The flambeau generation

Oscar Allen 24.AUG.07

After black people took the liberation of their labour in 1838, they had a hunger and a thirst for land, and learning, and community building. It took just one generation for us to see the first fruit of the hunt for education – a sample of children trained and educated away from their African selves, moulded into Afro Saxon Clones – part English, part African Caribbean. This cloning continues.{{more}}

What we read in Rupert John’s book, “Pioneers of Nation Building in a Caribbean Mini State”, is the achievements of a set of men, some of whose parents must have come out of slavery. Sir Rupert’s profiles of Daddy Mac – George Augustus McIntosh, Robert M Anderson and others, is an important piece of cultural history. It should be reprinted. It should be expanded.

Near a hundred years after those pioneers were born, we meet another generation of schooled and gifted men and women led by Kenneth John, still in the house of Saxon. Together, they take hold of a Flambeau and plant it on an urban lampstand to give light and blaze “the path to mental emancipation”. The Flambeau was a slim magazine, it contained substance, all of it informative, some of it critical – controversial in the conservative Vincentian environment. The magazine was published nine times in the period 1965 to 1968, which closed the era early of popular politics against planters and their seedlings. Flambeau scrutinised the politics, the culture, history and policy making from the point of view of our young educated elite.

Now, 2 generations later, the Flambeau writings are appearing again. Baldwin and Cheryl King are publishing Flambeau writings in 3 volumes. The first volume contains 43 pieces written by 22 persons. It bears the title “Search for Identity.”

Three women, Elizabeth Brockman, Norma Keizer and Jacqueline Wynter contribute some 25 pages of this near 300-paged book. Mrs. Brockman, who says of herself, “I speak as a foreigner and I am not black” could not stomach the statement by Mr. Clem Iton that: “Despite the universal negro extermination drive, the black man continues to exist”. Flamboyant, inflammatory, “dangerous not only to the white races of the world, but to all races”, was how Ms Brockman felt about Mr Iton’s observation. Her own conclusion was this “There is nothing wrong with a coloured skin. There is everything wrong with coloured thinking.” The Brockman piece led the late Alphonso Roberts to respond with “Why we must think for ourselves.”

Mrs. Norma Keizer wrote two of the four articles on Education specifically. The problems of primary education and a history of education were her two topics. Mrs. Keizer noted that “only 27% of our population have completed 6th and 7th standard work; only 5 out of every 100 primary school children finally attend secondary school…only 0.3% of our population have an advanced level or university education…” The 1962 school statistics showed how serious was the drop out rate in primary schools. 5,880 students were in Stage One, 1,390 were in Standard 5 and 969 were in standard 6. Focusing on teachers, Mrs Keizer makes the comment that “The failure or success of the whole structure depends on the teachers, but they cannot be expected to perform super human tasks in the primary schools if the problems of overcrowding and lack of teaching materials are not dealt with.” Several suggestions are made in the article. Interestingly Mrs. Keizer (in 1966) declares “I believe that Secondary education should be given first consideration”.

‘The short History of Education in St. Vincent during the nineteenth century is an excellent introduction to and account of official approaches to black education from the late days of colonial slavery.

The Caribs of St. Vincent is a short historical essay written by Jacqueline Wynter for use in radio education. Mrs. Wynter, St. Vincent born and schooled, does not see the Caribs through pure colonial eyes; they are not savages who harass the British, but rather a skilled and tenacious people who fight for their land. In her essay, Jacqueline Wynter represents a turning point away from colonizer thinking towards the anti colonial posture of the 1970’s and the emerging post colonial imaginary.

The three Flambeau women in Volume One of the Collection represent the work of the 1960s intellectuals as a whole. They walk into territory that colonial thinking used to dominate and they state their case. Brockman, on the side of the colonial intellect, Keizer and Wynter, breaking away from Coloniser points of view. This first volume of Flambeau writings is tribute to the substance and stature of Ken John as he was known then, and to the relative independence and self confidence of the gathering of persons in the Kingstown Study Group. Eight or nine of the writers have since died and four continue to share opinions in the media and elsewhere. This collection of essays is a legacy and still a contributor to debate today. Perhaps most of all, it asks for a new Flambeau for post colonial illumination.