Full Transcript

Hosts

André Habet, Kristinia Doughorty

Guests

W. Valentine Douglas, John Mussington, Aaron Caton

Kristinia Doughorty  00:30

Welcome to the Stronger Caribbean Together Podcast. This podcast is a monthly conversation between the project team of Stronger Caribbean Together and Caribbean partners working on the frontlines. I’m Kristinia Doughorty, a research assistant supporting the Stronger Caribbean Project.

André Habet  00:46

And I’m  Dr. André Habet, a researcher in the area of rhetoric and a  journalist. Every month, we’ll bring you a conversation that shows how collectives are mobilizing to alter present systems and generate liberatory futures for the people of the Caribbean.

Kristinia Doughorty  01:01

Our first season provides insights into the ways those people are confronting the challenges of disaster capitalism as people across the Caribbean, Stand Together: ‘United Against Disaster Capitalism.’ 

André Habet  01:12

Today, we are joined by John Mussington of the Save Barbuda movement and Aaron Caton and Valentine Douglas from the Grenada Land Actors.

Kristinia Doughorty  01:20

During this discussion, we spoke about how they became familiar with the concept of disaster capitalism, some of the fundamental issues that enable disaster capitalism, and what networks like Stronger Caribbean Together provide to local grassroots mobilizing. Our guests also talk through how we might rethink the language and meaning of development in the Caribbean.

John Mussington  01:50

My name is John Mussington. I am Barbudan from the nation of Antigua and Barbuda. Presently, I am also an elected member of the council, and I’ve just retired as a school principal. 

W. Valentine Douglas  02:02

I’m Valentine Douglas. I’m the president of the Grenada Land Actors. My career has not been in environmental matters. I have a background as a certified public accountant. I am retired now. I worked most of my life in the United States. That’s where I spent most of my adult life. And I was involved in the investigation and prosecution of major financial crimes and public corruption in New York. Since I’ve retired, I’ve been back here for four and a half years. And I’ve always had an interest in the environment, even though as I said, it was not my first calling. But that interest continued on my return. 

Aaron Caton  02:41

My name is Aaron Caton. I was born in Carriacou, which is a 12.5 square mile little island, analogous to the size of Barbuda to Antigua. As a child, I was always planting flowers and planting trees and just enjoying being in the woods. Well, the first year of my life I spent in St. George’s, Grenada, because my dad was a carpenter. And that was the only job he was able to find was working in Grenada. I moved back to Carriacou. I left when I was 10, to come to Brooklyn, New York. I currently reside and have resided in Albany, New York for the past 27 years. 

André Habet  03:22

We started our conversation by asking John, Valentine and Aaron about how they got involved with their respective organizations.

Kristinia Doughorty  03:29

What we learned is that each person became activated by a different encounter that made them engage in the work ahead.

John Mussington  03:36

Now, my involvement in terms of the activities in Barbuda started with the disaster of 2017 when we were  devastated by a hurricane, but shortly thereafter, I, our island and our people discovered what disaster capitalism meant. We were evacuated from the island, because another hurricane was in the area. But then we found it strange that that hurricane didn’t actually hit. But we found ourselves  under mandatory evacuation and state of emergency in the sister island of Antigua and could not get back to Barbuda. And so later on, we realized that the entire island was to be redeveloped by private entities into luxury, real estate lots for sale. So since then, I’ve been involved with the people of Barbuda  and we formed a movement called “Save Barbuda” in collaboration with other organizations and persons internationally. And slowly, we realized that this business of Disaster Capitalism was something that was taking place,  throughout the region. And so my involvement was out of necessity, because as  any human being would, we essentially refused to be the deracinated.  And I use that term “deracination” deliberately,  as that word was actually used on us, we  were called “deracinated imbeciles” when we started to resist what was happening to us. And later on, when we realized what that word meant, we essentially galvanized ourselves into a  grassroot movement in order to essentially say, ‘No, we refuse to bow down.’

