 I am a Saint Lucia, yeah. That's love. Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. I am your host. My name is Ulfla Augustine. Welcome to the 2023 few-fourth Emancipation Lecture that I know that you guys are anticipating. It's entitled, The Politics of Saint Lucia from George F. L. Charles to Philip Jean Pierre. It will be about the implications for freedom by economist, author, public, intellectual, and view for its very own Dr. Anderson Reynolds. I'm also pleased to say that to help us celebrate the evening in Saint Lucian style, we have here with us Nintas Magray. Let's give him a welcome to serenade the evening. Earlier, we were supposed to have had a vod service, but we haven't seen them yet. So let's hope that we see Minister Ernest. Minister Ernest, he should be on his way. OK, OK, so he's very close. He will be here. Thank goodness. Yes. So we shall have Minister Dr. Ernest Hilaire to motivate and officially launch the event. After the lecture, historian and adopted view for Jean, Dr. Jolene Hampson, who is in the audience right here, to my left. Yes, let's give her a round of applause. Yeah. She will provide perspectives with closing remarks or comments. And then you, the audience, will have the opportunity to provide feedback in the form of questions, comments, or discussions that you may want to say something about. In keeping with the theme of the lecture, we have on display a collection of books that you could browse through there right here. And in the back, we have some books as well. Dr. Reynolds, six books are also on display, all of which are on sale tonight at a special price of $50, $50, EC. So before you leave here tonight, don't forget to get your autographed copies of Dr. Reynolds' books. As was the case with the view for book launch, I don't know how many of you were able to be present. But Dr. Reynolds, he did launch a book called, they call him Brother George. It's right here. Tonight's lecture is part of an attempt to change the narrative on view for it to one of positive and uplifting engagements. We all have heard of certain incidents that took place that were not very nice. And we know that we need to change that. So Dr. Reynolds is trying to make an attempt to change the script. As such, the lecture represents the start of a jackal productions in collaboration with the recently launched initiative, Seeds for Justice, Peace, and Economic Prosperity in St. Lucia. That beginning in view for it seeks to engender the positive socioeconomic transformation of St. Lucia communities. Folks, we know that violence is all around the world, but we would like to start to make a change. And for those of us who can make a change, we need to try and do what we can. All right, if you know something, say something. But you must say to the right persons and do the right thing. In continuation of emancipation, commemoration of emancipation, Dr. Reynolds will conduct a special book signing this Saturday from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. at Marcy's Mega in Castry Shock Bay. And next month, as he did in 2017 and 2018, with the publication of The Stallkeeper, which we have over here. When you get a chance to look at that, too, Dr. Reynolds will embark on an international book tour of they called him Brother George. It's the portrait of a Caribbean politician. Those of you who are in your, I would say, 50s, you know who Brother George is, don't you? I show of hands for those of you who know who Brother George is. Raise your hands. All right, thank you. So the portrait of a Caribbean politician, who is Brother George, on this tour, he will be visiting several Caricum countries and several North American and UK cities. Oh, Dr. Reynolds is going places. That's a good thing. Let's give him a big hand. So we're still waiting for Dr. Ernest Hillier, who should be here any time, OK? So would we welcome Nintas Magre right now? I'm going to give you a little write-up on him. We would like to call on Nintas Magre, the 2012 Saint Lucia Calypso Monarch, to serenade the evening. He hails from Derriso. He is perhaps Saint Lucia's most energetic, entertaining, and versatile artist. Would you say that? I think so too. Let's welcome him. Let's welcome him. Yeah, he is equally at home in a Calypso tent as in a concert hall accompanied by a big band orchestra. It's just so happened that this morning, what a coincidence, I met this man at a workshop. I'm supposed to be introducing him, and I didn't realize that he was the one I met at the workshop. I heard his name, but I just let this pass by. And I'm like, who is Nintas? And he was right there. So here we are. We have this young man who is very talented and is ready to entertain us. He's a featured artist in this year's Saint Lucia Jazz and Arts Festival as well. And he is an artist with the talent and potential to represent Saint Lucia at the highest levels of world music. So let's welcome this young man. Thank you very much, since we had not used any quail, I felt that it was important quail being a vehicle of emancipation in itself. So when you hear African tunes like, Manima,manima,bo manima You know that africanism and St. Lucianism and our culture is very present and alive and We need to every time we get an opportunity Remind ourselves that we have an identity we are a people and Emancipation would have done an injustice Where a lot of what we are and new was being suppressed My journey is to find for myself in my short life How true I can be to what I am what I was and what I can be and I try to inspire others to be Conscious If you give me some music, I will sing the song that I wrote with that particular flavor We'll use the track will use this the song because the track the guy couldn't send it I am no lie. I am no lie. Never sat in Parliament In your image we built no monument In the shadows Lives our hero nation yet to fight in chance way in what we have become The first builders want you to know if you are here You are here, oh See me see I must say See me see I must say is my nation this nation of people this land that I'd rather be more See me see you very much named us indeed. I just discovered your big talents Let's give him a big round of applause again Yes, thank you so much. He has that wonderful natural singing voice that when I look at the voice from Britain Britain got talent America's got talent Singapore's got talent. We should have a Saint Lucia's got talent show. So that's yours. You got to do it All right, thank you again Now we would like to introduce the man of the hour Dr. Anderson Reynolds Here's an award-winning author as you can see One of Saint Lucia's top public intellectuals and most prominent and prolific authors Who with the publication of they called him brother George? The portrait of a Caribbean politician now has six books under his belt My way of introduction we invite you to sit back and Enjoy a brief video that speaks to dr. Reynolds literary journey and body of work Let's welcome minister All right, you can come over You could come forward. I was just You can come forward Dr. Reynolds writing be it fictional or non-fictional has been described as a world in which a great drama unfolds Where history geography nature culture the supernatural and socio-economic factors all Combined to seal the fate of characters Communities or for that matter the fate of whole nations or civilizations In this crucible of a world readers are provided with deep insights into where Saint Lucia's come from Who they are as a people and how they became who they are His first book the novel death by fire presents a world plagued by supernatural Malvolence natural and man-made Catastrophes and the vagaries and unkindness of history in the presence of these life-changing forces The novel follows the lives of two boys being raised by single parents as they pursue a life of escalating crime as such the book presents a sociological contemplation on the root causes of poverty and deprivation and Pozits that sometimes the neglect of a child produces nearly the same fate as the hatred of a child his second book the struggle for survival a Historical political and socio-economic perspective of Saint Lucia retells the story of the tragic 1993 island-wide banana strike that culminated in the shooting death of two banana farmers However by going beyond the tragedy and delving into the islands history Farmer's struggles against droughts hurricanes falling prices corrupt institutions and multinational Corporations we see a microcosm of the struggles of a people against slavery colonialism imperialism dispossession marginalization and natural calamities Against the backdrop of American World War two occupation of view fought and the damaged culture the occupation wrought Dr. Reynolds third book and second novel the stall keeper Examine the lives of the town's inhabitants as they struggle to find love acceptance and material success In so doing the novel presents a meditation on the nature of fate and offers food for thought on Why view fortunes are the way they are Dr. Reynolds fourth book the memoir my father is no longer there was inspired by his father's accidental death He said that the book was an attempt to reconcile himself to his father's sudden and premature death and to get to know him better Than when he was alive The book presents a meditation on the nature of death the value of a life and the nature of art and creativity It is an exploration of family values the depth of parental love and sacrifice and the importance of parents child bonding In his fifth book no man's land a political introspection of St. Lucia Dr. Reynolds dissects and Lucian politics and society to pinpoint what is wrong with the country's political system and how to fix it The book speaks to the whole history has on the country and how race partisanship Provincialism and opportunism cloud the political process. It is a meditation on issues of patrimony Sovereignty, nationhood, corruption and political empowerment In this world of Anderson Reynolds, is there any escape or any hope of rising above circumstances of birth and geography? Well, maybe a hint of an answer is provided in the struggle for survival where the narrator says But refusing to take a page from history farmers went on a strike and history repeated itself So in the world of Anderson Reynolds knowledge and understanding of one's history and culture represent the only possible means of escape from one's fate in other words Man know thyself and do thyself no harm But even so there are no guarantees for in the stall keeper Ruben was well equipped with the knowledge of history and culture Yet this did not prevent his downfall Present okay, so we would like to call on minister he layer to the podium so that he could do his Presentation, thank you. All right. So I'm supposed to yeah, so yeah So we are here. We are pleased and honored to have to invite the honorable doctor Ernest he layer Both in the capacity of deputy prime minister and minister for tourism investment creative industries culture and information To motivate and officially launch the evening with brief remarks Besides his involvement in solution politics and governance Doctor he layer has served St. Lucia as high commissioner to the United Kingdom and Has served the Caribbean region as the chief executive officer of the West Indies cricket board with a double University major in political science and sociology and so far with his excellent and applaudable efforts and success at expanding and professionalizing St. Lucia's cultural presentations. I Think doctor he layer is ideally suited to motivate a discussion on freedom and St. Lucia politics would you come forward now, please? Thank you very much madam chairperson. Let me say good evening to all of you Let me apologize for being late I think a combination of factors conspired against us first You took big containers on the road that held up the traffic And then we went the wrong side of you thought but I did call and got directions and found myself here We went by Spartan University Instead of coming straighter I mean I really Was delighted to get the invitation to come here. It's not very often that you get discussions of Matters such as this and to actually have intellectual and Scholarly stick discussions where people