let we sing sweet grenada

Let We Sing Sweet Grenada

Independence day comes and goes with a stream of red green and gold left behind in the national flags waving and the freshly painted red green and gold telephone poles, street curbs, base of palm trees and shop doors saluting the end of a week of birthday celebrations.

The week leading up to Grenada’s 36th birthday was full of celebration. 36 years to ponder whether Grenada “really free or not”; 36 years to proudly wear and boast the brilliant colors of an independent nation; 36 years to radiate hope, courage and resilience in spite of many hardships; 36 years of culture, history, politics vibrating through the streets, villages, towns, radio and tv stations, mouths of shop keepers, neighbors and family.

Maya Samara and I met up with our community crew and joined the parade of colors. We danced down Cook Hill and into the lively streets of Grenville. Alluring beat of African and steel pan drums calling; conch shells trumpeting; calypso songs sharing “let we sing let we sing let we sing sweet Grenada”; hips winding to the beats of independence celebration; and soft smells of fried, steamed, soused, baked fish flexing through the air as fish Friday plants her lovely self down in Grenville on Saturday, the eve before independence day. We arrive just as the parade is beginning to march through the streets, school marching bands, carnival costumes, torches lit, a tropical sea of red green and gold as the whole of Grenada is drenched clean in national colours.

I continue to listen openly to a blend of hard worn colourful versions of independence day stories. Stories that begin with Sir Eric Matthew Gairy, the Father of Independence and move to the People’s Revolution government that “mashed up” for many reasons that are available through the people who lived through it. There are many shaded hues of personal perspectives. Here is one version told by an elder man in a shop one hot blazing afternoon while waiting for a pound of rice:

“You feel Gairy an easy man. Yes is true he sign the papers, he leave the island and return saying Grenada Free. Yes, is true he is the Father of Independence. He began as the champion of the oppressed and started with a good heart, good intentions but his ego take over in the end and nobody could say nothing critical about Gairy and his ways. If anyone say anything to oppose or if people seen meeting in groups Gairy send his mongoose gang to take care of that. Gairy have his own gang of thugs and call them the mongoose gang. The mongoose were brought to Grenada to get rid of the rats taking over the farmers crops. Gairy cleverly created his own gang, the mongoose gang to get rid of his own set of rats who he felt was eating up his ability to lead. You feel Mr. Gairy easy. He do a lot of wrong things in the name of freedom and independence. But I believe he started with a good heart and good intention. Well don’t they all because I too believe Maurice Bishop started off authentic and true to his intentions to lead a peoples revolutionary government. But ego catch up with Mr. Bishop too and many of the other leaders of the New Jewel Movement. Mr. Bernard Coard get eaten up so much by ego in the end he call treason and line up Maurice bishop and 12 of his cabinet followers and shoot them dead. People’s Revolution come along in reaction to the abuse that Gairy reign down. If that isent irony I don’t know what is. Gairy began by fighting for the oppressed and in the end he overthrown by People s Revolutionary government! Many foreigners say to me 'oh you come from Grenada isent that where the Americans swooped in and saved your country in four days'. I say to them, say what you like, four days is nothing in comparison to the four years of good intentions that got overthrown by men drunk on ego. yours and mine.”

I continue to move through the stories on the streets, in the shops, and throughout the island. I create my own colorful versions of how and when and why. I try not to get too stuck on my own versions knowing every nation's story is complicated however robust with teachings. I give thanks and praise to the past 16 years living here on the island and growing in a more social, political, economic, class, race and gender consciousness by listening and reflecting on people’s stories.