In a speech given to the Legislative Council in Basseterre on 24th April, 1928, Sir Eustace Fiennes, then Governor of the Leeward Islands, said: “I do not believe in over-educating the working class. It is the greatest mistake to educate them out of their station. It simply fills their minds with inflated ideas. It is one of the most disturbing things in the Colony…”
Fiennes wanted the masses to be under-educated and deprived, and intimidated by, dependent on, and subservient to, their colonial rulers.
At that time, as much as 90% of the entire land mass of St. Kitts, maybe even more, was owned between the British Crown and about twenty private owners .
And all that the children of slaves were able to inherit from their forbears was the same suffering and deprivation, just under a different name.
Fiennes wanted the fences, both actual and virtual, that separated the rich from the poor, to remain standing.
He wanted the masses to be divided. And not just divided, but divided in a bitter, hostile and vicious way, so that their frustration and anger would be directed at each other, instead of being directed at the source of their deprivation and misery.
That way, the masses would be easier to fool, to control, and to rule. And that way, they could continue, in general, to under-achieve, and to be dependent.
The masses, on the other hand, needed something totally different. They needed to be empowered in every good way, and to live in a society built on dignity, harmony, and unity.
Does it appear to you that what your parents, grandparents and great-grandparents suffered under Eustace Fiennes and his ilk are very much the same things that you’re suffering today under Denzil Douglas?
Of course, the quality of life is better today in a number of ways than it was then, thanks to decades of struggle and success. But there’s no doubt that Douglas has plunged this land back into colonial, undemocratic, abusive times.
Four years after Fiennes’ infamous speech, the Workers’ League was established, and it, together with already existing benevolent associations, set the stage to rectify the injustices.
The objectives were: political empowerment; land ownership; the dismantling of fences, real and virtual, which had stood for centuries in defence of a system dedicated to greed, oppression, injustice and inhumanity; and a healing of the divisiveness among the masses that had been so deeply cemented into the culture.
And it’s the last objective that began to be accomplished first, as ordinary people found common ground and fellowship in their common cause. Unity!
In January, 1935, the famous Buckley’s Revolt took place, and it energized worker discontent throughout the Caribbean, catching the attention of the British. Where murmuring and mumbling had failed, action, through unity of cause and purpose, now succeeded.
Three men were killed in the Buckley’s Revolt: John Allen, James Archibald and Joseph Samuel. And two others, Simeon Prince and John Palmer, were jailed for five years for leading the leading the Revolt.
As far as I know, there’s still no monument to honour these heroes. Our children don’t know their names. There are no folk stories about them. No songs. No poems. No plays. No movies. Allen, Archibald, Samuel, Prince and Palmer are zeroes in our history, but a major street in Basseterre is named after Eustace Fiennes.
And while it’s difficult to forgive previous Administrations for not correcting this injustice, it’s impossible to forgive Douglas because he has had the longest and latest chance to do so (and it has been brought to his attention), yet he has done nothing about it over the last 18 years. Indeed, he has shown only contempt and disregard for the heroes and martyrs of Buckley’s. For goodness’ sake, even the sacred site itself is up for sale!
Eustace Fiennes would be proud of Denzil Douglas.
Over the years under colonialism, elected parliamentarians found themselves battling against marginalization and frustration by the colonial rulers who, in absolute and continuing disrespect for democracy and for the voice of the people through their votes, kept looking to push unelected puppets into legislative and administrative positions of influence.
That was a practice which Labour leaders, and Robert Bradshaw in particular, resisted vigorously and relentlessly. And they succeeded, step by step until, in 1967, the full Cabinet system was introduced along with internal self-rule called Statehood.
Between 1967 and 1980, successive Labour Administrations under Bradshaw, Southwell and Moore ensured that the voice of unelected persons was not allowed to overpower and marginalize that of the people’s electeds. And the same applied under the PAM-NRP Administration between 1980 and 1995.
But all of that changed in 1995 after Denzil Douglas took over, as he proceeded to give unelecteds power over the people’s electeds, and to plunge us back into the undemocratic and unjust colonial paradigm.
Eustace Fiennes would really be proud of Denzil Douglas.
Then Labour and Bradshaw, and with them the people‘s representatives over the years, fought hard to ensure that ordinary folks would become empowered through land ownership.
In 1975, Bradshaw acquired the sugar lands, and in 1982, Kennedy Simmonds paid for the lands.
But by 2006, Douglas had already mortgaged 4,700 acres, or nearly 8 square miles, of the same lands to the National Bank because he had run the country into an incredible debt of $3 billion, and had been borrowing like crazy, as he still is, from the Bank.
And, now, in order for the Bank to get its money back, it is looking to sell off the lands, and at a price which is beyond the reach of citizens.
This means that vast acreage of St. Kitts lands will again end up in the hands of foreigners, thanks to the incompetence of Denzil Douglas and his utter insensitivity to history and its struggles.
Again, Eustace Fiennes would be proud of him.
But worse than that, Fiennes would gleefully cite Denzil Douglas as the embodiment and justification of his dastardly and infamous statement in 1928.
Now, the fences.
In Fiennes’ time, and for a long time thereafter, ‘fences’ kept poor people from voting, from getting into Parliament, from getting a high school education, from getting good health care, housing and property ownership, from being able to sit on juries, from getting jobs in the banks in town, etc., etc.
Labour pulled down those fences, one after the other, and opened up opportunity for the masses.
There were also physical fences that were erected to keep poor people from going into Frigate Bay and other places.
Back in the day, Bradshaw went to Nevis and told some big shots over there that they would no longer be allowed to block poor Nevisians from going into the Bath Stream. And he told the owners of a particular hotel that the fence that they had erected to block off a beach had to be brought down immediately.
All fences were hauled down under Bradshaw and Labour. And I don’t recall any being erected between 1980 and 1995.
But since Douglas came into power, the fences have gone up again.
The people are being fenced out from their own lands, as the lands are being set up to be sold off en masse to foreigners to pay off the Government’s debt to the National Bank.
The people are being fenced out of the goodwill of the investment world and the diplomatic community by the ’haircut’ that we have been put through by the debt; and they are also fenced out of access to adequate health and educational services because of the mismanagement that led to the debt.
They are being fenced out by the excessive taxes and electricity and other costs.
Fenced out of jobs and from other entrepreneurial opportunity.
And fenced out by structures that have popped up at La Vallee, and at a few locations on the Southeast Peninsula.
The fences are back.
Eustace Fiennes would be so proud of Denzil Douglas.
Finally, the divisiveness.
While there has always been political divisiveness in our country, it has been taken to new, disgraceful limits under the rule of Denzil Douglas. He hates unity. It is his enemy. And he is preaching hard against it. He wants the people divided and viciously against each other so that he can rule over them. He wants them to be hostile and hateful towards each other, and not towards the real source of their suffering and deprivation: he!
Eustace Fiennes would be proud of Denzil Douglas.
Indeed, maybe they’re related. Somebody, do a DNA test, please.