can discuss ideas and share views and opinions on aspects of our civilization and It's rare in solution now public lectures and public discussions are not As exciting as carnival on the road So you can imagine when you do get an opportunity To have and to be part of a discussion It is certainly welcome and I drove from castries Certainly looking forward to her the discussion. I Would have loved to to be here not so much as a politician and minister and everything else But as a student of solution politics West Indian politics and really International politics. I mean my years of research my own academic background Centers around International politics and international economics and how it has affected post-colonial states like ours So I have a deep interest in post-colonial studies and of course I did my PhD on that various, you know same issue. So I would love to engage in the academic discourse and dialogue and not be shackled by the responsibility of being a politician and Mosul Minister who's a member of government and when I saw the topic for tonight My boss happens to be one of the people That is shown on the flyer. How can I stand here and do a critique of my boss? There's that I be sent home tomorrow as a minister of government also included was dr. Kenny Anthony who Is a person I have tremendous admiration for having serve as his attache and when he won elections in 1997 and we spent a lot of time together talking and certainly learned a lot from him and What not and George Odlam is another somebody I knew quite well as a young activist So for me is a real exciting Opportunity to hear the discourse on the contributions of those various individuals to shape in West solution political culture I must say to Dr. Reynolds that he's very very ambitious in the work that he does No, he has to be he's not you know, they're not many people They're not many people who are trying to write and document and analyze our political evolution it's it's not really happening and When you do find somebody who is not just thinking about it and we're not being normative We're not saying right or wrong is a statement of fact that you're thinking about it you're writing about it and you're putting it out in the public domain for for for discourse and Who are the people doing that in solution? What are people doing research and what are people writing and putting forward, you know reels? You know Factual content or even when one Interprets history because in many instances history comes down to interpretations How does one look at an established historical fact puts it in context and then? Assesses the impact that it has had it still comes on to some subjectivity on the parts of the the writer and you have to be brave in the first instance to Want to to say so some people say you almost Arrogate yourself the right to interpret history But that's what we need from Intellectuals and certainly academics to take historical facts bring them together and analyze them and present them for the Public discourse, so they're very ambitious person to do what you're doing. They're not many people doing it So I need to applaud you for doing it the second thing is that In this age when ironically social media has really brought about a democratization of information and Communication we can all say that you can go to Google and get information just about anything some of it is not correct, but a lot of it is and Anybody can say anything In the old days if somebody wants to report a story they call the television station The television station will do its own fact-check things. Is that true? Did somebody fight down the road did somebody do something on the road before they carry it you go on Facebook And you just write Anderson punch a woman in view for this morning and that's it It's seen by the entire world Nobody's fact-checking whether that happened for true or not. It is stated. It's broadcasted and is broadcast further Than even traditional media used to now. There's a form of democratization in that It means everybody now has the power to communicate and to share their perspective But it also now demands more critical thinking Because so much of what is being posted and put out in the public discourse You know, where's the critical a claim of it? So when you are actually writing Documenting through the publishing of books It really causes you to ensure that what you are presenting is factual And even though your interpretation might be different that you can be held up to a certain standard of You know the quality of the content that you put forward So I'm really excited that you continue to do what you do when you've written a number of books And it doesn't seem like you're going to stop soon So I'm what I want to encourage you to continue to write and to encourage Other solutions to write as well. I'm very sure you're not making millions out of those books And maybe in some instance is a loss to you because many people don't buy books like before And certainly it takes a lot of personal sacrifice and commitment for you to continue to do what you do then there's the aspect of You know the the value of the interpretation to bring to historical facts, you know If you're going to write about Kenny Anthony Philip J. Pierre, John Compton and the others You are interpreting and I've learned it in this business That's and that's why I have to start getting very careful about how I see Certain things sometimes people on the outside interpret Manifestations decisions actions differently to you the actor Because you the actor you don't want participating in the decision-making and The full story never comes out sometimes and people see well That particular incident happened and they analyze all the reasons why it may have happened and the consequences of it happening But the actors who are involved Sometimes have their own interpretation of what happened and how it happened and I can give you many examples You know there was for example under Kenny Anthony the fine of the three senators Pat Joseph Rickwain and Tessa Mangal and There's been so many versions of what really happened and how it happened including from Rickwain himself I Happen to be part of the discussions that took place. You know with dr. Anthony when he was prime minister and the senior members of his cabinet and It's totally different to what has been presented on one side But I'm sure the true story never comes out in a sense So he's now left two persons largely on the outside like yourself to interpret historical facts George Odlam is a classic case of this. I have read the book about George what not And sometimes the way your experience not you but people's experiences of George and what they saw of George and the value of George might be totally different if people Who work in the trenches with George now? I'm not saying George was not good was good or bad So you will see the romantic George the beautiful speaker His ability to mobilize and to enlighten people But then there are those who tell you, you know, how many times you so beg George? Let's just go on the ground Let's go and meet people. Let's organize. Let's organize because that's the pathway to victory But he couldn't be disciplined to do so because he was not the classic organizer But as a mobilizer he has fantastic as an orator you as by excellence But there's the other side but nobody talks about that because we are all enamored and ended by what we saw and then The other actor as well Julian hand for example who was probably the best best organizer I ever worked with, you know as an activist. I mean Julian hand you had this And I'm sure maybe Cassie liars, you know can share his own views on some of those individuals as an organizer And Julian hand was the one who brought back the labor party after the demise of the 79 82 period by 84 Julian hand had become leader and within three years We moved from the debacle of something 82 to two 98 98 elections in 1987 because the labor party was supremely organized Now somebody on the outside looking at a Julian hunt and do not account of Julian hunting politics may see a different side You would never see that brilliant organizer that person who is able to go on the ground and put up the structures The political structures to move people to to vote and to support the party So I'm sitting all about to tell you When you as a writer and certainly someone who's interpreting political history you really run a dangerous course Because you know you are writing it from a certain perspective As an academic it becomes slightly if you go full academic it becomes slightly different Because you know if you're going to write as an academic There's a lot of scholarship and a lot of sighting of documents and sighting of Incidents and what are your primary sources your secondary sources? And who you coating as a for it is for your analysis and the all the You know frameworks for analysis that you establish so you know it becomes slightly different I'm looking forward to tonight to hear what it is that is going to be presented Like I said some of the individuals I've had my own experiences with them Been you know Working with them and I have seen some of the strengths and weaknesses Some of them you can never really say publicly because of the confidence of the space you shared with those individuals But I really like what you're doing I really do and I think the more we can get people to To write and to put forward for this course and only recently you spoke about Profitilizes professionalization of culture the ash bishop pennies opinion on cannibal I'm sure some of you may have read what the ash bishop wrote you did right I mean have you how many of you read it what the ash bishop wrote? Not many of you, but you probably should read it his reflections on cannibal and I've been tempted a few times to write something as well But I think people would advise me as minister don't do that But it's a really interesting topic for us to examine what is culture? What is expression? And not that he's wrong I actually was very happy the ash bishop shared his reflections because the more we get that kind of discourse The richer the society becomes and more people should enter into that discourse. What is culture? should cannibal be You know traditional a lot of clothes are cold pot on your head and on the street just marching or is cannibal more Expressionism and anyone who wants to reflect creativity in their own interpretation to do so. I mean If I pick a film and I say that my fame is As it is death by fire And I'm putting out a ban And I'm going to have five sections the first section will be All red costume red signifying fire And then a lot of feathers to show it and then the second section might be less red maybe some black but more skimpy because The fires laid bare the city everything has been burned. You don't have to have a lot of clothes on you So you you get you know I'm saying now that's my thought my thinking That's how I want to express a theme as it is death by fire So who says because you've taken off the clothes and you have a bikini and a bra and that's not culture anymore But what if every section I present in terms of color and design and the use of feathers and whatnot I'm carrying my theme Who says that that that is candlest and what you really need to have is more to well on you more clothes and would it in its culture? Who says so? But we need to engage in that kind of debate because there are people that say it must be traditional and it should not go the other Direction a younger generation wants to go the other direction The other generation you think you could tell them they must only wear, you know a lot of 12 They don't they comfortable in their bodies and whatnot. So There's a lot. I'm looking forward to tonight, and I hope the audience is looking forward to tonight Let's have an exciting night. Thank you for having me and certainly I'm really pleased. I was invited. Thanks You're welcome. Dr. Hellea. Dr. Minister Hellea If I have to put all the accolades. All right, let's give him a big round of applause again, please So without further ado, we need to get Dr. Anderson right up here. So if you don't mind, you are next Dr. Anderson, let's come on. Welcome aboard. Good evening Welcome to our commemoration of 2023 