, under the 1947 Emergency Powers Ordinance, banned public meetings in the sugar belt to keep oil and sugar workers apart.
On March 18, 1965, Government released the report of the Mbanefo Commission which was set up in 1963 to investigate what government and some ‘conservative’ trade unionists called subversive political activity in the trade union movement.
In just 2 days, 18-20 March 1965, the Industrial Stabilisation Act was passed in Parliament and assented to by the Governor General. This law was principally aimed at restricting the workers right to strike. It banned strikes in ‘essential services’ – electricity, fire, health, water and sanitation. It introduced compulsory arbitration in the Ministry of Labour and the Industrial Court.
Williams himself later declared that the ISA was aimed against “the subversive elements in the society.” and that the “background was an open attempt to link the trade unions in oil and sugar” (Eric Williams, Inward Hunger, p 311)
Williams blamed the unions for the low levels of capital investment and uncompetitive exports to justify this draconian law.
The fact was that the difficulties in the economy were a result of the development strategy of the Government itself as discussed above.
The passage of the ISA also achieved the further division of the trade union movement and split the Trade Union Congress, weakening the workers’ fight for rights and interests, for jobs and incomes and for national control of the major economic enterprises.
All the declarations of ‘Massa Day Done’ and the euphoria of Independence was turning into disappointment at the failure of the promise of Independence. The disappointment was acutely felt among the urban youth who, despite expanded educational opportunities, were unemployed and without employment prospects in increasing numbers.
1970 – The Revo – Disappointment to Action
By the end of the 60’s the attempts by Pegasus to create a people’s programme for nation-building were frustrated and usurped by the Government. Granger went on to the UWI campus and into the communities to begin a new phase of his struggle for development.
The workers and their unions were fighting battles to save jobs as employment in oil fell by 3% between 1965 and 1969. Automation in sugar led to retrenchment and in other sectors job cuts were the order of the day. In June 1968, 10,000 workers joined in a March of Resistance, TIWU led the challenge against the ISA with strikes at Sissons Paints in 1967 and in public transport in June 1968 and May 1969.
The disaffected among the unemployed and the intelligentsia at UWI were also in action. Some lecturers were challenging the thinking and policies of the Government. The university students engaged in protests on 26 February 1969 in support of 11 Trinidadian students arrested at Sir George Williams University in Canada. The students also linked with the youth in the communities.
All these currents fed into what erupted on 26 February as the 1970 Revolution led by NJAC which was formed that night by students, workers and their unions.
In 1970, mainly young persons, disillusioned with the persistence of the colonial construct, sought to address social inequality, foreign domination of the economy, racial inequality and poor political representation.
The shouts of ‘Power to the People’ and sound of marching feet filled the air. The clarion call “Indians and Africans, Unite!” urging unity was inscribed on the banner.  The youth re-examined history seeking a better understanding and appreciation of the society and its people and to define project independence anew.
The response of the ‘independence’ state was a mixture of ignoring ideas for a new development approach, offering a minimum of concessions, State of Emergency, imprisonment of leaders and brutal repression including the attempted dreaded Public Order Bill.
Like the colonial authorities’ response to the Butler Riots, the approach to the 1970 Revo was ‘Smiles and Blood’ – token concessions and severe repression. Against those who dared resort to arms, the answer was blood and steel. Against the adherence of the youth to revolutionary ideas of change, a new element was introduced to the society - the mass culture of illicit drugs.
Understanding why, in less than a decade, the euphoria of Independence gave way to mass disillusionment, was not important. Protecting the new order of power was.
But, the idea of the new Trinbago remained alive among the workers and youth who dared to take action in 1970.
 
In the next part, we examine the pattern of boom and bust in an unsustainable economic construct.
 
Clyde A Weatherhead
A Citizen Fighting for
Democratic Renewal of
Our Society
22 August 2018
 

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