W. Valentine Douglas  05:10

Grenada Land Actors was a group that I came across who was advocating for land use, proper land governance in Grenada to a process of transparency and accountability. The organization was at a time primarily concerned with a number of major developments that were happening on the island. And whether or not the government [due] to its lack of proper oversight was giving permits to the developers that would adversely affect our natural habitats, ecosystem and environment as a whole. So I joined in, I think, at the beginning of 2021, and I’ve been involved with them since and as we’ll talk about later on, once the government tried to obstruct our action in getting information that the public is authorized to have, and that the government itself is not enacting regulation and  enforcing those that exist in matters of development, we decide to take the matter to court for judicial review. 

Aaron Caton  06:18

What drew me to becoming involved with the Grenada Land Actors is a sense of profound loss and disappointment. I say this because in 1979, National Geographic came down to the Caribbean. And they did a write up on both St. Vincent and its Grenadines, Carriacou all the way down to Grenada, including pictures of a nascent ahh.. and story about the New Jewel Movement, which is where Maurice Bishop was involved in. In that article, which came out in publication September 1979. My father is in that issue of National Geographic magazine. Well, what the book was, was National Geographic,  ( it was a hardcover book) , where they came to the Caribbean, they came all the way from Dominica to the end of Point Salines  in Grenada, documenting the way of life, the simplicity of how our people live. You could see the transition now from 1966 to 1979, how not only the landscape changed where houses, buildings, hotels, offices were constructed, but you could just feel a difference in how the people look, the smiles disappeared between those ensuing 15 – 16 years. And as I continue to go back home, I have realized that our people have become less happy because they have lost something, and I’m not even sure they know what they’ve lost. And that is the reason why I felt a call to environmental activism and protectionism.

Kristinia Doughorty  08:00

Naomi Klein first coined ‘disaster capitalism’ in her 2007 book The Shock Doctrine, describing it as what occurs in the wake of major destabilizing events, such as war, government upheaval, and natural hazards. In the Caribbean, disaster capitalism has occurred in response to hurricanes as in the case of Barbuda or the upheaval that Grenada faced where the government prioritized investor interests over the well-being of Grenadians and their environment. 

André Habet  08:30

We asked our guests just how they experienced disaster capitalism in their territories. What we learned is that disaster capitalism has a pattern of forcibly separating Caribbean people from the lands they rely on for food, shelter, and recreation and providing access to those territories to foreign investors for profit. In Barbuda, that occurred after Hurricane Maria while Grenadians experienced it through the Citizenship by Investment program Valentine discusses.

John Mussington  08:57

You have to live it to feel it. You have places in this world that can only be described as paradise. It’s the nature,  the resources, the land, the  sea, all of that, and linked to that you have the people and the culture and the way they live. So all that is part of who they are. So under normal circumstances, you will find it very difficult to disconnect people from those resources. And what this disaster capitalism is all about is persons who wish to use those resources to convert into dollars and cents to be extracted elsewhere. That is the sort of capitalism we’re facing. And so it is an opportunistic approach where a person uses a disaster, use that time in the person’s life where they are under stress, where they may not be thinking straight. And they use that opportunity to extract wealth from the resources of a place. So in the case of Barbuda, we have a very unique history and culture in that the island during the period of slavery was leased to an Englishman. The Codringtons had plantations in Antigua, Barbados and throughout the region. And so Barbuda essentially did not have sugar plantations, they did not have the kind of production that the other colonies have, but what it did have was extensive resources where fish, meat, salt, and those sorts of things could be exported elsewhere. And so our history formed a people who were accustomed to be connected to the resources because unlike the other the plantations, where you had, what we call in Antigua, the ‘nigger’ house, the communal living where all slaves were packed in. We didn’t have that situation in Barbuda, so we were pretty much left to ourselves, without having the enslavers  having to look after our welfare because we could live off the land. So when slavery ended, we continued that tradition, which we brought from Africa. And so  communal ownership was practiced in  Barbuda.  And in  2007, we actually translated that into legislation, that whole concept of common ownership of our lands. And what that does is that every single Barbuda is entitled to an equal share of the land, which represents the resources. What Disaster Capitalism is all about is that it took a hurricane, where the entire island was evacuated. And then persons made that decision in the absence of the people who owned the resources, made the decision to redevelop the entire island, and create a luxury real estate market, where lots of land and resources and the beauty that it represents could be sold for millions of dollars. And so we have companies, which are calling themselves Paradise Found. We have another one which is called [Peace] Love and Happiness. So these companies are extracting wealth at our expense, while  we’re being deracinated, in other words, uprooted, culturally disconnected from the land others intend to benefit and monetize and to enjoy the paradise, which was ours.

