Yarimar Bonilla

GUADELOUPE IS OURS

In the early months of 2009, the French Caribbean island of Guadeloupe witnessed the largest wave of social protest in its history. A coalition of 48 different syndical, cultural, political, and civic organizations came together in order to protest against profiteering, exploitation and the ‘expensive life’ that characterizes life in the French Antilles. Armed with a list of 120 claims that spanned the terrain of disability rights, environmental policies, cultural nationalism, syndical freedom and increased wages, these Guadeloupean militants took to the streets, unified in their assertion that ‘Guadeloupe is ours, not theirs’. Through their movement they effectively asserted their right to shape the course of their social, economic and political futures – despite their ongoing colonial relationship with France. In this essay I explore the impact of this strike on the Guadeloupean political imagination and examine the glimpses it provides into the current political climate, and future political horizon, of the French Antilles.

Puerto Rico in Crisis: Government Workers Battle Neoliberal Reform

6 O n october 15 a one-day general strike paralyzed Puerto Rico’s political and economic capital of San Juan. About 200,000 demonstrators, according to organizers, poured into the streets to protest the economic and labor policies implemented by the conservative administration of Governor Luis Fortuño. Launched in response to the administration’s decision to lay off more than 17,000 government workers in September, the strike culminated a series of protests held since the spring against the governor’s recovery plan for the struggling island economy. The layoffs are part of a broader governmental reform project outlined in the highly contentious Public Law 7, passed on March 9. Conceived as the island’s economic recovery plan, the law declared a state of economic emergency, enabling Fortuño to “restructure” public employment in ways that would otherwise be illegal: unilaterally suspending union contracts, overriding labor laws in order to dismiss publicservice workers, and denying those who remain employed the job protections guaranteed in their union contracts. The immediate consequences of this plan were widely understood to be dire, since the government is Puerto Rico’s largest employer and the island’s unemployment rate in July was already 16.5%, according to the Department of Labor. The popular challenge to Fortuño’s agenda began May 1, when massive mobilizations of labor unions, political parties, and other interest groups took place in protest of Public Law 7. On June 5, the growing discontent became apparent as a crowd of between 40,000 and 100,000 came together in a demonstration organized by a new coalition of unions, religious leaders, and community organizations called All Puerto Rico for Puerto Rico (Todo Puerto Rico por Puerto Rico). The work stoppage of October 15 was also organized by the All Puerto Rico coalition, as well as by the labor leaders of the Broad Front of Solidarity and Struggle (FASyL), another new organization mobilized in response to Fortuño’s agenda. Numerous acts of protest and civil disobedience took place during the weeks leading up to Puerto Rico in Crisis: Government Workers Battle Neoliberal Reform

Remembering the songwriter: The life and legacies of Michel-Rolph Trouillot

This article provides an intellectual biography of the late anthropologist Michel-Rolph Trouillot. Using the metaphor of Trouillot as a songwriter, it foregrounds the unique constellation of themes, approaches, and preoccupations that defined Trouillot’s life and work, regardless of genre.

Slavery and Collective Memory in the French Caribbean

The importance of the slave past for the formation of Caribbean societies – and the place that past should occupy in the collective imagination – has long been the subject of heated debate among scholars and residents of the French Caribbean. In this volume, Catherine Reinhardt provides us with a much-needed interdisciplinary (mainly archival, literary and ethnographic) investigation into the ways in which the slave past has shaped multiple realms of collective memory in the French Antilles, and how these collective imaginaries inform Antillean notions of collective identity and national belonging. Reinhardt situates her study within the cultural politics surrounding the 1998 commemorations of the 150th anniversary of the abolition of slavery in France. She suggests that this date provided a moment of collective reflection about the meaning and role of the slave past in the formation of both the French Antilles and the French Republic more widely. However, she argues that French official commemorations tended to revolve strictly around the moment and personages of abolition, rather than the quotidian experiences of enslaved communities. In addition, official celebrations were framed by a wider ideological discourse that sought to place the philosophers of the French enlightenment as the ideological fathers of the French Revolution and the contemporary French Republic. She argues that, as a result, the history of slavery was obscured and even silenced during these national commemorations by the history of French national thought. However, she demonstrates that among the populations of the French Antilles the memory of slavery constitutes a muted but conspicuous presence, which shapes both the ideas of the past and the cosmologies of the present. Drawing on the theoretical frameworks of authors such as Pierre Nora and Edouard Glissant, Reinhardt constructs her monograph around several different realms of memory, each of which constituted a focal point for the 1998 commemorations: enlightenment, resistance, freedom, assimilation, and popular memory. For each of these realms, she draws upon different registers, voices,

Guadeloupe on Strike: A New Political Chapter in the French Antilles

O n january 20 the caribbean archipelago of Guadeloupe witnessed the launch of the largest political movement in its history. For 44 days a mass general strike brought the French overseas territory to a standstill: Schools and universities closed, major commerce was suspended, banks shut down, hotel rooms emptied, government services were discontinued, restaurants were shuttered, public transportation halted, and motorists became pedestrians as gasoline distribution was interrupted. Huge demonstrations accompanied the strike, with as many as 100,000 people marching in the streets demanding social and economic change. After a month and a half of political deadlock, violent confrontations with the French police, and the death of a union militant, Guadeloupean activists reached an agreement with the French government on 165 demands, including a 200-euro (

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250) increase in the monthly minimum wage, measures to aid farmers and fishermen, lower bank fees, reduced airfares between the islands and France, and reduced prices on food, housing, water, gasoline, and public transportation. The strike was organized by a coalition of 48 organizations, including trade unions from a wide spectrum of industries (gasoline distribution, commerce, tourism, civil service, health care, education, and agriculture, to name a few), as well as environmental groups, peasant organizations, political parties, pro-independence activists, consumer rights advocates, associations for disability rights, fair housing proponents, music and dance groups, and a wide range of other political, cultural, and civic leaders. These diverse activists came together under the name Lyannaj Kont Pwofitasyon (LKP), which can 6 By Yarimar Bonilla