Image provided by: University of Oregon Libraries; Eugene, OR
About Portland observer. (Portland, Or.) 1970-current | View Entire Issue (Nov. 2, 1983)
Portland Observer. November 2, 1983 Page 5 You Grenada diary: Roots of the invasion can help fight school-age drug and alcohol abuse. by B ill Bigelow Orcnada: • little island with Swiss Family Robinson-like beauty. Icae than a third the population o f Port land. a "n aval fleet" o f about ten fishing trawlers, its major contribu tion to the world economy— nut- " I t ’s not safe." my travel agent warned. " I ’ve read that the Cubans have taken over, and everyone car ries guns." I did want to return from my vacation in one piece. A f ter all, I had to be back in my class room in September (1902). But Grenada's accomplishments— espe cially in education— had become world famous; I wanted to see for myself. M y plane from M iam i landed in Barbados. M ore warnings: Grenada is communist; Grenadians hate A m ericans; kids carry automatic rifles. W aiting in line the nest morning with other Americans, medical stu dents, I sought assurances. "N o th in g to worry ab o ut,” guar anteed my fellow passengers. "Y o u don’t bother them, they don’t bother yo u ." And what about the revolution? " I wouldn’t kn o w ,” shrugged one student. " I go to class, 1 go to the beach, I go to to w n .” Our plane hugged the hilltops, made a sudden plunge, and we were down. "W elcom e to Grenada— Isle o f Spice.” This was an airport? A typical Portland block is a longer "ru n w a y ." But I was here. Now 1 could see for myself what all the fuss was about. This "n e w ” Grenada had been born M arch 13, 1979. when the New Jewel Movement overthrew then- Prime Minister Eric O airy. The economy O airy managed was in shambles; an estimated 49 percent o f the population was unemployed. Held in contempt for his incompe tent and unjust economic policies, Gairy was feared and hated for his “ Mongoose Gang” — a vicious se cret police force equipped by the Pinochet dictatorship in Chile. The M arch revolution— the " R e v o ," as it was affectionately called in Grenada— ignited celebrations throughout the island. The New Jewel Movement promised a society fundamentally different from that o f Gairy or the colonial order o f some 300 years. But with virtually no industry, and national revenues dependent on fluctuations in the in ternational price o f nutmeg, bana nas and cocoa, it wasn’t going to be easy. Though 1 didn't want to miss out on Grenada’s spectacular beaches I was also there to see what Grenada had accomplished in the previous three years. The economy had obviously turned around. A new agrarian re form law offered underutilized land to those forming co-operatives. W hile waiting in line in a St. George's restaurant, I met a mem ber o f the Good Hope Agri Co-op who invited me out to look around. As we walked through his land slurping mangoes and picking up fallen avocados he told me how he had formed the co-op with a num ber o f his unemployed friends. The New Jewel government quickly o f fered encouragement by providing tools, seed, fertilizer and most im portantly— land. T w o o f their mem bers had been given scholarships to study farming methods. Other co ops I visited were equally successful. 1 also toured food processing plants which had been built to boost export earnings and provide still more jobs. According to outside aid agencies, in just three years unem ployment had plummetted from about h alf the population to 14 per cent. It sounded like something out o f Ripley's Be/ieve it or N o t, but it was true. As a teacher I was especially cur ious about education. In 1979, 43 percent o f Orenadians couldn't read or write. A nationwide literacy cam paign cut that to less than 10 per cent. Between 1979 and 1982, uni versity scholarships had shot from three up to 220. A new high school had been built— only the second with public money in 330 years. I rented a car and drove around the island. Instead o f advertising cigarettes and booze, billboards pushed education: "Each One Teach O ne,” "Education Is Pro duction T o o ,” " I f You Know, Teach; I f You D o n ’t. Learn.” As I spoke with Orenadians. the was the construction Agricultural workers in a mili tant mood in Qouyave. The Agri cultural and General Workers Union and these workers won profit-sharing rights in 1901 (above). Get involved in THE CHEMICAL PEOPLE project. ‘The manoeuvre is the Hardest Hard'- Carriecou Militia at the conclusion of National Manoeu vres of February. 1982 . (Photo: Free West Indian) Attend the town meeting in your community For information call o f the new international airport. Hotel managers, taxi drivers, nut meg farmers and dockworkers all agreed it was a long overdue boost for the nagging tourist industry. W hile the Americans turned down Grenada's request for help in build ing the airport, the Cubans said, "W here do you want it? " — offering labor, expertise and equipment. Other international aid was also forthcoming. President Reagan subsequently complained that Grenada had no use for such an airport, that the country didn’t even have an air force. H e claimed that it was a ruse for "Soviet-Cuban m ilitarization" o f the island. But if the airport was a communist plot it had the endorse ment o f all the capitalists on the is land. The Chamber o f Commerce, the Grenada Hotel Association and the Employers Federation all gave the project their enthusiastic bless ings. Impressive as the airport was, more significant to me was the new level o f political involvement G ren ada had achieved. People’s democ racy— that’s the phrase I kept hear ing. W hat it meant to the islanders was that now they were learning to participate in decisions they had never even considered as theirs to make. In Zonal Council meetings held regularly throughout the