Twinn, Fraser and the Indigenous People

When you write regular columns in the newspapers you are never sure who are your readers. You write hoping to reach as wide a cross section of the Vincentian public as was possible, so it is always good to get feedback. Twinn’s comments and the references by some of

the Indigenous people to my views are certainly of interest to me.

My column last week dealt with Twinn’s reference to the termination of the “FROM WHENCE WE CAME” programme. I didn’t realise then that it was part of a section that he entitled “Organic Intellectuals and the Press”. In his discussions with some of the Indigenous people, my views as expressed both in the ‘NEWS’ and the FROM WHENCE WE CAME RADIO programme became a centre point of those discussions. His main focus was on Chatoyer, but he got involved at first with the issue of DISCOVERY DAY. He recognised that the issue of Columbus having discovered St. Vincent on January 22nd, 1498, was handed down by writers of the colonial period as a basic truth. I quote from Twinn.

“…the veracity of this claim was brought into question by Adrian Fraser, who was able to demonstrate that at the time of the discovery Columbus was, in fact, still in Spain. Fraser is both an academic teaching at the University of the West Indies Annex in Kingstown, and a regular columnist in the NEWS, one of the local newspapers. His articles consistently broach the subject of Vincentians coming to terms with their history and as such has been a major influence on the degree to which Vincentians have come to challenge the traditional view of history handed down to them by Duncan (1941). In my conversations with Caribs, Fraser would frequently be cited as a reference to substantiate arguments regarding Vincentian history…the demotion of Columbus from his position of “discoverer” formed part of a wider critical stance towards Eurocentric writers. A good example of this was given one lunchtime at a small bar cum café that I frequented. A group of trainee teachers arrived from town and were waiting to catch their connecting bus. I was quickly brought into the conversation by some of the people sitting there, or rather my interest in history was. One of the trainees, a man in his thirties, immediately complained about the history that he had to teach. It was, he said, “colonialist history”; it was “Europeans history” and as such it could not be trusted. “Most of it is jus’ lies!” he said forcibly. “Even that story about Columbus coming here, Doctor Fraser proved that he couldn’t have done that. He was in Spain so how come he discovered St. Vincent. They been telling us lies for years.” There was a general muttering of agreement around the bar at this.

Since, however, I nodded my head and concurred, the subject shifted to my being an anthropologist. “Why is an anthropologist wasting his time here?” he asked. He nodded towards a girl of about sixteen years of age. “Do you think people here will ever believe in evolution? No chance, they read the Bible and go to church, and they believe in Adam and Eve and all that! We teach them science and they have to learn it, but they don’t believe it.” He turned to the girl and asked “What do you write in school when they ask questions about where we came from? She looked up at him and replied, “I put down what they teach us; that’s the way to pass tests, but I know it isn’t really true. If you want the truth, look in the Bible; that’s God truth.”

“You see!” he cried triumphantly, “these people aren’t interested in science; I don’t believe in God. But educating these people is impossible cos they don’t want to learn.”

The conversation rapidly started to degenerate as everybody joined in, much to the amusement of the trainee teacher who obviously took great delight in provoking their sense of outraged indignation. I have described this scene in some detail since the main protagonist was certainly not what one would call an average Carib, or Vincentian for that matter, since he was the only person, I ever met who openly claimed to be an atheist in public.”

My last column ended when he quoted from my articles in the NEWS to the effect that the “FROM WHENCE WE CAME” programme was meant to address concerns about the misconceptions and distortions of our history. He continued to quote from my articles. The Radio programme “…was done in a style and manner geared to spread it to a wide cross-section of people. I had to take into account the fact that most of us were completely turned off from history by the way it was taught in school. Moreover, it seemed so remote from us because until quite recently the history we learnt at school was about Kings and Queens and battles with funny names. Ordinary people hardly featured, or if they did, it was mainly as objects rather than subjects. The idea of history concerning itself with the lives of ordinary people is still a novelty to many…” (To be continued).

• Dr Adrian Fraser is a social commentator and historian