Republicanism in the dialectic of Bajan history

by Ralph Jemmott

Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed by the author(s) do not represent the official position of Barbados TODAY.

On Saturday, August 22, Prime Minister Mia Amor Mottley had a televised ‘Conversation’ with the people of Barbados about the upcoming move to republican status on November 30 his year. If there was ever any doubt, it is clear that the die is now cast.

In three months, Barbados will cease to be a monarchy with Queen Elizabeth II as titular head, her heirs and successors being accorded due allegiance. After 55 years of political sovereignty, it is fitting that the swearing of that oath of allegiance should end. My preference would have been for a referendum, if for no other reason than out of curiosity.

It would have been interesting to see what the voter turnout would have been. In spite of all the controversy, I don’t think the issue would have evoked tremendous response. Would the vote have reflected a generational divide between young and old or a racial contrast between white and non-white? What would be of greater significance, however, is that given the lip service paid to participatory democracy, a plebiscite rather than Government dictate would have seemed more appropriate.

The Prime Minister’s ‘Conversation’ led me to once again look into the text by Hilbourne Watson entitled “Errol Walton Barrow and the Post-War Transformation of Barbados”. It is an extremely critical and well-argued analysis of the dialectic of post-1937 politics in Barbados.

However, its central thesis is less than persuasive and is one with which I have a fundamental disagreement.

There is a polemic in Caribbean history and historiography that claims that the riots of the 1930s were “a turning point” at which West Indian history “failed to turn”. Watson posits that the post-war transformation of Barbados unfolded within “the context of bourgeois-democratic revolution”, as opposed to a thorough-going socialist proletarian revolution, which as a leftist academic, he would have preferred.

The accusation is that the perpetrators of the “bourgeois revolution”, leaders like Grantley Adams and Norman Manley diverted the radical energies of the black working class to moderate ends. You can make that argument.

What is challengeable, however, is the implication that the bourgeois revolution was in Watson’s words, “designed to canalize the energies of society and especially the working-class population to produce outcomes that would benefit foremost the forces that owned and controlled the means of production and wealth.”

One has three issues with the general thesis. The first is that it overstates the radicalism in the black working class.

The second is that using the term “designed” implies a purposeful effort to subvert black working-class interests and thirdly it shows a disregard for historical context in that it ignores what was possible in the actual politics of the time.
This brings me to the issue of Mottley’s Republican initiative.

One perspective agreed on by those who support and oppose the idea is that it is by and large mainly symbolic. The British Monarch has not in any significant way ruled Barbados since 1966. Republican status will not in any substantive way alter the means of production or more specifically the social relations that derive from the capitalist mode of production.

As Watson agrees, no Barbadian leader from Grantley Adams and Errol Barrow to Owen Seymour Arthur has attempted to change Barbados socio-economic system in a structurally significant way.

Miss Mottley will be no different. Barbados cannot function outside of the obvious constraints of global capitalism dominated by white elites. Locally every Barbadian leader from Adams to Mottley has chosen or been forced to work with white capital. The Monday 23rd article by Harry Russell suggests that some business interests who finance political campaigns do so in expectation of recompense.

Some as we know give to both parties. Does this suggest a collision between white capital and the black political class that may be less than salutary and not in the interest of blacks who are perennially promised a new heaven and new earth as the old firmament passes away?

One of the justifiable arguments put forward in defense of republican status is that it represents the full achievement of sovereignty and that it serves to vindicate the Barbadian nation’s place in history as a legitimate and inevitable conclusion to the process of decolonisation.

This is primarily an academic construct of interest to a handful of ostensibly ‘progressive’ activists. The average Barbadian has grown apathetic and the educated intelligentsia has, by and large, disengaged themselves from mass participation beyond the security of their living room.

It is possible to argue that the new Republicanism might propel Barbadians to new creative energies, although one doubts the possibility.

Barbados becoming a Republic on November 30 is unlikely to alter the capitalist mode of production or the social relations that emanate from such. Republic or no Republic, what Hilbourne Watson calls ‘the historic compromise’ will continue, with very much the same outcomes.

Ralph Jemmott is a respected retired educator.