R. W. GRIFFITH: A NATIONAL LEGEND
AN EVOLUTION IN LEADERSHIP STYLES
The celebration of the centenary of a legendary, populist leader is an appropriate occasion to reflect on the styles of leadership that have helped to shape our history over the last hundred years.
R W Griffith was born in 1904 at a time of regional ferment when Haiti and her beleaguered national leaders were celebrating 100 years of independence from French colonialism. Haiti by then was well known as the first black republic in the Americas, having blazed the trail for Latin American countries to pursue their independence wars successfully against Spain, starting with Mexico in 1810 and ending with the Dominican Republic in 1844.
It was also the time when Panama and its leaders were celebrating their first anniversary of independence from Colombia, and Cuba was emerging from their 36 years of struggle for independence from Spain, only to be trapped in the shackles of U.S. dominance through the Platt Amendment.
Montserrat and the rest of the British West Indies, like the neighboring colonies of the Dutch West Indies, remained relatively tranquil and subdued in the clutches of Crown Colony government administered directly from London and Amsterdam. In that colonial setting political leadership was always imposed from above and never given the chance to emerge from below. Representative government had long been dismantled in the wake of the Morant Bay Rebellion in Jamaica in 1865. Under such a system, leadership was a matter of “rule by authority”, and not by consensus; civic duty was expressed in acquiescence, compliance and subservience as loyal subjects of the Crown.
Interestingly, by 1904, in terms of labor relations, Britain had already had 70 years of experience working with unions since the promulgation of the right to form unions in 1834, and they expanded those rights in the Trade Union Act of 1871. Yet, none of those rights and privileges filtered through to the Leeward Islands before 1939-40 when Griffith was already 35 years of age.
His childhood and early adulthood were therefore molded in the full sediment of a colonial education and administration. The legal framework of the time made it a criminal conspiracy to form, join or try to register a trade union, or engage in picketing or strikes. Workers and their leaders were deemed liable for damages caused by any such industrial action.
Griffith was, undeniably, a product of his times, but he is to be commended for his responsiveness to the currents of change that had spread across the Caribbean in the first three decades of his life – the growing anti-colonial struggle and the modest legislative successes achieved in Jamaica, Guyana, Trinidad and St Vincent between 1904 and 1933 resulting in the reinstatement of representative government, and then the labor relations developments in Barbados, St Kitts, Antigua and the Windward Islands between 1939 and 1946. His leadership in the period 1946-54 must therefore be seen as a significant watershed in the historical experience of a tiny colony where taking a stand against the establishment was frowned upon.
The spirit of the rising Montserratian PIONEER LEADER may well be described as a spirit ignited by the sparks of the regional labor movement that were spreading in a way somewhat reminiscent of the revolutionary flames of Haiti and Latin America exactly a century earlier. By the late forties and early fifties, in the wake of demands for social reforms and constitutional improvements that would accord universal suffrage to the populace, Griffith could well be described as a spirit ablaze with a burning passion for reasonable accommodation and moderate amelioration in the working conditions of estate workers. Griffith was no revolutionary; he was not demanding any radical change either in the estate system or the electoral process; but he was a stout defender of fairness and reasonableness, a genuine pioneer firebrand.
It did not take long for his battle to come to an abrupt end, for his demands did not get to the root of the socio-economic problems of the masses. There was a need for structural changes and new alignments that would empower the people whom he represented to benefit substantively from the process of change. It is not surprising then that he was suddenly shunted into retirement and into a kind of morose and taciturn mood that reflected a spirit dulled by the misfortunes of electoral defeat and personal disenchantment with the vagaries of local politics. The ensuing silence during an extended period of almost forty years of withdrawal from public life has still not detracted from the merits of the pioneer and father of the Montserrat labor movement.
Today, we pause in time to vindicate the cause of a spirit remembered and honored for his courage, vision, and commitment to a just cause; and to chronicle his worthy action as a major landmark in the annals of our history.
He initiated a period of popular local leadership in public affairs that today spans some fifty-eight years. He was willing to face the ominous threat of a British warship sent to curb his rowdy, singing band of marching strikers, and suffer arrest and court trial on behalf of the working class. No other leader has had to undergo any such humiliation (or elevation) for a just cause in the public interest. So in the context of labor credentials Griffith stands head and shoulders above all the labor leaders behind him, no matter how outstanding their individual contributions to the advancement of the cause of labor.
