Andrew Sage

I, um, finished my book recently, but I have a chapter on gender and there's this, a communist militant in Spain who was fighting at the frontline, but also they were saddled with that double burden, right?

Because women were expected to be the ones amongst, especially amongst the communists who cooked and cleaned, um, in addition to fighting.

which I think is great.

Yeah, it's a good one.

I like it a lot.

Yeah, yeah.

But flaws with engaging with gender aside, there were, of course, other things the New Jewel movement was doing that was positive.

You know, they encouraged agricultural diversification and local food production, moving away from that sort of exclusive or near-exclusive dependence on nutmeg production that had defined the colonial period.

You know, they got rid of the old Westminster-style parliamentary system in favor of a one-party system with some elements of mass democracy.

Now, the degree to which that democracy actually empowered people is debatable, but there were, you know, efforts on the record.

You know, they organized public meetings to discuss the national budget.

They set up workers and youth and women's and farmers' organizations.

And unfortunately, even though Bishop was influenced by C.L.R.

James, he continued to pursue the sort of hierarchical leadership common in Caribbean politics.

And so even with these alternative organizations, you had that kind of hierarchy.

But I think that is to be expected from any movement besides anarchism.

So I can't say I'm surprised.

They closed the independent newspaper Torchlight after an article highlighting a Rastafarian protest against lack of representation in government.

So there were efforts to ensure that Grenada moved towards secularism.

But freedom of the press was not something that was particularly high in terms of priorities.