Speaker 1: 0:01

Welcome to Strictly Facts, a guide to Caribbean history and culture, hosted by me, alexandria Miller. Strictly Facts teaches the history, politics and activism of the Caribbean and connects these themes to contemporary music and popular culture. Wah-gwan, wah-gwan. And welcome back to another episode of Strictly Facts a guide to Caribbean history and culture. I'm your host, alexandria, here to share another tremendous episode on Caribbean history and its impact on our present and future.

Speaker 1: 0:36

We are debuting this episode a few weeks after Independence Day for Trinidad and Tobago, so big shout out to all my Trinidad listeners, who celebrated 62 years of independence on August 31st. Our focus for today centers on Trinidad, its development in the 20th century leading up to independence and its aftermath, what we might really consider our natural resources in the region and how we can leverage these resources to be successful nations, and so we'll get into that a little bit more in today's episode. But before we get there, I definitely want to introduce our listeners to Dr Sophia Edwards, assistant Professor in the Department of Sociology at Johns Hopkins University. So, dr Edwards, it's so great to have you. Thank you again in advance for joining us. Why don't we begin with you sharing with us a bit about where you call home, what inspires your passion for your research on Caribbean labor and development within the Caribbean, but also the global South at large.

Speaker 2: 1:41

Well, thank you so much, Alexandria, for inviting me to this very important podcast. I'm delighted to be here and to be having this conversation with you, especially as we commemorate the Independence Day celebrations in Trinidad and Tobago. So, in a broad sense, I am interested in the historical factors and processes that shape states and development in the global South, and I focus specifically on Trinidad and Tobago and the Caribbean countries. But I'm interested in this general question and I am theorizing and documenting how racism, colonialism and resistance by racialized people help shape the construction of state institutions and, in turn, the long-run development trajectories of countries that were formerly colonized. But my path to this was not a straight one. It was a very windy road with many obstacles, all of which, I think, shaped my intellectual development. But looking back on that journey, I always had a seed that I was able to water, and I found also other people who could also water that seed. And as I try to water the seed of others, I'm terrible at metaphors and I'm also terrible at gardening, so this is probably not the best metaphor, but I really do see my intellectual development in this way. So I grew up in Trinidad and Tobago and in my formal education I did not start off in the social sciences. As maybe our listeners know, in Trinidad and Tobago the education system, being rooted in British colonial roots, is very specialized, so I was placed into the sciences in secondary school, studying physics, chemistry, biology, math, and so I had very little exposure to the social sciences at that time. In secondary school, though, my friends and I would sit around during lunch and we would talk about how vicious the US was in the world and how Americanized our material values were. In Trinidad and Tobago, we would talk about how the British wronged us, we talked about slavery, we talked about the fact that if you want to travel to the UK or the US or Canada, you needed to get a visa, but then Canadians and Americans and British people could just waltz into Trinidad and Tobago. And so you know. We talked about how our resources, that Trinidad and Tobago had oil, but how come we were not seeing the benefits of that oil? Why are the roads not paved when we have asphalt, a huge asphalt lake? And so these were the issues that we would sit around and talk about during lunchtime, and we didn't have the precise theories of imperialism or racial capitalism. We were not using that language language, but this is what we were talking about and we were listening to Rastafari and conscious reggae music, and so this is how we got our political education.

Speaker 2: 5:17

It was not in the formal school system. It was not. You know, I went to a catholic all girls high school history was not even a part. I went to a Catholic all girls high school History was not even a part of my education, being on the science track. So between ages 13 to 18, I didn't study history.

Speaker 2: 5:34

You know, what I learned was what I learned from grounding with folks outside of school, and so, you know, I went to college. I did the thing the science and you know, went to college. I did the thing the science and you know, continued on that track. But I did take courses in sociology, in history, and then I studied abroad, in Australia, and I think my experiences traveling to other countries, being a black woman traveling through other countries, being a Black woman traveling through other countries really shaped then what I wanted to study.

Speaker 2: 6:13

I took, while I was in Australia, classes in Aboriginal history and culture, race and ethnic studies, international development, and then I really felt like this is really what I'm more interested in. But it's not that I came to that during that formal college education process. It was always that seed, as I mentioned, that I had in high school, and before that I had always been interested in these questions, and so, anyways, I finished my bachelor's degree, but I knew I didn't want to continue in the natural sciences, so I came back to Trinidad after college and I ended up working as a research assistant for a sociology professor at the University of the West Indies. His name is Biko Agassino, and we worked on a project about CLR James and the Black Jacobin sociology of.