Emancipation, thank you very much Dr. Hellea for your kind words I've been I've been saying You are that you have been doing a great job with our culture The way events are now being organized I'm saying they are doing it even better than I would do it So so keep up the good works. I Also, I think it was great. We went back to the expanded version of Senutia jazz. I call it the more democratic Present jazz present jazz presentation people solutions are still discussing still talking about We are not independent We are not emancipated the other day when I told me well How can we be say we are independent or we are emancipated? When we're still depending on England and the US for aid and so forth and so on So the issue of whether we are independent the issue of whether we are fully emancipated Is still on the discussion So tonight what what I want to do is to briefly trace the history of Senutian politics point out how the freedom of the populace has changed over time and Explore to what extent we are on slide two and to explore To what extent our various political leaders have fostered or advance the notion of freedom I think it is in order to provide definitions. What do we mean by freedom? We have personal freedom which I will define as having equal access to the opportunities and resources of the country and Subject to the rights of others having the unhindered ability to think decide and act on what one deems Is in one's best interests including but not limited to the affairs of religion economics and politics We have state freedom Which I define as having the autonomy To implement policies and programs and pursue courses of action deemed in the best interests of the people the populace free of constraints and coercion from external forces and entities or Not having or needing to give sway to external forces and entities conflicting with domestic imperatives so To have state freedom our government Must have the autonomy the freedom to design implement policies that are in our best interests and not policies on programs dictated by external forces By World Bank IMF The US Western Europe So so the so the extent to which we have that autonomy to to govern In the best interests of our people On constraint by those external factors is The extent to which I would say we have state freedom Towards the latter part of the lecture a lot of the analysis I'm going to do present is from Dr. Tennyson Joseph's book on solution politics and One of the terms that comes that is he repeats quite often in his book is neoliberalism globally or global neoliberalism now Neoliberalism have been defined as an economic philosophy Advocating unfettered markets minimal state intervention in socio-economic affairs and freedom of trade and capital flow as imperative to Sustain economic growth and human progress So it's a philosophy is a philosophy that says government should stay out of the economy We must have the market must bring supreme We must have free flow of capital of free flow of of labor And so forth and there must be very little government intervention in the market now To the extent that we buy into global neoliberalism in the eyes of dr. Joseph We are constrained in our freedom Neoliberalism have It has been said it limits the autonomy of small individual states to pursue independent domestic agendas And prioritizes the requirements of global capital above domestic needs so neoliberalism Constrains the autonomy of governments to To do what they think is best for the people and it puts ahead of Domestic requirements it puts The requirements of international capital It prioritizes that international capital ahead of the needs of the of the country So again based on our definition of freedom to the extent that Sainte-Lucie is following or accepting the notion or have bought into the notion of Neoliberalism is the is the extent to which we are not free So if we ask if we buy these definitions Then let's continue So we are we are down to slide seven slavery or part one Emancipation the great irony And we are down to slide seven Now Sainte-Lucie Emancipation came in 1838 And as you could well imagine there was great jubilation great celebration But no sooner Our ancestors were emancipated. I think they suffered great disappointment So begin with it wasn't the slaves The emancipated slaves the former slaves that received reparation for all the cruelty and all the free labor they gave It was the plantocracy the plantation owners that received reparation. They argued that since It was because England legislated for slavery Legitimatized slavery that is why they invested in slave capital So now that England is freeing up the slaves changing the the legislation regarding slavery Then it they ought to be compensated compensated for giving up their slave capital England agreed So the the UK gave Sainte-Lucie slave owners a total of 342,155 pounds for 13,285 emancipated slaves The the money they gave The reparation in today's money would come to about 50 million dollars So first it wasn't the former slaves that received reparation It was the slave owners second As soon as emancipation emancipation took place The plantocracy teamed up with the government the authority at the time To make sure they continue enjoying a large pool of Of cheap labor almost Where the former slaves would continue working In all under almost the same conditions as slavery So how did they go about trying to ensure That they continue getting a cheap source of labor Well All the the slaves during slavery does some of the slaves receive Of course the plantation provide housing like the huts they lived in and also The plantation sometimes gave them plots of land where they grew their own food So after emancipation the plantation owners told the former slaves That if you all are refusing to work for us at the wages we want to pay you all on When we want you all to work Then we will have to evict you all from those plots Or you all will be forced to pay rent Now because St. Lucia is very healing A lot of the land wasn't on the plantation plantation a sugar plantation sugar cultivation so A lot of the slaves could a lot of the former slaves Left the plantation And went up in the hills To grow their own food on crown lands and so forth. So So so many of them chose to do without working for the plantations Of course on this one. This is very much unlike bad betas Which which is very flat Where the the plantations fully occupied all the lands So there wasn't much of such modular lands to for the for the slaves To cultivate Then they imposed new and high property taxes including land taxes So they made they made it much more difficult for the slaves to own land and to buy land Thereby forcing the the former slaves to continue working for the sugar plantations They licensed they imposed fees on on horses and other means of transportation And They set crown lands At artificially high prices and increased the minimum selling acreage size at which you could buy crown lands the tax The tax some of the produce that the slaves produce the tax does produce Like ground provisions charcoal cocoa and wood While exempting Sugar rum and other byproducts that the plantations Were cultivating All this was to force the former slaves to continue working on the plantations at the wages the Plantation owners wanted to pay so clearly There was emancipation, but it was like it was slavery by a different name under those conditions The former slaves were living on the dire Economic conditions wage unlivable wages chronic unemployment Limited access to acquire land and other resources And also because the sugar industry was in sharp decline so The former slaves. Yes, they were emancipated But they left but but their living conditions had not improved much Wasn't any wasn't much better than than how they lived on the slavery So you could well imagine there were revolts in 1949. There was The former slaves revolted revolted against the tax that the taxes that the authorities were imposing the The revolt ended when The authorities put to death eight of the leaders So eight eight of eight workers were committed to death As a as punishment for leading the tax revolt And then in 1907 there was a colcarious sugar strike which ended with police shooting killing four workers and injuring over 20 20 workers in that period The only way out for this the only solution The one of the few ways the former slaves could improve themselves Was to Was to migrate to emigrate So a lot of caribbean peoples are a lot of west indians a lot of cenotions went and work in the Panama canal They went to the gold mines of Guyana and Suriname the plantations of Costa Rica and Guatemala Honduras Sugar plantations of Cuba, Puerto Rico, Dominican Republic and also to the United States So much so that in the 10-year period between 1901 and 1911 About 8,217 cenotions migrated Which represented about 16 percent of the population This was how serious how critical How much suffering people were undergoing Even though they were emancipated Then came the 1930s on top of the already Unleavable conditions Sugar prices Promoted even further And then we had the great depression That is in the period of the 1930s Where the whole world was ravaged by the great depression So things got so critical in the west indies That there was spontaneous labor uprisings So much so that The authorities killed 46 labor protesters That's in the 1930s Up over 400 were injured and thousands of people were arrested British warships and police rifles squads were silent features of the original landscape Saint Lucia no one got killed in Saint Lucia during that period But Saint Lucia too had its share of strikes in 1935 The Saint Lucia coal carriers went on strike And in 1937 There were island-wide Saint Lucia There were island-wide sugar strikes One good thing came out of this labor uprising It forced the UK to take to take note And they did take action They strengthened labor laws and trade union laws They legalized the formation of trade unions So consequently throughout the region After the 1930s Strikes revolts uprisings Um Just in just about all the islands labor unions were formed In Saint Lucia the first In Saint Lucia the first union To establish in Saint Lucia came in 1939 the Saint Lucia workers cooperative union and it was registered in 1940 George Charles at the time Um At the time the union was being formed in 1945 George Charles was working as a timekeeper on the there was a VG airport extension Construction going on and George Charles was working there as a tank tank keeper He was he he got very frustrated To watch And see that time and again workers trying to Workers Trying to secure better working conditions and better wages, but failing to do so So out of great frustration George Charles joined the Saint Lucia workers cooperative union in 1945 And under the leadership of George Charles A lot of great things good things started happening in terms of improvements in the Living conditions of Saint Lucia's One of the first things George One of the first things George George Charles accomplished Was to learn to launch the castries bakery worker strike in 1947, which was the first strike First ever union strike in the country George Charles successfully negotiated For better pay better wages and working conditions for factory workers and the castries bakery workers he he secured better compensation packages for um the castries city workers town council workers and he was He was successful in securing higher wages and better working conditions for workers working on In the rebuilding of castries after the 1940s fire Okay So after 1930 after the 1930s 1930 the 1930s was really a watershed a watershed watershed period It forced England To react to take note And it it forced England to start moving towards The freedom we defined it forced England to start moving towards Allowing its colonies that kind of freedom So in 1950 England granted Saint Lucia universal suffrage This meant that for the first time in Saint Lucia's history the masses of the people the regular people had Had a vote And had a say in government at least in selecting their representatives Before before before 1950 to to participate in the little politics that existed in In the colony You had to be able to read and write and you had