W. Valentine Douglas  11:51

In Grenada our experience is similar to what John was saying and that we have these sorts of natural resources that are enjoyed by our communities there. We have, particularly on the east coast of the island, A lot of coves and inlets, which are sort of incubators for our fish stock. We have natural mangroves, which are  filtration systems and barriers to sea level rise. We have crabbing. We have a lot of things that communities depend on for their livelihood. Disaster capitalism was not a consequence so much ([where] we’re experiencing a natural disaster), but it’s a lot of capitalist actions that would lead to disasters, some of which we perceive to be … may be permanent. In Grenada, they have what they call the CBI program, the citizenship by investment program. And that program allows foreigners to get citizenship that is purchase a Grenada  passport by either making a contribution to the Grenada treasury, or to invest in real estate in Grenada. Now what that program has led to in Grenada is a wave of so-called investors, running into Grenada because it’s an opportunity for them to run out with great profits. And what they are doing, in fact, is looking at all prime areas, areas that have served the community well … [where] people go for their own recreation and other social activities. And these areas are being totally destroyed with government approval. Currently, we have some issues that are arising where people cannot get access to certain beaches anymore, because of sea level rise, because of mangrove destruction, and  other things. And, one form of socialization now has been River Fest. And people, obviously, if you squeeze them one way they would have to move to another area, and in this adjustment now to have these Fest parties, soca dance and all of these things in the rivers, on the banks of the rivers,  is causing major pollution. We have other problems that would affect our local community,  communities regarding water resources. Every year our water agency,  NAWASA, goes through a spell where it has to ration water. And they don’t have a good system of harvesting water in Grenada, so if you have a development 500-room hotel, and a golf course on the north of the island, how are you going to get water to service that? Salination plant cannot deal with those issues. The loss of the beaches is one, the loss of livelihood to people’s ability to get fish to sell the fish, and then people who depend on the livelihood in near-shore fishing would lose that completely. How Grenada can be at a point where our fish stock is so depleted that people may not be able to afford that basic food? We already import tonnes of meat every year. We have a lot of issues when these developers come in now and destroy the very fabric of our society, the environment that provides the area for their socialization and recreation. 

Aaron Caton  15:19

The disaster in Grenada is not a natural occurrence. For me, it’s an occurrence that is as a result of poor fiscal management whereby governments, small, tiny developing states have bloated bureaucracies, no-bid contracts, crony capitalism, budget deficits, IMF, World Bank, high-interest rates. So there now needs to have an influx of revenue into the treasury. One of the words that I have come to really dislike and hate, and we use it a lot in the Caribbean, is development. What is development to another person is a disaster to us. 

John Mussington  16:04

I have reached the stage as well, now that I have a name for it. I call it anti-development.

Aaron Caton  16:09

It is. The other word that goes along is investor. What those people do. They come from Asia, America, Europe, Africa. They’re, to me, they’re dentists, right, they extract. They are coming to take something that they see as their right, with our leaders’ complicity, to deprive us. Cause they’re building something but they’re not building those structures for people who look like us. We don’t speak their language. We don’t eat their food. They don’t even come to our restaurant. We just have a different way about us completely. This 500 room hotel, which is in Lovera. It is the largest flattest space on the north part of Grenada.

Grenada itself, you know, is relatively small. It’s about 133 square miles with all the little tiny islands included. Grenada is 120 square miles proper. And this Lovera project ceeds 2% of Grenada’s landmass for an indefinite period of time to the China Railroad Company. This company, as the name would imply, is from China, employs Chinese workers, but more than the workers, they are taking something away from Grenadians that are rightfully ours. We cannot go to China and say we want to buy one acre of land. They don’t allow it. They come with big trucks that are not rated for our roads, overfilled with gravel, concrete, cement. They don’t care if the bridges are cracked or destroyed. All they want to know is that those structures are built in the name of ‘development.’ 