Speaker 2: 7:08

CLR, james, and so for this project I had to read all James's books and we interviewed scholars who had really engaged with his work and knew his work, and so it was so intellectually invigorating. That's where I really got to delve into these questions about labor, race, the Caribbean, colonialism, uneven development, and so that's when I decided to apply to graduate school and go into sociology to be able to study these issues, of which I was most intellectually excited by.

Speaker 1: 7:47

I always love hearing about people's journeys to their studies because, as you rightfully mentioned, right, they're so impacted by the world that we live in our lens in the world, based off our own identities, the things that we've learned as well, but also, just, you know how we take up space in our experiences. So thank you so much for sharing, and even this episode was really inspired by my own experiences. This year I had the opportunity to travel to Trinidad for the first time and you know, as I think we all do, not just in the Caribbean, you know it's sort of anywhere you go, do not just in the Caribbean, you know, it's sort of anywhere you go. But having been to Jamaica and obviously being from Jamaica and having traveled to other parts of the Caribbean, I do that sort of compare and contrast thing right when I'm like, okay, this is similar. You know these things are different, et cetera. And it really helped me to sort of think about what we consider development and progress in the region, and you know especially how that has impacted our growing diaspora across the world and things to that.

Speaker 1: 8:53

And so you know, I think some studies even really point to Trinidad's success in terms of, like an economic success thing. You mentioned oil, right, but how this is a very push and pull factor, as you rightfully were stating having economic riches from oil, but then you know how that then plays into the actual lived experiences of its people, right? And so there are, of course, several reasons to describe, you know, how these states have developed, especially post-colonially. But what, in your view, are some of the key factors that have led to Trinidad and Tobago's success, as it's been deemed, in the more than 60 years since independence?

Speaker 2: 9:41

Yes, this is a really important question. It's the working people, it is all about the working people and, as you mentioned, Trinidad and Tobago's path is a complicated one. If we're thinking about, are people free from super exploitation and are they free from all forms of oppression? Are they free from racism and patriarchy and sexism? Well, the answer to that is no, Right. We know that that Trinidad and Tobago it's the workers don't own the means of production and even though the country may register now as a high income country it's according to these World Bank indicators it still relies on having to export its natural resources, it still relies on access to foreign markets, access to foreign capital. So it hasn't broken those chains of structural dependency that were established when Trinidad was integrated into the world global economy through colonialism. So in that sense, we can see that Trinidad and Tobago does not qualify as a quote-unquote success. But even though Trinidad and Tobago might remain still in this same relative position in the global hierarchy of wealth and power, working people have seen significant improvements in their material conditions and human welfare. If we look at infant mortality, you know lowering of that infant mortality over time, increased life expectancy over time, expanded access to education and generally a raising of living standards and well-being. These are all measures on which Trinidad and Tobago far outperforms many other formerly colonized countries, and what's interesting about this is this is not what is generally predicted for countries that are rich in natural resources or that have a history of colonialism or multi-ethnic composition like Trinidad and Tobago. Most development theories that we are familiar with in the social sciences would say that Trinidad and Tobago should be cursed right. Should be cursed by its natural resources and be stuck in a trap of poverty and underdevelopment, or it should be cursed by ethnic rivalries still see significant economic and social development and formal democratic systems in comparison to other places that are in a similar situation. So how can we account for this? And for me, it is about the force and the vitality of working people. This is my answer to this question and in my own work and my book, which will be coming out later this academic year.

Speaker 2: 13:05

So you know, Trinidad and Tobago has a history of powerful working class mobilization, working people who are striking, protesting, demonstrating, you know, out on the streets, and that mobilization had been interracial, involving African and Indian workers, who were the bulk of the workforce, who were in different economic sectors, like sugar and oil and public sector workers and unemployed people right.