to add you had to have substantial income and wealth So before then the masses Had no say in how the country was governed And this is long after so long after emancipation The masses still didn't have any say in how their country was governed So in terms of freedom they were emancipated but Based on how we have defined freedom You could say they had very little freedom because so with With um universal suffrage The Saint Lucia Workers' Cooperative Union metamorphosed into a political party the Saint Lucia Labor Party And with George Charles in the leadership of that party so the first General elections after universal suffrage took place in 1951 And in that election SLP ended with five of eight electoral seats So for the first time in history the masses had a voice in government The masses had their own representatives in government So So after the 1951 general general elections The country took a step deeper into freedom nine years after 1960 in 1960 Nine years after universal suffrage And after and after two more SLP electoral victories And with additional constitutional changes and a ministerial system of government George Charles became the country's first chief minister And thus headed the first government government of the people And from the people the the first government Of and for the masses of Saint Lucia's So again, so we have moved the freedom pendulum a bit further out Now the people's very own representative Representative is now heading heading the government so Let us just summarize how George Charles pushed outward the freedom pendulum And what was some of his major accomplishments? Well, George George Charles started the process of claiming the islands for the majority of its people And of dismantling his his class structure One of the things he did when if when he joined the union Was to do away with the purpose section of the Shock the cemetery where there was a purpose so Poor people could only be buried in a certain section So by getting a reader of that concept that that policy That you could say that was the beginning of breaking down class barriers in Saint Lucia I would say that George Charles led the political foundation of the country And established the industrial relations upon which the nation was built My mentor and writing coach Alan wick said that before George Charles there wasn't a Saint Lucia people What was there then? Well, we were just masses of people Working on the sugar plantations working to further the best mostly for the best interests of the plantocracy and the uk and the crown We were like subjects of Britain but We could not Speak of a Saint Lucia people So the notion of a Saint Lucia people came about George Charles started that process according to Alan wicks but George Charles to me Didn't envision dismantling of or overthrowing the colonial system. That's just an opinion Rather he aimed to work within the system to improve the lot of his people So I don't think George Charles His main aim or intent Was to totally dismantle The colonial system dismantle the structure I don't think George Charles was speaking in terms of revolution I think he was speaking in terms of better working conditions for his people um, you know Better wages improving their welfare and so forth Now I'm presenting this lecture, but As I keep saying there are people Who are much better positioned to To speak on those issues. They have more intimate knowledge of what transpired and and so forth But since I'm a writer This is part of my subject matter So as Dr. Healy said I'm putting this out there partly an opinion and then I'll be happy to hear what you think So that's George Charles John Compton came joined the political for in 1950 He came from England with I think degrees in economic and law And if you read George Charles's memoir This period was a very exciting period In this period here you are The people were under the yoke of the plantocracy um, the island being administered by administrators appointed By the British crown And then you have universal suffrage You have political parties of the people It was a very exciting period I mean People like George Charles and his comrades were pushing for workers rights Getting into the face confronting the plantocracy and so forth So Compton joined the politics in that kind of atmosphere And of course Coming from the UK Where he would have been exposed to a lot of discussions I mean by then A lot of countries in the continent Had gained their independence Did Castro already have his revolution in 52 or after And then you had Movements in the US And so forth And then you had The Shardville riots in South Africa Where I think a bunch of people were killed When they were Well Marching And also Odlom was in the UK When In that period when they had Risk riots Risk conflict In the UK So Odlom Entered the picture From that kind of world Atmosphere And he came With a certain kind of stance There was He bought into the Black Power Movement He patterned himself I guess he bought into socialism and communism He He patterned himself after revolutionaries Like Fidel Castro And so forth So this was Odlom's mind frame When he came back from England Oh Well, am I saying Odlom? I think I have mixed I have mixed the two narratives So I mean to stay with Compton Anyway So Compton joined the free George Charles and his comrades Were very happy to have him But soon There were problems In the 1954 general elections George Charles wanted His father to run for the Miku January seat Compton said no Compton wanted to run the seat himself So Compton left the Labour Party And ran as an independent He won his seat but he was out of the party Out of the government So according to George Charles He took to writing a column In the trade union newspaper I think his pain name was Jack Spaniard, something like that Where he was confronting the Plantocracy And seeking to supplant the Plantocracy But then came the 1957 Sugar Worker Strike It was almost an island-wide strike And Compton as representative Of the Dennery area Went to the Dennery Sugar Factory To have a chat with Deniz Bernard To confront Deniz Bernard About better wages and working conditions For sugar workers Legend has it that When he confronted Deniz Bernard Deniz Bernard pulled out his gun And apparently Odlom also Pulled out a gun Compton also pulled out his gun So there was a stalemate But that stalemate Made Compton a hero So Compton came out as a hero It was like Compton had entered Into the inner cave of the enemy Of the people The enemy that enslaved the people And came out With The election of empowerment And so forth So Compton was viewed As a hero And George Charles And his comrades were very happy To welcome him back into this XSLP fold But In the 1961 But came the 1961 General elections By then We had a ministerial System of government So Whoever And as you know SLP won that election George Charles became Chief Minister And according to George Charles Compton was too much in a hurry He couldn't wait his turn He wanted to be Chief Minister So because Compton wasn't made Chief Minister According to George Charles Compton Quitted the SNL And established the National Labour Movement Party And in the 1964 elections Compton teamed up With the People's Progressive Which was like a middle class Middle class party A more conservative party than the SLP To form the UWP So At long contested The 1964 general elections On the UWP The UWP banner And UWP was a merger of The National Labour Movement Party And the People's Progressive Party UWP won that general elections So Compton became Chief Minister And in 1967 England introduced further Constitutional changes St. Lucia Attained statehood In 1967 So Again the freedom Pendulum was pushed further Because now with statehood St. Lucia was now responsible In internal affairs Whereas England remained responsible For external affairs And Compton became The first and only premier Of St. Lucia And then in 1979 St. Lucia attained Independence under John Compton So John Compton became The first Prime Minister Of St. Lucia And to date Compton is the longest serving And the longest serving Prime Minister St. Lucia has had What were Comptons Some of his major Accomplishments 23 Well I think we are probably quite familiar With some of Compton's Accomplishments He oversaw the transformation Of the country from a sugar Plantocracy Of economic Which was really An extractive economic institution That spoke of slavery To a democratizing banana industry That set off a social and Political and economic revolution That's my opinion Then to a broad based Agricultural manufacturing And tourism economy Making it the OECS country With the largest economy And most diversified industry I think The 1957 Sugar strike was instrumental In breaking the back Of the plantocracy And maybe colonial rule And I think it did a lot To the psyche Of our people And according to Social history and The offer of history Of St. Lucia The first and only attempt Of comprehensive history Of St. Lucia according to Our esteemed Social historian Dr. Jolene She said Compton Transformed Donk Troughton Politarian sugar workers Into a middle class of Prosperous farming Entrepreneurs Finally I would say Down the economic and Infrastructural foundation of the country That enabled its development To take off Well I've said enough nice things About Compton Let us see what Dr. Tennyson Joseph Has to say about Compton In terms of freedom So in terms of freedom We can say there was a lot of Economic empowerment On the Compton because the country People's standard of living You know Rise up Of course it was a lot thanks to Bananas But it happened under his reign So to the extent that Economic development took place People had greater access To resources Education And so forth To that extent you could say The Compton push out The pendulum But according to Dr. Tennyson Joseph Compton may have started as A radical communist And so forth Intent And on revolutionizing The system So planting The plantocracy And getting rid of Colonialism But when it got in power And that is not surprising Because I think when Compton Took the reign of government He realized that The white minority The remnants of the plantocracy They were still around But working behind the scenes And they controlled a disproportionate amount of the wealth So you could not really Successfully Manage the economy And run the country Without these people's support I also think Compton might have been radical But when he merged With the People's progressive party He merged with people that were more conservative than him So I think That merger also had a bearing On Compton becoming More conservative So according To Dr. Joseph Of course there is also The political reality Of operating in the backyard of the U.S. The U.S. can If the U.S. is against you I mean The U.S. can make life very difficult for your country So Compton was quite aware Of all of those realities And So he gives way To U.S. political hegemony And he saw Bordinated domestic Requirements to the demands Of domestic and foreign capital So in other words Compton compromised He prioritized the demands Of international capital Domestic capital Ahead Maybe ahead of The requirements of his people That's according to Dr. Tennyson Joseph So well So So On what is Dr. Joseph basing That critic Well He said Compton gave a lot of investment Gave investment Offered protection against expropriation He Guaranteed the foreign Entities That He That They could freely Send Profit overseas He placed No restrictions On Sending profits overseas He gave generous Investment incentives From income taxes Custom duties And relief from double taxation All this was given sway To foreign capital Of course to encourage Foreign capital to enter the country But by so doing Sometimes It's at the expense Of the country because now You're collecting less income tax And so forth Dr. Joseph also said To render the island more conducive To foreign investments So It seems like there was a definite policy To dump on wages So that Foreign entities can be encouraged To come to St. Lucia To take advantage of the Low wages And he established low cost Cheap labor duty free Manufacturing enclaves So for all these reasons So these are some of the ways Dr. Joseph said That Compton Paratterized