Clearly, there are important lessons to be learned from the public life of R W Griffith. Firstly, we must recognize that there is absolutely nothing in either the spirit or praxis of colonialism, imperialism, mercantilism, capitalism or globalization that even vaguely purports to empower the victims of rabid exploitation. Leadership in those systems does not belong in the hands of the oppressed; it is geared to serve the interests of the investor, profit-maker, oppressor, ruler. In fact, what is practiced is more a question of “rulership” than leadership, and it is up to the ruled parties to decide how much of that “rulership” they can and will endure, and when they will choose to determine their own destiny rather than allow others to chart their future for them willy-nilly.
Secondly, each social group or national entity has to decide what leadership paradigm can best serve its needs at any point in history and help it to achieve its maximum potential and optimum goals. One group may rely on personality-based leadership, while another opts for character-based leadership; another may lean towards status-based or head-table leadership, whereas yet another would prefer team-based, participatory leadership. It may even be possible to choose between mission-driven, service-oriented leadership and self-serving, power-driven leadership. Each paradigm would have its own guiding perspectives and principles, as well as its related performance outcomes and consequences.
Thirdly, an individual is not really a leader until he has a following, and people have to decide on what grounds, to what end, and on what terms they will agree to follow any leader. Griffith embodied an interesting blend of different styles of leadership. There is no doubt that his flamboyancy with the masses fits him squarely in the personality-based category, but he also fits comfortably in the status-based group because of his own social standing among the landed class. His crowning tribute, however, is that he was more mission-driven than self-serving, more service -motivated than power-hungry.
Fourthly, Griffith, like vintage W H Bramble in the following decade, was an inspired servant with a keen sense of mission. There was a cause to fight for and a populace that shared the sense of urgency. The outstanding leadership of these two pioneers in labor and politics was due, in large measure, to the synergy between leader and followers around the mission that had captured their collective imagination. They were not just servants of the people; they were children of destiny called to be servants of a great mission.
That is the critical dimension that differentiates brilliant leaders from pedestrian plodders. When inspired leaders discern a graphic picture of the future of the mission by which they have been captured, that picture crystallizes into a vision that they can share with their followers. The successful leader is then able to impart his inspiration by motivating, equipping and empowering his/her followers to realize that vision. Both Griffith and Bramble achieved this in their own unique way, and eventually lost mass support when that shared vision was consummated in the first instance, and lost in the second.
Subsequent leaders have had to face the harsh reality of either a lack of passion and inspiration, or not finding similar historical congruence of cause, mission, vision and inspiration to give the momentum needed to make a significant impact on history. We have had no wars of religion, liberation, emancipation, invasion, or independence to define our struggle or to give glamour to our aspirations and substance to our dreams.
Not even the horrors of hurricane Hugo nor the devastation of nine years of ongoing volcanic eruptions have been able to rouse Montserratians to want to fight for anything different or progressive. The reconstruction process has not galvanized a spirit of community or a sense of purpose that stimulates new thought, lofty aspirations, noble values and grand expectations. The leadership and people in the past fifteen years have been trapped in an understandable survival mode and a dependency syndrome that holds no real promise for a new and dynamic mission for the twenty-first century.
One of Montserrat’s ironic features in the years since Hugo has been the courage or folly of its defiance of tragedy; the capacity to refuse to run away, but rather stand firm in defense of the little rock. And yet, the placidity of these volcano times fades into relative shadows in comparison with the fever of Griffith’s penny-farthing escapades or Bramble’s anti-plantation battles. It is as if the leadership has lost its fire, cowed into submission by the British overlords.
The island would do well to move to a new level of visionary leadership and popular will fueled by an imagination with a new millennial mission and clear medium and long term prospects. It is not enough to enter this millennium doing things the same way they were done in the last century, replacing infrastructure with a short term mindset, building in an ad hoc manner, or allowing the same old work habits and attitudes to prevail, when by divine providence, we have been offered a golden opportunity to start afresh and to get it right.