Speaker 2: 13:36

It involved women and children. So it was a united movement that was vociferously against racial oppression, against colonial domination, against the exploitation of their labor, for wages and working conditions to be improved, but they also wanted full-scale transformation of the economic, political, social and cultural order of the society. And these working people self-organized and erupted in 1919, in the mid-1930s and in the 1960s, ultimately peaking in the Black Power movement of 1970. And they pushed their employers and the colonial state to be more redistributive and to be more democratic. So in this sense we can see that these gains that we've seen over time in terms of infant mortality, life expectancy, these outcomes are the result of the efforts of working people. Nothing was ever given to them. Whatever gains they achieved right and, as I said, health, schooling, well-being, dec, decolonizing their minds it was all because they fought for it that, I think, brings us to really a tremendous point where we think of.

Speaker 1: 15:10

You know, everybody hails independence because it's the day that we celebrate, right, but there were tremendous movements leading up to this point, and obviously subsequently after as well, to get us to having these independence days. And you know moments of celebration, especially, I think, the 30s, becomes a big moment for the Caribbean in terms of labor and pushing our people in protest, of course, to really rally behind and to rally together and shape these stories and histories that we come to know right. One thing that I think is really important in terms of what you've shared with us is Trinidad's multiracial, multiethnic populace, but also it's multisectoral one. Right, you shared that. You know people are in different labor positions, whether they were working in sugar, whether they were working in oil, things to that nature, and so could you briefly, you know, share the histories behind these factors and how they led to this point that you're sharing, which I think is really important.

Speaker 1: 16:17

I want to also mention that you know that's sort of the also importance of social sciences. In a sense, humanities and social science work. If we're just economists or whatever, right, we would just strictly look at the numbers without also paying attention to the impact of the people and lives that are shared. But ultimately, to get back to my question, the impact of the populace being multiracial and multisectoral as well.

Speaker 2: 16:49

Yes, I mean this is a great question because, in terms of the multiracial aspect, for instance, is one of these factors that the colonial elites really pushed differentially racializing people in order to exploit them and to divide them right. And so, in terms of building a multiracial movement, workers had to fight against and overcome this divide and rule, divide and exploit strategies, cross racial difference or perceived racial differences or constructed racial differences towards this goal of liberation. And I look at how workers did that all the way back to 1919 and how they did it in the 1930s and in the 1960s, and we find that, like you know, it really comes down to relations between people. And also they shared similar conditions. As we will recall, indian workers were brought from India to Trinidad specifically to undermine Black workers, specifically so that the Black workers who were newly emancipated from slavery, who were demanding higher wages or even wages at all for their work, and the plantation-owning class did not want to pay them. They brought these Indian workers to Chernobyl and Tobago to have a supply of controllable, cheap labor. And so how do you build across these divides? And we find that we have labor unions and labor organizers that are deliberately trying to bring together this multiracial movement and these labor organizers they were both African descended or Africans and Indians, and they worked to, you know, have rallies together to have trade unions where, even if they were African dominated, they had Indian representation, and so to kind of work across those lines to build this unity.

Speaker 2: 19:32

In the case of the 1930s, in 1935, when Italy invaded Ethiopia, right right, this became a rallying cry for the Wilkin people in Trinidad and Tobago and we find that Indian organizers worked alongside African organizers to build a multiracial movement over the fact that what happened in Ethiopia is an example, a case of imperial aggression.

Speaker 2: 20:04

And that is something that everybody, whether you're Indian or African, everybody can unite around that, because what is happening to the Ethiopians is happening to us, it's happening to other Africans, is happening to other people who have been subjugated under colonial domination. So these are the ways in which these working people built solidarity across racial lines and came together, built solidarity across sectors and really united themselves towards this common goal of pushing the colonial states to be more democratic and be more redistributive. And this is something that is relevant outside of the case of Trinidad and Tobago, right, because this is one of the most important questions for progressive movements everywhere. How do we build across racial lines? It's an important question in other parts of the Caribbean. It's an important question in the United States, in the UK, every France, everywhere we go. This is something that movements have had to contend with, and so there are important lessons there that we can learn and adopt as we try to build liberatory movements across the world.

Speaker 1: 21:30

You paint a great picture for us in terms of building multiracial connections. How did that also shape the building of multisectoral connections?