International And domestic capital Ahead of The needs And Requirements of St. Lucia Of course The rational being that from Compton's perspective Was that The country was so poor That people were unemployed High unemployment That he had to do all what he can do To bring in foreign capital And so forth But that was at the expense Of low wages And some St. Lucia will say Almost unlivable wages So to the extent This is true Then Compton Pushed In that aspect The The freedom pendulum Got pushed inwards Because remember how we define freedom So if Compton was allowing Excellent entities Foreign capital and so on To constrain How He go about helping his people Then to that extent Compton was giving up state freedom So Then we enter Then comes George Audlum And I had already given a little Intro on George Audlum So I think I'll go straight into So I'll go straight To slide 29 According to Dr. Tennyson Joseph George Audlum Reoriented the economy Towards serving the needs of the population He was talking about significantly increasing The share of local ownership Of the island's productive assets He wanted St. Lucia to own a larger share Of the wealth And resources of the country And he was pushing that kind Of stance in his rhetoric And so on He was encouraging And promoting black entrepreneurship And investment He was advocating for land reform And other forms of wealth redistribution And Compton wasn't satisfied Operating within the present political Structure Compton Audlum wanted to revolutionize the system He wanted to change the whole structure Get away from the whole Westminster style of government So Compton Audlum wanted total freedom Not just political Not just economic But he wanted psychological freedom Spiritual freedom So he was advocating For a single party state And a government of national unity Audlum also wanted to get Out away from Under U.S. political hegemony So He was cultivating close ties With pariah Governments like Grenada, Cuba, Libya Pariah in terms Of the U.S. attitude He was talking about prohibiting the establishment Of any foreign military Based on the island And I think when he was spelling that out He was thinking specifically In terms of the U.S. He was intent on Supporting third world And nationalist movements around the world He even wanted to establish Original defense force For combating external hostilities In Audlum's brief state Government There were unprecedented interventions In the economy There were unprecedented Interventions in the economy Yet to improving the social And economic plight of the masses He promised to take from the privileged sector That's a quote I'm quoting He promised to take from the privileged Sector of the society who have Enlightened the load Of the poor He was seeking to impose substantial Increases in corporate taxes He was imposing Income taxes on expatriate Managerial salaries His Government purchased Halcyon Hotel Which was facing bankruptcy Ostensibly to protect hundreds Of jobs Audlum was pushing for a policy Of localization That included shifting emphasis Away from large Foreign-owned hotels To small and medium-sized Locally-owned guest houses and hotels He established the national commercial bank To counteract foreign bank's Domination of the banking system And after Hurricane He imposed price controls On building materials And basic foods As a response to the half Of the hurricane So we've With all of those policies Goals And emphasis Audlum was truly Fighting For the Senutian masses Fighting For The ordinary solutions To gain a larger share Of the economy He was Resisting opposing The domination of foreign capital So In brief Audlum was really pushing For total kind of freedom And I suspect the kind of freedom That the former slaves anticipated When they were being emancipated So Dr. Kenny Anthony Entered the picture in 1997 Before then He was A legal counsel at Caricom When Dr. Kenny Entered the picture A red-capped role For him In view for On his way to To the inauguration Of his Ufort candidacy Like Christ entering Jerusalem He rode on horses Into Ufort But there is the interesting thing People say Audlum was a communist socialist But I think from my reading Dr. Anthony was He was the real Marxist Communist He used to, from what I'm told, indoctrinate Students at secondary School in Marxism But it seems Like Kenny Anthony Lint looked at the failure Of Audlum Because part of the reason Audlum says And also Dr. Joseph says part of the reason Audlum never became prime minister Was because of his radical Philosophy His radical intent And which was a threat To the U.S. U.S. hedge money It was a threat to foreign and domestic capital Because No businesses like Like to hear talk of nationalizing Redistribution And so forth So it was because of Audlum's freedom stance That he never became Prime minister So I think Kenny Anthony Lint that lesson very well So well That when Kenny Anthony got in power Audlum jokes That Kenny Anthony put Two deputy prime ministers between him And between Him and Audlum to make sure That Audlum Didn't even get a cent Of the top job Well, I'm paraphrasing So I think Kenny Anthony Took at this I think there was a Decision To move away From the notion of From the radical rhetoric That Audlum Had adopted The rhetoric against the U.S. To get on the U.S. hedge money And to distance himself from The U.S. And the rhetoric Of a single party state The rhetoric of redistribution So Audlum Kenny Anthony learned that lesson So Kenny Anthony In terms of economics He parted himself After Compton Meaning that he gave Sway to domestic and international capital And He was happy And he stayed under The U.S. and Western Europe political Hedge money What are the ways in which Kenny Anthony Gives way to Capital To neoliberalism Well As soon as Dr. Kenny Anthony came into power He spoke about a shift from an agriculture To autism and services And as you know Agriculture was very much It was St. Lucian's Very much running Agriculture and farmers And so on. But when you move to a tourism Service industry You are really talking about the big players The people running those sectors Are really foreign entities All the banks, the big hotels And so forth So again Moving from Agricultural Basic economy To autism and service Basic economy Is like moving towards An economy that is More dominated By foreign entities That's just an opinion Kenny Anthony rebranded NDC to invest St. Lucia With a focus on attracting FDI As opposed to domestic investment Which is really designed To secure foreign investment So Viewport businesses would complain That they bring proposals To invest St. Lucia For development in Viewport But being It is domestic capital, domestic investment Invest St. Lucia Is not very forthcoming Because It's like They really want to set aside these lands For foreign investment After all the mandate Of investing Lucia is I think that's another opinion I probably need to be better educated On that But I think Invest St. Lucia mandate Is foreign investment So if you are an organization And your mandate is foreign investment Of course you will be given power Into foreign investment Domestic Capital domestic investment Well Kenny Anthony Established Soul St. Lucia sovereignty Via CPI The Citizen by investment That's really a sale of St. Lucia sovereignty Odlam would say Dr. Joseph said He de-emphasized risk Equity and domestic economic ownership And empowerment The kind of thing Odlam was pushing Kenny de-emphasized that According to Dr. Tennyson Joseph And like Compton He subordinated domestic needs To the demands of foreign And domestic capital And the imperatives Of neoliberalism So To the extent that Kenny Anthony To Neoliberalism to foreign capital Is the extent We move away from freedom Because This means you have become More constrained In you Forming policies and programs Designed to help your people But Remember At heart Kenny Anthony Is a socialist At heart One person said Kenny Anthony has a very soft heart So Even though Like Compton He gives way To U.S. hedge money And foreign capital I think he did foster A kinder and gentler country For example I think under Kenny Anthony We had a more equitable distribution Of access to services and opportunities Kenny Anthony had a very good Relationship with trade unions Labor unions I think under him The Labor laws were strengthened And so workers Have Got a much bigger voice In Securing better working conditions And I think under Kenny Anthony There was greater access to sports Cultural and education facilities He established safety nets Like the districts Like the district support fund He supported Under him the jazz festival Expanded to the Broad format That we saw This year And I think In his last term as Prime Minister Kenny Anthony Implemented the most ambitious Employment program I think the country has Ever implemented I mean Of course PA Is talking about the youth economy But when I look at some of the initiatives That Dr Anthony implemented You could say that So far PA This current administration Hasn't done as much for youth Economy as Kenny Anthony did During his last term That's just an opinion Because he had a very ambitious And Kenny Anthony Well we got universal secondary school education Under Kenny Anthony I think he professionalized the governance of the country I think he moved away from One man show style of governing So far For implementing Those kind of policies I think Kenny Anthony pushed In that respect He pushed the freedom pendulum Because he gave And He was very intent in Designing policies To cater for the most Vulnerable of citizens And to Improve the community Food paths and so forth And I think people Solutions got better access People were no longer punished Whole communities were no longer punished For not voting for This party or that party As obtained Before Kenny Anthony came into power So to me In those kind of respects Kenny Anthony pushed The freedom pendulum Outwards Yes Whole bunch of them Then came Shastney in 2016 Despite all the odds Despite being A white man Or almost white man Before Shastney It was 60 years Almost 60 years That Remnants of the plantocracy Were out of political power I think 60 years So Shastney was thought of as Been belly solution I mean culturally speaking Yet he beat all of those odds To become The prime minister According to Saint Lucian's Shastney was very anti freedom That's the perception People complained that he denigrated Saint Lucian's And robbed them of their Saint Lucian's So Apparently Shastney undermined I guess The feel good aspect About being Saint Lucian I guess that's what people mean He robbed them of their Saint Lucian's He was thought to serve the interests Of rich friends, family and foreigners At the expense of the populace That's the perception So Ordinary Saint Lucian's No longer had Had less access to the resources of the country He disregarded the country's Sovereignty and cultural And natural patrimony For example He undermined the ability of National trust to do his job In safeguarding the country's Natural patrimony Shastney defunded some of the Social and environmental programs For example, this continued RSL Cut the national trust funding He defunded Social safety nets Like he disbanded the people's Distress fund He turned In my mind the jazz festival Into an elitist undertaking Where most of the events were taking place Up enough He cheapened the country's sovereignty By relaxing CIP application And participation requirements And He hand over key national Assets to foreign entities With insufficient regard To social and environmental Ramifications And what the country was getting in return So So What I think about Shastney He bought wholesale Into Neoliberalism He bought wholesale Into laissez-faire economics Into Unfettered markets Well I think that's what he meant when he said He wanted to run the country as a business So based on our definition Of freedom And based on The anti-freedom And Consequences Of neoliberalism You could say Shastney Pushed The freedom pendulum Inwards Back further than Inwards further than Passed lower than Lower than Audlum Lower than Compton And maybe even lower than Inwards If we Agree with the perception People's perception Of Shastney's So Then comes Philip J. Pierre The 2021 General elections In my mind, Labour