There is a myopia that happens that prevents us from standing up, to not even permit the first one to come. Because once they come they are going to tell others to say ‘hey, this is easy pickings.’ So I don’t know if it’s how we have been socialized, indoctrinated, bamboozled, but we tend to think people who don’t look like us are the ones who are going to save us and that, to me is the mentality that has to change in order for us to truly gain our independence. We as Caribbean people need to stop relying on the goodwill of others to empower our own people.

André Habet  18:26

With the increased desire from foreign interests in the Caribbean even protected territories have become a target for potential exploitation. John and Valentine discuss how Ramsar sites, wetlands considered by the Convention on Wetlands to be of International Importance, have been encroached upon by development interests, going so far as to redraw the lines of these sites to accommodate investor interests and concessions that see Caribbean states foregoing significant potential tax revenue.

John Mussington  18:54

Another word for investor is  “Wealth extractors” and this mindset where we believe persons are going to come to develop us, it does not happen. And I think in the Caribbean, there’s a lot of consciousness because with the situation with Barbuda, and there are lots of parallels with what you’re talking about in Grenada, and the other islands as well. The  CBI programs, the changing of the system of the culture in terms of people making livelihoods and just taking it away. So for example, I’m sure in Grenada, some of those areas, we had sufficient sense to protect them. In the case of Barbuda, the 500 properties which they hope to develop, most of it is in the middle of a Ramsar site. We had the foresight to know how valuable these areas are, and so they are protected as national parks. And this particular area in Barbuda has been designated a Ramsar site. And everything that you have said in terms of the resources and the connectedness, the people, the crabbing, the fishing, the coral reefs. Right now, we are facing situations where the properties are taken up, 10-foot chain link fences are going up, military-style security, and slowly but surely, we have been fenced out of the coastal areas. Our beaches, our shorefront, our seas, which are such an integral part to our lives and livelihoods, our culture that is being taken from us. Many of us have been conscious in terms of trying to protect these areas under our laws as national parks, and so on. But the thing about disaster capitalism is that all that is now being ignored. And you’re finding areas, which are specially protected because of the sensitive ecosystem, they’re now, they’re no longer off limits to these wealth extractors, which are engaged in anti-development that call themselves developers and investors.

W. Valentine Douglas  21:02

On the matter of the protected area RAMSAR site, this is one of the issues that we are fighting in court. the developers at Lovera, it’s on a Ramsar site, and they have sort of redrawn the lines for the convenience of setting up their golf course and hotel resort. And Aaron’s point briefly about the financial disaster that we are gonna be experiencing. Number one, we have the government take a 100 million dollar loan to have the Chinese upgrade the airport in furtherance of the tourism product that has these new developments that come onboard. Now the Chinese, giving them a loan of $100 million, we have no way of knowing how we’re going to pay back that 100 million dollars. The Chinese has a record of how they collect the loan in Africa, and other places where they invest. Added to that, I just want to emphasize the bad part that all of these projects are being financed basically by our most precious resource, our citizenship, the sale of our passport. These people don’t have to get a loan from anybody. More than that, they’re granted concessions for every nail to every piece of shelving they do on these resorts and developing these resorts. So we are foregoing probably hundreds of millions of dollars in tax revenue that we should have collected into concessions for these developments. So here is where our financial disaster lays. Concession that is granted to these people, we’re financing the operation, and we are taking loans from them that we don’t know how we’re going to repay. 

John Mussington  22:37

That’s very interesting, because behind the whole veneer of coming to develop, and as investors is exactly what you’re saying Valentine. When you look at the agreements and leases that are given to these operators. When you consider the concessions on the leases, the arrangement, the tax holidays, we are essentially not benefiting. And added to the whole situation is a case where the resources are depleted. And so those ecosystem functions as they call it, the protection from storms, the livelihoods that are supported, we will no longer be able to benefit from those. So we lose on every front. 