Speaker 2: 21:43

Yes, so, at least in the case of Trinidad and Tobago, because of the way in which different racial groups were channeled into specific sectors of the economy, right, so Indians were brought to Trinidad to work on sugar estates, primarily so they were concentrated in the sugar sector because Black workers were actively pushed out of the sugar sector and also because they didn't necessarily want to work in the plantations either after emancipation.

Speaker 2: 22:21

But they were also pushed out of the sector actively because the plantation owning class didn't want to pay them. They moved into public sector work and moved into the oil sector, and so these different sectors of the economy were racialized because of those dynamics. And so by building this multiracial movement they were also able to build across different sectors of the economy. And I will also put in domestic workers, who are primarily women, who are also a core component of these movements, and there is work by Professor Rhoda Redock in Trinidad and Tobago who really focuses on women workers in this time period and how they were so central to the movement as well. So it was across sectors, across races, across genders, and because they were able to unite in these historical periods, they were able to force the colonial officials and force employers to concede to certain demands. And when we look at that in comparison to times where they were not united, when they were not, you know, collaboratively working together towards this goal, well, they didn't get to anything.

Speaker 1: 23:48

Race and class particularly, are very important in your work, as you mentioned. As we've been talking about, we have these moments leading up to independence, of course, where unity across sectors, across ethnic lines, is very important in helping shape and become independent nations, for Trinidad and Tobago particularly. How have you seen these factors impacting Trinidad and Tobago's state performance in the aftermath of independence and maybe how they differ across other parts of the region as well?

Speaker 2: 24:23

The Caribbean has historically been at the center, at the heart of world-scale transformations. Scale transformations European expansion for raw materials and markets historically spurred the development of all kinds of isms and schisms to justify the brutal treatment of human beings. So they organized societies along these lines in order to extract profits from us and to prevent us from coming together as one to upend this oppressive capitalist system In the Caribbean, thinking about the plantation economies, but also resource extraction, how they were organized in these ways. So, for me, we cannot understand our conditions and experiences without a deep and serious understanding and a serious analysis of race and class. Together we have to contend with how groups that have been differentially racialized relate to each other, as I mentioned before. How do they build unity and solidarity across these constructed differences? We have to understand who is dominating and who is being exploited and dispossessed. We need to understand race and class, understand colorism, which is so rampant across the Caribbean, colorism and Eurocentrism that is embedded in our society. And I think it also helps us to understand really crucial questions which continue to be relevant to this day. What does it mean to have Black and brown faces in high places? Meaning? Are the masses of the people better off because we have Black heads of state across the Caribbean and Black CEOs and Indian CEOs and heads of state CEOs and Indian CEOs and heads of states. How can we think about Barack Obama's presidency? How can we think about Rishi Sunak in the UK? We are now having to ask ourselves this question with regard to Kamala Harris.

Speaker 2: 26:48

We have examples from the Caribbean. We have examples of leaders across Africa. Right that it is really really crucial that we really seriously analyze the intersection of race and class within the world's capitalist system in order to understand our futures. And Walter Rodney, he used the term flag independence, right, which is to say that we have these leaders, these black and brown leaders, but the structures of exploitation, of profit making, of oppression has not changed. More than that, they are in strategic positions facilitating the exploitation of the black and brown masses around the world. And so, you know, we really need to understand all these various, as I said, isms and schisms to that, and this is something we get from rasta right that we have to understand this in order to um really truly understand what role these people play in the global circuits of profit-making and to understand our conditions and our experiences.

Speaker 2: 28:23

These, you know, supposed saviors are not always. You know, if we look historically, if we take seriously what their roles and actions have been to support imperialism, to support domination and exploitation I think it's very hard to see them as our CVS. As a result, I read the work of Walter Rodney, as I said, cielo James, oliver Cox, sylvia Winter, to help me understand race and class together, and contemporaries. We have a lot of people working on these topics, like Rhoda Reddock, as I mentioned, keston Perry, tam Manisha, john Ryan Jobson, nicole Burrows, tayemba Salandi. All of these people are doing this work, trying to grapple with these questions, to really understand what our conditions and our lived experiences are currently and what they are likely to be in the global economy economy, our discussion on development, on resources, as we've been talking about, on our conditions.

Speaker 1: 29:40

And you know, independence movements are, they're, all you know, sort of tied and linked right, and I of course can't have us have a discussion about our past without again sort of bringing it into contemporary times.