didn't have A credible vision for the country In my mind Labour Ran a campaign As a reaction To Shastney So in other words As I have written before It was like vote SLP or suffer the Shastney train wreck So to me that was the stance Of SLP So in a reaction To Shastney's SLP came up with Talk about providing Greater support for some of the country's Cultural events And I'm giving Dr. Ile Kudos Because I think Right now We are doing a very good job In presenting our Cultural expressions I think That is I think that is part of the intent I'm talking about To some extent This was a response To Shastney's reign, I think Of course The current administration is in the Process of replacing the Previous Council of the Caribbean Court of Justice I think this is pushing freedom Outwards because I think it's time We It's almost like we are saying The justice of the people who enslave us Is better than our own justice So clearly Replacing Working with the Caribbean Court of Justice Is Moving towards greater freedom PA has Implemented the youth economy Which is Ensuring that young people get A larger stake, a larger share Of the country's resources I Talked about I think The administration is expanding and enhancing The country's cultural enterprise I think In tourism Dr. Ile have spoken about Wanting solutions to get a larger Slice of the tourism Business PA Quickly The people's distress fund That Shastney had disbanded Reinstated the national trust's Subvention which allowed the National trust to reopen The Derek Walcott House And as I mentioned before PA returned Saint Lucia jazz The Saint Lucia jazz arts festival To its more Inclusive, more Democratic format So really With PA's administration I think in terms of Stance rhetoric and Some of the initiatives they are And backing on It's really about pushing The freedom pendulum Outwards But there is an interesting thing All the things It took Shastney Who many Culturally speaking It took Shastney Political novice That people said Didn't have the master To be prime minister It took His reign To push the SLP party back into the fold Of Most of the things SLP is pushing now The rhetoric and so on It sounds very much like The kind of stances Odlong was taking So really it took Shastney, the reign of Shastney For Odlong to get some vindication Because in reacting To Shastney SLP has moved Closer Towards the kind of things Odlong was advocating And I would say In that sense The current administration Has pushed The freedom pendulum Further out than where Kenny left it But maybe Not as High as Odlong I have Presented a model With Maybe you could consider the numbers A bit arbitrary But what I'm saying is Before Emancipation We had a negative index of 100 In terms of freedom Emancipation it brought us to zero Under George F.L. Charles Pick a number It went up to 40 We got Representation We got the vote And Through the efforts of George Charles And his comrades I think we got better working conditions Maybe greater access John Compton By virtue of Moving the country's economy forward And also His fight In his Early career In fighting the plantocracy So I And then We gained self-rule Full self-rule Under Compton So I would say he brought the index to 60 A bit higher than where George F.L. Charles left it And If We are to abide by Dr. Joseph's Joseph's analysis Of Odlom Then we would say Odlom really pushed the freedom index Way up To 90% Then Kenny Anthony came And He I think the index came down A little bit lower than where Odlom left it And then Shasny came And it seemed like the index Went quite a bit down Maybe even lower than where it was With George Charles And then now in reaction to Shasny Philip J.P. A government pushed way up Maybe still not up to where George Odlom Left it So this is really my presentation Thank you very much That was not only a mouthful That was filled With mouths And people Who really and truly Have their hands In our freedom For so many years Are we free? That's my question Are we free? When are we going to be free If we are not free? What makes us free? Who's going to make us free? Ourself? Somebody else? We have to think about it And let's see how we can free view Thoughts so that the rest of St. Lucia Can truly be free If that is possible at all Well We have to try, try somewhere To do something And we can start with What Dr. Anderson has proposed And I believe there is something That could come out of it Let's be positive, let's be proactive Let's do what we can Right, Dr. Hiller? Okay Thank you Mr. What's his name? Can you imagine? Cassie Lyons I cannot remember his name Thank you for being there I forgot to mention you earlier Thank you very much So now I believe we have I'm sure Jolene Hamson Dr. Jolene Hamson Would have many questions For Dr. Reynolds, right? Don't you think? Yes? So you can come up here But before we get to the question and answer segment We would like to welcome None other than Dr. Jolene Hamson Who said Viewforcian But an historian She did her PhD Desitation on a social History of Viewfort So she is well Attuned or in tune with Viewfort And she is the author of three books On Saint Lucia Including a history of Saint Lucia As Dr. Reynolds mentioned earlier Which is perhaps the first And only attempt at a comprehensive Education of Saint Lucia's History Without further ado, thank you very much Dr. Hamson Good night everyone Thank you for having me Nice to have you here Always nice to see big politicians Drive down to Viewfort and take the time It's very much appreciated in the south More I think even than maybe you might realize So thank you for being here Anderson Before I launch into A big brave Lecture like that That covers so many angles Sorry, I'm tall Before I get to you I also want to say that I'm so pleased to have Kudilia here today Kudilia stood at the very, very, very start Of my career in Viewfort Back in September 1994 After the tropical storm They'd be the first flight that landed After they got the mud off the runway And I stayed at St. Martin's guest house Kudilia, and she's the very first person Who turned my nose Because you were doing A-Levels at the time I think Told me to go and check Gregor Gregor Williams And kind of pointed my nose to a few people Around here, so I'm very pleased To see Kudilia here, I didn't even recognize it That's how little we see of each other Anderson is brave, huh I mean he can be incredibly annoying I can really disagree with him sometimes We talk for hours on the phone But he's brave And he's particularly brave because as a historian I take the safe route in a way We look at the long lines And when we wrote the History of St. Lucia Book in 2012 With Robert Evo and Guy Ellis Guy got to do everything after Well, it was supposed to be after the Second World War But it was after 1967 I brought it up to 67 And I was very happy all I had to do was edit his work Because that's when it gets tricky When You get so close into current events There is so much happening and there is so much Disruption and distortion And little things that seem important at the time When you're 10, 20, 30, 40 years on You start to see the long lines And a lot of that stuff just Falls by the wayside Even after meeting our own History Book There are things that we thought were important At the time that I would never even have considered Putting in the book now In light, for instance, of the Alan Shastney Government That we've just had Every time you look There is on in time And you look back again Your perception, your interpretation Of history changes And the closer you are to the events The harder it is to see the long line I want to draw a couple of long lines For you And then let's move into the question and answer session I'm doing this off the top of my head Without wanting to be pedantic There are two little historical things I'm going to have to pick you up on 1849 People died during the revolt But it's not because they were convicted By the judge after the revolt The people that were arrested And went to trial Were all convicted to Time in prison with hard labour But nobody was actually condemned to death For having been part of The riot The people that died died because You know, rough policing if you like The second one is you mentioned in the 1961 election Compton wanted to be chief minister And that's why George Charles Told him he has to wait, he's too quick It was actually Compton and Mason They both had won their seats And they were denied ministerial positions They didn't demand to be chief minister But they were passed over from jobs as minister And that really pissed them off And that's where they started the national labour movement And eventually the UWP So that's just two little corrections there What do I have to say about What Anderson said In terms of long lines First of all, we had 120 years Of slavery in St. Lucia We call it a 120-year war in the book Slavery in St. Lucia I'm not talking about the Caribbean or the Americas That started way back when in the 1500s In St. Lucia, first mention of slavery Is in 1720 Abolition is in 1838 It's 120 years It took us 120 years After abolition To break the power of the plantocracy So as long as we had slavery It took us the same amount of time again To break the power of the plantocracy And that really is that scene that Anderson describes there Of And again, it's slightly different I believe in the other version Of that confrontation George Charles writes about it He says after all the workers of the Factory had walked out John Compton walked into the factory To speak to someone He wasn't looking for Dennis Barnard But Dennis Barnard was smarting From the humiliation of the workers' Walkout He arrived on the scene and he told Compton to get out of his factory And it was reported, as you said That revolvers simultaneously appeared As if from nowhere Like cowboys menacing each other And that incident marked the beginning Of 120 years of continuing Conditions that are very similar To slavery And it was really with the break From sugar and eventually the introduction Of bananas that you see A radically different State of being in St. Lucia Where the plantation economy Where you have a few people At the top using and abusing Masters of the workers and the people In order to extract as much wealth As possible for their own benefit To a situation where you have bananas Where everybody who has access To a little bit of land Whether that's family land or private land Or even squatted land Can start to earn money With bananas every fortnight So that radicalized That was really a radical change Eventually after the Second World War For St. Lucia and everybody still understands The concept of banana money Banana money is where you go to the docks You sell your bananas, you get your check And you use that money how you want to use it So yes, internationally speaking We're still a small country And we still have to bow to the influence Of the West and large economies And Compton was a pragmatist He had, you know, that I'll come back to that in a minute I want to pick you up on that Yes, under the influence Of the World Trade Organization St. Lucia lost its preferential access To the markets, which you can say That freedom being curtailed By the outside Western world Because that was hypocritical America took St. Lucia and the other islands To the World Trade Organization America doesn't grow one banana on American soil But American multinationals have You know, a hand in banana Companies in Middle America and South America Where was I? Yeah, Compton was pragmatic So we lost bananas And we have the change over to Kenny Anthony didn't have a choice We had to move to something So we went to tourism and services industry The point I want to make And we have the Ministry of Tourism here Is that it's not because You have an agriculture economy Or a tourism economy That one is of Of its own accord More a plantation economy Or less of a plantation economy In agriculture you can have sugar That was organized according to the principles Of plantation economics Whether that was slavery or the 220 years After slavery That was very much an extractive Plantation economic model When we got bananas we still doing agriculture But now we have banana money So we still agriculture but everybody Every farmer is now getting his