country, neighborhood residents would meet to discuss everything from day-care centers to the national economic plan: how much to spend on im ports. what crops to concentrate on, whether or not to use pesticides. I met with Phyllis Coard, director o f the National W omen's O rganiza tion (N W O ), and w ife o f Deputy Prime Minister Bernard Coard. In her musical West Indian accent, Ms. Coard spoke with an encyclopedic knowledge o f Orenadian society. Traditionally unorganized and heavily discriminated against, women in the new Orenada had joined the N W O in droves. The goal o f the organization was to empower women— to teach them to work to gether and to demand to be heard. That summer, Coard told me, the organization was in the midst o f de bating legalized abortion, whether to ban Depo Provers as birth con trol, and what to do about sexual harassment at work. Grenada's political objective was summed up by Prime Minister M a u rice Bishop: " T o train the people to become the le a d e n ." Another gov ernment official added, " W e don't want to have only a ’ representative democracy*— which means that once every five yean for five sec onds you go to the polls and mark your ’X.’ W e call that ’five-second democracy.*” Certainly in four yean the island had not become the new democratic utopia. It hadn’t decided what pro cess would choose national leader ship, no bill o f rights had been de veloped. But more Grenadians were energetically and creatively involved in decisions affecting their lives than ever before. Rather than supporting this em bryonic democracy, the U.S. threat ened it. During the Ocean Venture '81 naval maneuvers in August of 1981, the U .S. staged a mock inva sion o f Grenada on the island of Vieques, Puerto Rico. Code named Amber and the Amberdines, the supposedly fictitious eastern C arib bean country o f Amber was accused o f being a pawn o f Country Red to "export terrorism to a number of Caribbean countries." A Ranger battalion based in Ft. Lewis, Wash ington, was airlifted from C a lifo rn ia to Vieques. Paratroopers were landed in mountainous areas o f the island and were backed by air at tacks and the amphibious landing of a thousand marines. Amber and the Amberdines— Grenada and the Grenadines; the operation was more than "purely coincidental,” the Orenadian gov ernment charged at the time. Those maneuvers now cast considerable doubt on Reagan's claim that the re cent invasion was a spontaneous move to restore order in Grenada. Planning for the invasion was in the works long ago. It's little wonder the Grenadians felt a need to stock pile arms to defend themselves. O n a steamy August night I began to understand why the U .S . chose to take such a hostile stance towards Grenada. I and hundreds o f Grena dians crowded into the auditorium o f a St. George's high school to watch performances from a number o f Caribbean groups. Reggae musi cians from St. Vincent, a political theatre troupe from Dominica, a calypso band from Barbado-.i— each group closed its act with a short speech on how inspiring they found the changes in Grenada. W ith shouts and smiles they pledged to re turn to their islands and spread the word o f the Grenadian "R e v o .” For me, this West Indian cultural night symbolized the real "th re a t" posed by Grenada. It was not the supposed export o f terrorism nor the alleged Soviet-Cuban menace that Reagan feared. Rather, it was Grenada's example to other im pov erished Caribbean nations that w or ried the president— and also fright ened the elites o f those countries joining the invasion. W hat would become o f American influence— not to mention American investment opportunities— if other countries united with Grenada in an effort to democratically restructure their economies in the interests o f their own people? U .S. corporate control o f markets and resources would In evitably be challenged. Caribbean nations might decide to embark on a more independent course in foreign policy, as had Grenada 1-800-452-6505 or (503) 229-4847 Grenada was the newest leak (hat had sprung in the "A m erican lake,” and it had to be plugged W ith the recent military coup came the ad ministration’s long-awaited oppor tunity to dismantle what remained o f the revolution and re-organize Grenadian society— American style. Then, watch THE CHEMICAL PEOPLE. Wednesday, Nov. 9 at 8:00PM Q Q 0 | ) Oregon Public Broadcasting (Ed. note: Mr. Bigelow, e teacher et Jefferson High School, visited Grenede during the summer of 1982.) Street Beat by L e n ita D u k e a nd R ic h a rd B ro w n W a lte r C lu te S ec u rity I think they should retaliate. I don’t think it is right what they did. It is the same with Grena da. I'm glad the Marines went there. ¿ I- With the rubble cleared away from the troops’ positions in Lebanon the S treet B eet team asked, "In the af termath o f the bombing, should U.S. troops come home or launch some re taliatory action?” I think they should come on home and leave the problems of another country in their bands. They should settle their own problems M r. P o rtw o o d H o u s e w ife I t ’s time to bring them home. It was tragic what happened hut I still think they should just come home. - Bub S h e rm a n Real Estate r Wally Hayden Wine Distributor I really think they ought to pull out. They are involved with other countries and their cul tures. W e don't know anything about them, therefore we should pull out. I don't think they should launch any retaliatory action, but I think they should stay for their own credibility. I f you don't have your commitments taken care o f in one area you w on’ t have them taken care o f in another area. Lu N e al U n e m p lo y e d I really don't know, but 1 think (hey should have had better protection. They knew how it was over there The truck should never have gotten that far.