Speaker 1: 29:53

And you know, we've seen of late, particularly with Barbados and several others of course, so not solely Barbados, but you know, this movement towards, you know, our nation's becoming Republican and getting away from the Commonwealth right. We've also seen our own resources for years really being exploited, exported, depleted tremendously. And of course that brings me to the case of Guyana, which it was a few months ago, I think, at the height of our minds and maybe the rally around it has died down a little bit, but thinking about Guyana and its natural resources, especially in the Essequibo region. And so how do you think our states and others really compare in this trajectory, you know, in terms of the future of our regions, ensuring that you know we are prioritizing ourselves and our well-being, and the well-being of the mass is really not the figureheads and things to that nature and what takeaways or actions do you hope we see modeled in our evolution?

Speaker 2: 31:09

Yes, this is a very important question, because it is important to know where we came from in order to know where we're going and what the future holds. And you know, I'm reminded of this video clip that was circulating online of a BBC journalist interviewing the president of Guyana, president Irfan Ali, and the journalist was very fresh with himself. He was asserting that Guyanese oil extraction and oil development is now significantly contributing to the world's carbon emissions, and so Guyana bears some responsibility for the situation that we're in today regarding the climate crisis. And well, the president of Guyana took him to task, and rightly so, for his arrogance.

Speaker 2: 32:06

You know this white British man there condescendingly lecturing Guyanese officials on what they should and should not be doing with their resources, and also for his ignorance regarding world history and who are the greatest sources of carbon emissions and the historical and contemporary drivers of the climate crisis, which is the European imperial countries. So the president of Guyana laid into him. However, I think we also have to pause and remember that the Guyanese government has opened its doors to ExxonMobil for them to suck out the country's resources, to engage in relentless resource extraction on the lands of Guyanese people, of indigenous people's lands, of Guyanese people, of indigenous people's lands, displacing communities, exploiting workers, right the corruption, deepening that divide between wealthy elites and working people and entrenching racialized party politics in Guyana. These issues have been highlighted by a Guyanese organizations like Red Thread, activist scholars like Dr Alyssa Trotz and Dr David Hines, and so you know, we really have to think very carefully about the role of natural resources in our development and the role of people.

Speaker 2: 33:42

Trinidad and Tobago and Guyana have a lot of similarities in terms of their histories and societies, in terms of colonialism and the racial dynamics, right, and so there's a lot that can be learned, not at the level of um, you know, between these elites, necessarily, but among working people, about organizing, strategizing to kind of build on and expand some of the achievements that we have made in the Caribbean region around natural resource development and extraction by working people, and also to avoid some of the mistakes that were made in the cases of Trinidad and Tobago and Jamaica with bauxite and so on, right. And so how can we learn and build on right? For example, in Trinidad and Tobago, out of the 1970s Black Power uprising, there was a wave of nationalizations of the oil sector. But that nationalization, within the context of a global economy where this country is still in a dependent position, it still depends on exports, it still depends on foreign markets, there were limits to the sustainability of nationalization, to state nationalization, I should say to there were limits to that as a strategy for income, national income, and for the conditions for working people.

Speaker 2: 35:34

And so I think there's a lot that we can learn from each other to avoid these mistakes and also to hold our leaders accountable. I mean Guyanese president, barbados president. They're out there in the public stage pushing for reparations, reparations for histories of genocide and enslavement in the Caribbean. Okay, we can talk about the reparations movement and pushing for reparations and what the imperial countries owe the Caribbean, but at the same time, we also have to talk about how these political leaders are also engaging in neocolonial politics and oppressive actions repressive actions against their own people, against their own people to have to work through in the Caribbean with regard to natural resources and post-colonial development.

Speaker 1: 36:44

I love that you brought us to that, to your point, using that BBC interview that I do definitely remember going viral, so I'll be sure to include it on our Strictly Facts syllabus for you all to check out. You mentioned a lot of scholars. You know local organizations like Red Thread etc. Who are doing this work for really campaigning and you know, highlighting these histories and things to that nature. But before we get there, what are just to bring us to our sort of contemporary pop culture moment, as I always love to do a bit? What are some of your favorite examples of this history and how it shows up in our popular culture?