money So now we have an economy that is geared Towards the best interest of the people of the country The same thing goes for tourism But that is not something that I hear Any of us really speak About very much Not even Kenny Anthony's government Neither the current government I'm not hearing that discussion I talk about it a lot I don't know if you want to hear it or not But in my view When you have a tourism based economy You still have to think About how does that articulate How do you articulate that economic system With your people Everybody thinks tourism industry Okay that's hotel, hotel, hotel In view of thought And I'm going to bring this right down to view of thought In view of thought we've had Tourism for decades With the medical schools Never mind Halcyon club med Or coconut bay which is the first thing everybody Always thinks about When you think of residential tourism And the influence that the medical schools Have had in view of thought over the decades That is banana money When moving away from it We haven't given it the attention that it deserves Banana money, everybody with a little apartment In black bay and see the highest In St. Jude's highway That was banana money But when we think of coconut bay Coconut bay is Jamaican foreign owned You know you book that overseas The money goes back to Jamaica That is very much along the lines of a sandals For instance where you have One business owning One, two, three, four, five All inclusive resorts I think at one time The highest rate of all inclusive rooms There are many islands in the Caribbean That's the plantation style Plantation economic style Of having tourism We need to think about that If you go to the library The library is full of white people in the tourist season Where is the hotel They don't have a resort God forbid that the library Not get a resort in my opinion That's Airbnb money And then there we have boutique hotels That's somewhere in the middle Where you're invested in your island Who own that property But we need to start thinking about How do we articulate our socioeconomic development With the people Is the What we bring in Because you talk about Compton And his industrialization by invitation And you write a lot of low wage jobs You know the factories its jobs And you can say the same thing about the call centers now But at least they provide some employment So this brings me back to the point About radicalism and pragmatism You confuse Odlem and Compton That is not Really that surprising That's not that surprising When you go through all these guys that you have there Really and truly The only I don't want to say abomination Aberration in Derichasne These other guys I know we have party politics And I know we're fighting red against yellow But these guys all the other ones One continuous line I am not kidding when I was telling people In the last election If John Compton was a young solution Back in when was the last election 2021 He would have voted for Pepe Of course He wouldn't even have had to think about that The radical roots of George Charles John Compton Odlem, Dr Anthony And Pepe That's one line Of guys who care About the country About the people of Saint Lucia And how can you best provide An economy that serves the interests Of the people of Saint Lucia All of these guys are moving away from plantation Economics They're all faced with a situation where They need to be pragmatic as well The only one who didn't care about that Because he never came to be prime minister Was George Odlem Because he was never confronted with the reality Of being prime minister If he had ever had to be prime minister He would have been right down there in the mid 40s Just like the other guys The only really aberration In that line of men that you have there And you've said enough about it I'm going to keep my big mouth shut Is the second one from the right there And one last thing You touched on it in Saint Lucia I just want to bring it back to Viewfort for a moment You cannot understand the history of Viewfort If you do not look at access To land If you want to talk about freedom And self-realization If you like you need to talk about access To the means of production You have access to labour But do you have access to capital Credit and do you have access to land Now that was a struggle from the time Of abolition People tried to get access to land And a peasantry did eventually develop But it's against enormous odds But in Viewfort because we have so much Flat land and you put it best The land is too good for the people of Viewfort And again that is something That I don't think even this current government Has really reflected on From what I can see And that is the role that in Saint Lucia Has been granted, same point you make In Saint Lucia fits right In that same line of The douboulais who used to own the sugar factory Slavery first And the sugar factory Then you get the Barbados settlement scheme Where they bring Beijing's down to Viewfort And give them five acres of land While the Viewfortians are considered wage labourers And people unsuitable To being land owners themselves Then you get the Second World War With the American base here And then after the Second World War They try a little land settlement schema Well that doesn't work The infrastructure that was left behind By the Americans got taken up and transported To castries after the 1948 fire All those three, four Thousand acres of land that we have here Were given to be looked after By NDC and now in Vest Saint Lucia Waiting for the Foreign investor And meanwhile people live in Bruceville And the Mang and the Bacchardere On land that belongs to the Catholic Church The Anglican Church Or the government in Vest Saint Lucia And no, you can't have that We have three generations, maybe four generations By now, people who are born and raised In Bruceville Or Shantytown, the Mang But particularly in Bruceville And they're just squatters And they looked upon as squatters They are, you know, I mean Yes, you marginally improve conditions By putting in, you know, you have to You have to look after your people You put in water in concrete piles And we're no longer quite in the mud That we were in the 1980s But that structural radical All these guys agree on If to break that You need to start giving people access To land And that really needs to be questioned And it's not just a matter of DSH That just brought it to such a ridiculous extent That you cannot but Have to, number one, campaign On the back of that And number two, you're right It's really brought that into Because it's been so exaggerated You now need to speak about land ownership But that is something that's going to need to be Addressed, I think, if we ever want to try And change something for view for it You cannot deny that I think I've said enough I really love, can't wait to hear your Questions And Anderson, I guess, you'll come back up here To reply to them Any questions? I know you must be tired by now Probably kept You had too long Or passed Emmanuel Yeah, but he was A non-factor He was just a placeholder I mean He resided over his functional government So there is not much analysis To be made In terms of Stevenson King Yeah, I mean He was an empowered to do different I mean He was barely In charge of his government Every minister Including Even the Taiwanese ambassador Was like the prime minister So So I don't think I can bring him Bring him Into this analysis Yeah Yes, Augustus No problem Sure, thank you Yeah Cordelia Well, actually It's quite arbitrary And You can think of the numbers there Not so much the magnitude But more the rank But When you add numbers You capture more attention But It is more to help tell the story But of course It is quite As any statistician I mean it is not a rigorous It is not a rigorous exercise at all Yeah So I wouldn't even And it is subjective To For example I was on DBS To Interviewed about the lecture And I Shared the video clip And one view for Shandivino versus Tell me Saint Lucia is very fortunate That Odlom He himself Was a food soldier That Was trained To overtake The Compton Government So And so if Odlom had his way We would have been a communist country Saint Lucia would have been very poor And so on So in terms of my freedom If this is true If Odlom was going to take the country By force Impose communism And it seems like it is the World consensus now That communist countries Regimes are oppressive If that is so Then to the extent that Odlom became prime minister And we became a communist state Maybe To the extent That we lose some of our personal freedom Because it seems the consensus Is Communist Countries tend to be Repressive in terms of personal freedom I don't know if My feedback Coincides with your question But I am explained to say This is really arbitrary And somebody Doing the same analysis And including Some of the things that doesn't Appear That doesn't get spoken too much about Might well Say Odlom was anti-freedom Donks at the back And then Mr. Donks So you are concerned about So So you are saying in your mind What I presented wasn't About It is just perception Reality Well, you have a good point But it's partly a lot of the things That are said of Shasne Isn't very concrete And the evidence Not as much evidence to support it For example Putting Foreigners first Giving the country to its rich friends These are Can you verify that Okay So Yeah Yeah Well, it's not percept And these are not These are actual things, right I get your point So When I am revising I will take note Yes Red t-shirt But you're going to come afterwards The question is What experience do you think Yeah We The first part I'm not sure that's what we were saying He didn't get high marks because He became He didn't become Prime Minister but What I think Dr. Hamson is saying Is Or somebody else said If he had become Prime Minister Then he would have been Confronted with the compromises That must be made When you run in a country So it was all fine well He was in Prime Minister He could be radical Because I think that was the point What was your second question Well, it's not a matter of experience It's his Oh, I should have It slipped me His philosophy His Political economic philosophy He bought, I think he bought wholeheartedly Into the notion of Lazifa economics Kind of like Margaret Thatcher, Reynald Regan Kind of economics Trickle-Dove economics Free enterprise Reduced restrictions Environmental restrictions Developed without giving Full regard to the environment And how you are impacting people's Society Quite willing to Dislocate people without Consultation It is more a more Gang-Ho kind of Conservative Economic policy So it is not Well, of course People talk about His racist and so on But after listening to him Although I don't see his racist I don't think that has anything to do with His I think what it has to do with He has bought wholeheartedly into That kind of Lazifa economics And also I think Maybe there is a little bit of disdain In that he thinks what is What is done overseas Is superior to how we do it here And maybe People from overseas I don't know Are intrinsically Better than us or Well No, I will take So, but I will take that because I'm getting into Unshort territory there What I should say instead Is that You cannot believe you can Adopt things overseas And implemented wholesale in St. Lucia Without making the proper modifications Without thinking it through To what extent it is applicable To St. Lucia Because what may work very well In other places may not work as well In St. Lucia Because of our size, our culture Our history All of that mainly has to be taken into consideration When we think in terms of Development Well, after slavery Yeah Well, it's both I mean But there is a thing Imagine your own slaves You see them as inferior Barely human They are your capital And all of a sudden they are free They want to tell you they are working for that wage They are working for you When you want them to work Then they want to be voting They want to be joining your Social clubs They want to be mixing with you And these were your slaves These were inferior people You perceived to be inferior And so forth And so on I forgot the second part What was your second part Oh yeah, okay, well of course But there is a thing, right