Cato does not qualify to be a National Hero!

Fri, Nov 4. 2011

Editor: I will say it again. Vincentians SUFFER from GENERATIONAL AMNESIA.

To suggest that Milton Cato is some kind of hero is to elevate stupidity and ignorance to super star heights. Milton Cato does NOT qualify. Milton Cato was the arch supporter of colonialism. He apparently revelled in his new found status of partial acceptability by the colonial administration.{{more}} He never uttered a word against colonialism or the British. He never fought against it. He never touted INDEPENDENCE once in any of his speeches (as far as I know), except the day the British flag came down in Victoria Park. The man who fought for us (all) and was falsely imprisoned for 9 days for us and who the then Governor had to free from prison so he could calm the rioters and bring peace to the nation was George Augustus McIntosh. (After Chatoyer there is none other that struggled for us and paid the price of incarceration (falsely) and suffered the wrath of the colonialists and their plantocracy and merchant supporters (my uncle was one of them).

George A McIntosh, Ciprianni (Trinidad and Tobago) Marrishow (Grenada) Manley and Bustamante (Jamaica) and a few others were the earliest anti colonialists, while from the Motherland there were Nkrumah, Azikiwi, Kenyatta and George Padmore (a Grenadian born Trinidadian) and DuBOis, who at the 5th Pan-Africanist conference in Manchester, England, October 15-18, 1945, denounced colonialism and demanded “HOME RULE” for ALL the colonies. All the above were influenced by the mighty Marcus Mosiah Garvey (Up You Mighty People was his slogan). Also, one must remember Mahatma and his struggle in India. (Remember, folks, that the Statute of Westminster, 1931, recognized the soverignity of only the WHITE nations of the then British Empire. Not one non white nation was included.) There would be no adult suffrage (one man one vote) in St Vincent if it weren’t for George Augustus McIntosh. Following hot on the Papa Mac’s heels, actually and figuratively is Ebenezer Theodore Joshua (the original Comrade) who carried the fight right into Clarence House, London, England, at a Commonwealth conference, and after being ignored by the British Foreign Secretary (the chairman of the conference), Comrade took off his shoe and banged the table with it so the British Foreign Secretary had to recognize him and let him speak. These men weren’t looking for letters after their names (like our intelligentsia and bourgeoisie) or honorary medals stuck on their chests for being British stooges. THEY WERE STANDING UP FOR YOU AND ME. That’s why to this day I can’t respect Son Mitchell, especially for having obliterated the home of George Augustus McIntosh, which is a national heritage shrine.

E J Paddy Corea