Speaker 2: 37:32

And you know I'm open to all things, whether that be songs, whether that be novels, documentaries etc yes, this is a really great question because I can't think of like one song or because there's a lot out there. But I think, if I think about how this shows up in our popular culture I, being from Trinidad and Tobago, I think about Calypso and Calypso being that art form that does this work of teaching our history and our politics to the public, to the people right, of challenging those in power and challenging society to take a long and hard look at ourselves. This is the genre that I really turn to to kind of understand our conditions, our experiences, our aspirations, the voice of the people through that medium. And most recently, the calypso that has been on my mind is 1990, which is a calypso by David Rudder. You know, david Rudder is, of course, one of the greatest calypso.

Speaker 2: 38:55

I grew up listening to david rudder, but also we have other, you know, mighty sparrow, black stalin. We have many, many calypso nyan's, um, lord, relator, shadow who have talked about these issues through song. But I'm reminded of david Rudder's 1990 because very recently there has been the release of an audio documentary called 1990. It's about the attempted coup in Trinidad and Tobago and it's called the Lost Tapes and I was recently listening to that documentary and I was very much reminded of David Rudder's Calypso, which really captured the conditions and the feeling and the sentiments of society, the anxieties and so on during that period in Trinidad and Tobago history.

Speaker 1: 40:03

So I would definitely encourage our listeners to.

Speaker 2: 40:06

You know, listen to also the documentary. But you know, go back to David Rudder's 1990.

Speaker 1: 40:15

Calypso. The documentary wasn't out yet, but a few years ago we had recorded an episode which briefly touched on the twos. So I always love when our episodes come back into place, so I'll be sure to include all of those things on our Strictly Facts syllabus, of course. My final question for you, dr Edwards I think in addition and even beyond to what we've talked about in terms of state formation and evolution and growth, right, the world at large is really dealing with the effects of imperialism and liberation movements of Haiti, as always. Right, palestine and much more. What do you see as really the power of the working class, unionizing and social movements in really creating massive social change for the future?

Speaker 2: 41:09

Yes, I am very excited and I'm very hopeful in terms of our ability to organize against imperialism and capitalist exploitation. I think that what we have seen in the last year is the real coming together of people around the US, canada and France's invasion of Haiti, and while CARICOM Caribbean Community, the organization, has been supportive of such actions by these imperial aggressors, while Kenya has been supportive and facilitating these imperial aggressors in the Caribbean region, people on the ground have been in support of Haiti. I'll just quote Bujubantan, who I recently saw on a different podcastantan, who was I recently saw on a different podcast, drink Champs. I saw it too, drink Champs, where he said Haiti did not bow and we will not bow to these imperial aggressors. And so people are organizing, petitions are being written sent, support being sent to the Haitian people in their efforts to resist this constant assault that they are under for daring to want to be free. And also Palestine we see around the world.

Speaker 2: 42:58

The global majority of people around the world are in support of Palestine. They are against colonialism and imperialism, against genocide, and students have organized, ordinary folks have organized. Progressive organizations have come together. Students have organized, ordinary folks have organized. Progressive organizations have come together to be in support of the Palestinian resistance. And so people are doing things, young people are doing things, and it's hopeful. It's a very energizing time and what we can only hope that we build on the gains of former generations and avoid also the mistakes that were made in the past. We can always learn from the past and build on our radical traditions that already exist. We're never starting from scratch. We always have, you know, tools and techniques and traditions that we could draw on. It's both exciting and daunting, but the fact that people are organizing is very hopeful.

Speaker 1: 44:22

Beautifully said. Well, thank you so much, dr Edwards. I think you've brought so much to our discussion in terms of thinking beyond the metrics, right, thinking beyond the numbers and allowing us to really value that our natural resources are really, you know, in our people, right, in our ability to connect with one another across a variety of dimensions and to topple all of the isms and schisms, as you've said, for the future of a better world. So I appreciate you so much for sharing with us. As I mentioned a few times, I will, of course, link all of the things we discussed on the Strictly Facts website, so be sure to head there for some of the literature and songs and things that we discussed today and, as always, for our listeners. Thank you so much for tuning in and little more. Thanks for tuning in to Strictly Facts. Visit strictlyfactspodcastcom for more information from each episode. Follow us at Strictly Facts Pod on Instagram and Facebook and at Strictly Facts PD on Twitter.