To do things or govern in abstract Even our current leaders What they found in place You know this whole country was Designed the whole government The whole institution Was designed to extract To extract From St. Lucia And to serve as And part of the extraction Was for St. Lucia To serve in terms of Strategic Geographic Strategic and so forth In terms of England's Imperialistic intent And so This whole country The whole government Wasn't designed To forward our Best interests It was designed to serve The plantocracy and the crown Antwerp So Let me not make it too long But, so when our own people Get in power What is the example they have In front of them Is the plantocracy The Colonial government This is how They learn how to govern But these people were governing In a very extractive Faction So to some extent This tendency may be lingering Right into our Current government And not Any party to say But in times I'm talking about the mindset of my mindset I'm not excluded from that I'm talking about our mindset Is still Being informed by the legacies of slavery The legacies of Colonialism To what extent our leaders Feel that The country Is there not to serve the people But to serve their own interests Because why Because that's what it was before I mean So that's the pattern we learn from So to what extent that persists To the present That's an empirical question That requires some research I think we are Should be calling it a day But I'll take two more questions Do you have a question? Okay So I think Mr. Colimo you have been Putting your hands up so long Your points It wasn't a Try But it went to Personal freedom So I think there is a Lot of deprivation Of personal freedom Now when you talk about Property Is not just money Or the one thing International Agency is being mocked And even the feeling of being and belonging to deprivation is uncharacterized. It's a critical time when you wanted to know the prices of a dynamic system, a co-system that has ways of manifesting ways that you can never even foresee. Yeah, I understand you. Yeah, well, it definitely doesn't capture everything. And that's the thing about models and theory, it's an abstraction. But imagine I have an hour to present this, so it has to be streamlined, and I have to focus on a, if I have to be broad like you, then we'll be here. But I understand. But I think we have been here long enough, I can't take too many more. Begban? Yes. Yes, so your question is on reparations. So you are saying no political leader is really focusing on reparations. Have they ever heard any? Well, we have a reparation committee that's, I was on that committee two years ago. So there is, and Gungo wisely is on that committee, a reparations committee is right there. But I may agree with you, maybe our government can be more supportive of it. But honestly, I'm not that Gungo about reparations per se. Because I'm not sure what England is now saying they're sorry about slavery. Sorry? No, no, it isn't. I'm not talking about slavery. And to give us some money, to me, that's not where I would prefer to focus in terms of reparations. But to put it to focus on, we will carry the damages brought by slavery, the psychological damages. So, let's arise with the, go ahead. I think this will be the final question. Yes, because we have gone to the limit of our time. Good night. Good night. Good night. We should have one more reason for your presentation. Oh, you are not slaves. You are not slaves. And that makes a big difference psychologically than the slaves. You need to be mindful of that. You are not slaves. And then another question I wanted to ask was, you think of the post-Junior and you think they were born in 1969. Who were the leaders or the founders of the union? No, he joined like six years afterwards. But if you read his memoir, it's quite... I think you can read his memoir. I have his memoir in my life. And the other issue I wanted to talk about is the freedom. Yes. But based on the presentation, you know, as we have spoken to some of the leaders, they shifted their power in the second direction. We give thanks for our leaders, you know, from the stacking from the time of the chance of the now. Now, you made it clear, you know, you made your presence and that God's chance to you does not have the vision of life overflowing with colonialism. That's just my opinion. I would be wrong. That has continued up to today, you know. Because what we have is that, when we put independence, because suppose we do that, we colonize the process. What we have is that new from colonialism, new colonialism, new colonialism. Yeah, right. So in terms of the freedom, the emancipation and so on, you know, we still have a lot of... And even as the president asked about the reparation issue, you know, since 2013, the Caricom government has agreed to entertain the reparations campaign. They set up the Caricom Reparations Commission and then mandated all the islands set up national reparations community. Yeah. And up to a thing like, did none of those communities have received the budget from the government? Not just the solution government? All of them. Only this last year, Honorable Pierre made the statement in terms of how we look at emancipation, which is welcome in your state. In terms of the reparation, but reparation is not just about asking for money. Reparation has the internal and external. The external means the debt has to be paid. But the internal means the self-healing from the government. We ourselves need to do for ourselves, among ourselves. And that is where we find our leaders. And we have dropped the board. They set up the reparations committee, but then with no support. Because education is very important in terms of reparation. Okay, I get the point. You know, I mean, is that still lacking up to now? Thanks for the... I think that should conclude us. Your conclusion, are we free or are we not? Depending on what we're talking about. Yes. Yes. I think you said you wanted to leave those in comments. This is the last question. I'm very sorry. So, with all the land, with most of the land of things, to the southern part of the population, when we were in Chile in 2006, we were going back to the end of the story. Because there was separation between the specific land and the other land. The other land, the specific land, and the land in the south. But most of the land in the south, and most of the land in the south, and the other land in the south, and most of the land, because of the population. It's not too rare situation for the landings. Because they have an independent sites interlucent. And to be responsible, I show us the melody. For ancient, they had run for, you know, a wide, wide society where we would be, we would be, you know, the ones that would do it. You know, they run around and you give them a pass through and it becomes a official under the landings. And the other landings they were very clear, I mean, I would love to take you on some of what you bring, and I agree with you. What is my job of them is 90, because they never, I don't know, matter of face with the show. I should get a point, John Compton was a pragmatist. He was a radical, I went to the government, and I recognized his survival, and he gave up on his people. He had to be realistic. And the answer is he considered a pragmatist. When Kellyanne said that he was a pragmatist, you remember the banana in the sheet I gave you the story? I got this view, and then I was his attaché then. It was nothing when you were in power too, and you had to transform something in your spiritual spirit at times. He was a pragmatist. In just two years, you've been able to assess Philadelphia. The scene was just two years since he wanted to be a pragmatist. But you said you didn't have enough time. Not timey. It is not a matter of timey. It's a matter of... I mean, you recommended political parties and trade unions. And somebody would say, by accepting that, we took all the revolutionary spirit of the people, and all the poor for the system, and following the Bolshevik Revolution of 1970, with that channel and team of the revolutionary spirit of the political community. I believe that in three million political parties. So when you mentioned John Charles, who never developed a poor program in a revolutionary style, he really wanted to work with the colonialism. And that's a very powerful point that needs to be examined. If we have not accepted political parties and trade unions, would we have had workers' revolution throughout the islands? And they're very... There's a lot of demographics that you ask. Because the only example is the spirit of the revolutionary spirit of the people. And finally, I think you should take on John Charles there. If you really want to spoil John Charles there, you have to spoil the fact that John Charles doesn't seem to be John Compton. He's the arched enemy of freedom at the time. To bring down the democracy in 1980. In 1981. Then you have to bring in 2001 John Charles there. Join up if you don't see the national front because there's a national front. How could a man of so many people have actually engaged in two acts with the arched conservative elements? To bring down the liberal party of a man. That 90 should be more like 20. Well, these are thought-fuller observations. Observations, I need to give more thought to. I never thought of the part about the first point you made. If we had not gone the way of labor unions and political parties, our whole government structure might have been very different. We might have been communists. That's the first time I have encountered that. I would need time to think more about it. Maybe do a little bit more reading. Thank you very much. I think we have kept you long enough. Thank you very much. Dr. Anderson, give him a big hand. I wouldn't say that he has risen the dead. But because of him exposing all those thoughts about those politicians, we have a lot of things on our plate and we have a lot of food for thought. So we really have a lot of work to do at first to be able to know whether or not we are free and how are we going to be free and if ever we will be free. Okay, because that question has been, from the time I was in, I started a university level, I'm like, okay, they said we're free, so how come I can't choose my own course? How come they're telling me to do this? I wanted to be a writer from the get go. They said, no, we don't have this hair. So I said, well, I'm going somewhere else and then that's what happened. Anyway, we are not free, okay? We're not free. Sometimes we can concede ourselves to be free depending on what's going on in our minds and other times we know that if our children cannot get a job that they really want to do, then what's going to motivate them to want to work? What's going to motivate them to want to work if they can't do what their self-conscious mind tells them to do? You know, we just have to direct them, guide them, give them the opportunity so that they will be able to move on, okay? So at this point, I'm sorry, I took a little more time. We would really like to thank Nintas for his serenading of the evening, especially in Creole. We also would like to thank Mr. Dr. Ernest Hilaire for making sure that he shows up even if he had a few challenges and for his inspiring, motivating. You really did what you set out to do, motivating remarks. Dr. Reynolds for his thought-provoking and eye-opening lecture. Thank you very much. Dr. Jolene Hamson for providing clarity and maybe opening up some cans. I wouldn't say it's worms. An added perspective and you the audience for your attendance, your participation and support. As you notice, we don't have to have a crowd. We just had some very interesting people and we need to thank ourselves for being here this evening because I believe that you guys have it all in your minds and we need now to work on the important issues, okay? So, here we go. We would also like to thank our sponsors, Jacko Productions and MSOL for making it all happen and Joel Enterprises, DBS, NTN, and the Office of the View for South District representative for helping to sponsor the event. And with that said, I thank you very much. Toi Cheng. My my lady why? Why? Do you why uncle? Why? Do you why? Please? Why? I am a solution, yeah. That's who I am.