Oil and Sugar Don’t Mix October 11
“The earth is made wretched by the urban elite who coalesce to
form a nation after independence but, without delay, re-create the
colonial within the de-colonized state, becoming black skins in
white masks.“
Fazal Ali, TT Guardian
Our delivery of curried dumplings arrived late due to the city shutdown this afternoon. The trade unions have organized a protest which has stopped traffic downtown and in Saint James, the oldest Indian neighborhood in the city, and curry lovers suffer for it.
Today’s “Oil Joins With Sugar“ march of Afro-Trinidadian and Indo-Trinidadian industrial workers evokes a unity not seen since the Black Power Movement of the 1970’s, at the birth of the republic. It is meant to protest the recent closure of the Petrotrin refinery, the state-run oil company, at a cost of more than 10,000 jobs. The T’nT Mirror, purveyor of “Independent Aggressive Journalism“, reports that the government has a plan to sell the petroleum assets to Trinidad’s “elite one percent.“ No one is surprised.
In 2003, the Caroni Sugar Refinery withstood large protest marches before its ultimate shutdown, sending home thousands of mostly East Indian employees. The mostly black Oilfield Workers Trade Union joined that march in solidarity. It was considered payback for a momentous event 30 years earlier when Black-Power Uprising leader Geddes Granger reached out for sugar union support in a “mother of all marches,“ an attempt to unite Africans and Indians against a common oppressor. 40,000 people showed up for the “National Unity March“ on March 12, 1970, which continued to grow over the next three days as the route extended over 26 miles into the heart of power in Port of Spain.
The Indian participants did not receive word that, fearing unrest, Prime Minister Eric Williams—his constituents called him The Doctor—had declared a state of emergency. Moreover, they were victimized by an orchestrated rumor campaign that black protesters in Port of Spain were poised to rob and rape them, which the Indians astutely disregarded. Instead, the protesters were met by violent police force after city curfew. Scores of sugar workers were beaten, alighting a guerrilla war in broad daylight.
This is precisely what The Doctor wanted to avoid, chiefly, the consolidation of Trinidad’s two equally major races. According to former Parliament Senator Embau Moheni, “The idea of a march to unite…caused much alarm and consternation among those who had a vested interest in maintaining the divisions in the society. This was before the sound systems fell silent late into the night.“
Editor Raffique Shah, former Managing Director of the Mirror, recalls the violence that ensued after the police assault: “Williams saw the danger of the move, some kind of unity between grassroots Indians and Africans. The politics of the country before that was neatly divided between the Afro-led and supported PNM and Indian-led and supported PDP, later to reincarnate as the DLP.“ Shah was also a dues-paying sugar union member and ex-lieutenant in the T&T Regiment. During the uprising of 1970, he led a mutiny of 400 soldiers in Saint James.
On April 21, 1970, as the New York Times reported, the police opened fire on a rampaging mob. Ensuing riots killed four, including a cop. While demonstrators clashed with policemen brandishing batons and tear gas, gasoline bombs ignited government apartment housing and a health center. Firemen battling the blazes were pelted with bottles and stones. Foreign-owned banks were attacked. Meanwhile, Geddes Granger and George Weekes, the president of the Oilfield Workers Trade Union, were arrested, and a manhunt was launched against the young guerrillas, which ended with a hail of bullets and a number of death sentences.
The Doctor was blunt with his diagnosis: “Oil and sugar don’t mix.“