Kristinia Doughorty  23:19

Looking then at what development should be, our guests offered their perspective on an approach that centers people’s wellbeing. 

John Mussington  23:27

For Barbuda development has to be sustainable. And development is defined as the conditions of life, livelihoods, your ability to live at a particular standard. And it has to be sustainable in the sense that the way we live from the resources presently without depleting them, we are guaranteeing that our children and grandchildren will be able to make a living and enjoy a quality of life up to particularly high standards from those same resources.  That’s what sustainable development is like. Now in Barbuda, we have made steps since the early 90s to guarantee that and that is why a third of the island essentially is a national park and declared Ramsar Sites because how we are as Barbudans and  how we live and how we identify is linked to our mangroves, our marine life, the livelihoods that we derive from them. And so we were charting the course in order to use those assets sustainably to continue our culture and our living. So that is what development looks like. We are now faced with a situation where others see different, and others would tend to create golf courses and luxury residences, in exclusive lifestyle resorts and enclaves and that’s how they see. And that’s diametrically opposed to what we view as our development. 

W. Valentine Douglas  24:49

The concept of development is one that is imported from the concrete jungles. We’re hearing stories from developers in, are you guys gonna like it? It’s gonna be Dubai.We are not Dubai, we’re not aspiring to be Dubai, we don’t want to be anything that is like Dubai. So the concept of development is a playground for the rich, similar to what they did to Cuba during the Bautista era. And we do not see it that way. Unfortunately, our government has focused almost exclusively on tourism as the way to develop. We tend to ignore things, our best natural resource, our ability to feed ourself, our ability to produce viable employment for our population. And if the emphasis is on tourism, we have an ecosystem that is just ideal for the ecotour. We have some areas where you can have 10-room lodge that you can put in every parish in Grenada. We have scores of them in each parish, we have waterfalls, and all sorts of natural scape, landscapes that will be attractive. We believe that by this personal.. this small Eco-Lodge, it would be almost like a large home in any of the parish, and you do not put a stress on the system. And yet still, the local economy that is within that parish would all benefit instead of having these mega concrete jungles in the area where people come into all-inclusive treatment.  We do not see that. We completely disagree with that method of development. Contrary to what our Ministry of Tourism, our government perceive as development, and what is being marketed, we are advocating strongly for a sustainable development or responsible development, where you do it in harmony with nature, that people can still come and enjoy the wildlife. 

Aaron Caton  26:55

We need to educate our population. We need to have a more comprehensive health care. And from those two things alone, we will have and maintain dignity to go anywhere around the world. I believe a Caribbean region needs to incorporate more of a socialist model of development where we take care of each other. The governments provide increased safety nets where we need to have less reliance on materialism where we could see what Mr. Smith has and Ms. Jones have and we say I want that too at the expense of preventing even our own descendants from being able to achieve the same by a) not following the laws not following a common sense of decency, not respecting the environment and also not thinking sustainably. 

André Habet  27:52

John, Valentine and Aaron also offered some insights as to why building regional solidarity through groups like Stronger Caribbean Together is a vital aspect of their campaigns.

John Mussington  28:03

Our biggest power is sharing awareness. If I don’t know what is happening in Grenada, in Belize, in St. Lucia and the same thing is happening to me, I would not be able to respond to it effectively. So our strength lies in sharing the knowledge and cooperating, working together against these challenges.

W. Valentine Douglas  28:22

Yeah, I totally agree with John here. We have to create that sort of total awareness throughout the Caribbean, we tend to be very, very, very insular. And it seems as though because of our insularity, we have other issues, in forming this sort of regional solidarity… in that, the political aspect of it, once you form an organization, or you start addressing a matter of national issue, you get branded as anti-government. And so that obstacle is one that we all, in all the islands, have to overcome in establishing that, but we need the education, the awareness. And I think that getting together of all the islands, and basically, using it as a regional force, to bring these issues out and to bring it out to international organizations. Because we can only achieve change when the pressure becomes International. Remember, these developers are coming from these large countries mostly. And then they come and they probably come with a certain brand, and if a hotel brand is going to come and exploit our situation, our government may not be willing to do that. But if we have that regional group exerting that pressure, internationally, I think it might be the most effective way we have of dealing with that problem. Definitely we need regional solidarity.