When universal suffrage was introduced in 1951-52, many still expected that the local white and the merchant-planter class would win against an “unlettered” and economically marginalized working class. They had the legislative experience, the economic means and the social influence born of privilege. That would have meant the continuance of the discriminatory, oligarchic system of the previous decades which accorded full leadership in the social, economic and political destiny of the island to the ambitions of an entrenched, self-serving plantocracy along with a colonial hierarchy.
Leadership in those circumstances could not have entertained the views, expectations or aspirations of the deprived mass of the population. That explains, in part, why Griffith’s accommodationist leadership style and vision, though suited for the initial spurt that opened the gates to democratic participation, could not contain the dreams of his motley throng once they caught a glimpse of other possibilities. The immediacy of the demand for land, housing and jobs was more compelling than a farthing price increase in an estate system that offered no greater long term promise.
Besides, British colonial rulership/leadership was not famous for being proactive in effecting social reform on behalf of the workers/peasant farmers, nor was the local elite class as politically assertive as their counterparts in St Vincent or St Kitts where demands for constitutional and legislative change were strong, sustained and organized. The Cotton Growers’ Association of 1943 was more of a defensive stratagem to protect their collective interests against local workers than an aggressive political strategy to curb British control of the destiny of the island. A more politically astute class might have accommodated Griffith and tried to form some alliance with the people; but, alas, that opportunity was wasted on the whims of bigotry and disregard for the needs and desires of those who had faithfully served the plantation system; the plantocrats outmanoeuvred themselves by misreading the times, perhaps hoping for the Crown to protect them.
Sadly, political leaders of the fifties, sixties and seventies treated labor affairs as the orphan left to be the foster child of the Crown rather than assign labor relations to a local legislative or ministerial portfolio. It was the Crown that introduced the Leeward Islands Labor Commissioner’s office and administered the Montserrat Labor portfolio as late as 1983.
The Montserrat Labour Party leadership served as god-fathers of labor, initially (1952-1962) with a personalized, messianic zeal which progressively declined into benign paternalism and neglect. The Progressive Democratic Party leadership, despite its left of center postures, stoutly pursued an outrageous anti-union hostility that was the bane of their political misfortunes after ten years in government (1968-78). The right of center People’s Liberation Movement leadership did more specifically for union rights and workers’ benefits in their first three years in office (1978-81) than PDP had done in ten years, only to fritter away such advances in threats of repression. (PDP’s provisions for the masses were reflected more in their education, health and housing agendas than in labor relations; PLM’s highlights were seen in their efforts in industrial expansion and job creation.)
The philosophical moorings of the new labor leadership from the mid-seventies into the late eighties were founded on principles that expanded the vision and work of Griffith and others:
a reexamination of self-worth and self-perception on the part of the working class;
a redefinition of the concept of “worker” to include all salaried employees, whether public or private, established or non-established, industrial or commercial, service or production-based, thus removing the stigmas and prejudices of a colonial mindset;
a recognition of the moral and strategic value of cross-sectorial relationships and regional alliances in the pursuit of common development goals locally and regionally;
spearheading union activity that is informed, critical and militant, but at the same time disciplined and responsible;
engaging in firm and resolute bargaining based on moderate and community-sensitive demands;
fostering a harmonious and stable, though not placid nor subservient, industrial climate where cordiality and reciprocity prevail over hostility and acrimony, and consultation and cooperation over combativeness and confrontation;
encouraging third party intermediary involvement in settling labor disputes in order to prevent unwarranted crisis and setbacks;
the conscious pursuit of economic empowerment for workers and the island as a whole, rather than the exclusive private fortunes of local or foreign investors;
the implementation of structured workers’ education programs as a key aspect of human resource development, and in recognition of the critical value of human capital alongside social and economic capital in national development;
the enactment of a tripartite partnership model of shared responsibility between government, management and labor in the promotion of the common good of all the people and the advancement of national sustainable development.
The founders and loyal members of the Montserrat Allied Workers Union and the United National Front proudly acknowledge the foundations laid by R W Griffith and the legacy of valor and service bequeathed to the generations that followed him. Today we join with the rest of our people to pay homage to a noble pioneer and veritable leader of irrefutable and historic distinction.
J A George Irish
2005
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