Aaron Caton  29:51

I believe that the nations of the Caribbean could do a better job when it comes to educational exchange. So for example, if somebody has a school in St. Lucia, there’s no reason why we can’t have teachers from Belize or Guyana coming between the different countries to just let us know a different way of thinking, of even maintaining the language. I know we used to speak Creole. My grandparents used to speak it in Grenada. To bring cultural elements back that once bounded us together, instead of getting together for Carnival, which is I think what we do a really good job at… is [that] we get together to fest and not to think intellectually. And I hope I’m not offending anybody by saying that. But I would like to see the same fervor of ‘Let’s meet for workshops like this.’ And let’s have a convention in Nassau Bahamas with 1000 Caribbean people to figure out and chart a way forward in a concise, cohesive intellectual manner. 

André Habet  30:58

As our conversation with John, Valentine and Aaron ended, they each emphasized the significance of the present moment to stave off what Valentine calls the “domestic extinction of the Caribbean.” As John puts it here, this has occurred as the loss of intact ecologies in other countries have driven up demand for places that still have environments in relative prosperity.

John Mussington  31:21

We must come to the realization that with all that is happening on planet Earth, today with the climate crisis, we are living in these parts of planet Earth that can be considered the last bit of paradise. And so we’re going to be targets of those persons who corner a lot of money. They’re gonna see us as prized possessions. And we have to be very much aware of the value of the resources that we have, and we have to think about the future of our small islands, our small countries. And we have to think, along the lines of making sure we can sustain them for future generations.

W. Valentine Douglas  31:59

I see ourselves as small islands that are almost ready for domestic extinction because we are being sold out by our own politicians, to, as John mentioned, those extractors of wealth. And if we continue on that path, we would find ourselves into a sort of social chaos, where we’ll be constantly fighting among ourselves for whatever limited resources are left because the prime one would be gone in the hands of these mega so-called developers. And I’m concerned, I’m really concerned that the generations that are to follow will never have the experience of enjoying the natural environment that I do now. And that my forefathers did very well. So I think it’s urgent that, and I will make an urgent appeal to everyone in the Caribbean, as John said, to protect our little pieces of paradise because it will be destroyed if we continue along the path which we go. 

Aaron Caton  33:08

Well, I’d like to thank you for enabling me to join this amazing discussion this morning. As we go forward, I think it is important that people of the Caribbean acquire, maintain, a greater sense of dignity where we do not have to take shortcuts to gain whether it’s material wealth, have what others have and also to value what we have. We as people, we can’t teach somebody else what to value when it’s theirs. There needs to be an internal awareness that what I have is near to me. It’s rare, and it could disappear. So we need to think about what our ancestors did 100 years ago when there was fighting for independence in the early 1900s from Britain, from France, from the Netherlands to make sure their descendants maintain independence and dignity. And I wish that those who are coming behind us have that same sense of pride.

André Habet  34:16

Thank you all very much for the time taken today for this conversation. I really feel like I learned a lot, so thanks for being willing to talk to us and share these insights with us.

Kristinia Doughorty  34:26

Thanks again to John, Aaron and Valentine for joining us and thank you for listening to the Stronger Caribbean Together podcast.

André Habet  34:33

To learn more about the work of the Save Barbuda Movement and the Grenada Land Actors , visit our website strongercaribbeantogether.org where we feature regular updates from all our regional partners.

Kristinia Doughorty  34:44

Also, be sure to follow us on Twitter @CaribeTogether and on Facebook at Stronger Caribbean Together. And be sure to join André and I next month for another conversation demonstrating the everyday work done by people United Against Disaster Capitalism.

André Habet  35:00

Thanks to Alexander Evans for providing our theme song. This podcast was made possible by a grant from the Open Society Foundations.