Re: Mausica Reunion 2007 Update
2007-Mar-11-1323hrs
Our brother Mausican Herbert Garvin's gripping account of the end stages of Mausica is a major contribution. I am in two minds about it. And I have what amounts to a great pain as response to his absolutely poignant footnote that, "Kirkendale and Villa Nova are now roofless.." This is sacrilege. Some of us (Clyde Maurice, Dave Dedier, Orman Fournilier and I (Theodore Lewis) had a third year at Mausica, in preparation for industrial arts teaching in new Junior Secondaries. For that year, 1969-1970, we lived off campus for a while, then split up, a couple of us living on campus, one with the Warden, another under Harry Joe's house which was then vacant.
We saw in that year some signs of change from the Mausica we had known. Black power was part of it. We were a strange breed, "third year" Mausicans. We did not fit. We worked basically with Roland Maunday. Of course, there were ties with our former first years, (example Benjie, Reynold Davis, Joe Stevens), and the alumni choir, but our profile had to be low.
Since our time in 1967-1969, Black power was in the air. Some of the Mausica women in our group came in conscious, and wore afros. But we somewhat discerning. Wilfred Phillips was an advisor to the UWI student guild still, as former guild president, and they used to come up to Mausica to him for advice.
When Michener, a Canadian dignitary came down to Trinidad after the Sir George Williams University problems with Walter Rodney, etc, the UWI guild decided to lock him out. They established a barricade so he could not tour the campus. They wanted Mausica to do the same, since he was going to be visiting us as well.
They set up Geddes Granger (Daaga) and Dave D'Abreau (Kambon) to talk with us. I remember the Sunday afternoon in the yard next to the building, under the Mausica sign. Noel Duncan, and others including myself listened to them. They wanted us to boycott. We asked questions. We could not see the point. As was the case for such visits of dignitaries, we had a program of folk songs, etc. We did not see why we should boycott.
Here is the point. We owned Mausica. We were not oppressed. We had black people like Harry Joe, the Warden, etc as models. We were conscious already. We were not going to do anything to sully the place. What we were getting from it, was so much more than any short term gains from a boycott.
And most important, Mr. Williams and Mrs. Cuffie could not see this either. And one of the things you learn at Mausica, is that the two of them are usually right.
We put on the show for Michener. And in retrospect, it was the thing to do.
In 1970 us "third years" noticed that people were no longer wearing ties etc as we did often to go to class. There was also some wind that students wanted to abandon the old white formal jacket for dashikis at graduation.
What is Mausica without those pictures of devils in those white jackets and black ties.
We were not saints at Mausica.
But one of the things that causes many of us now to look back with so much pride on the place nww, is the fact of these quaint traditions, which helped to balance the great and boundless energy we brought, and which manifested in the Mausica radio station at night, the panty raids, the bottle breaking at month's end when we got allowances and went drinking in Arima.
FitzJames Williams is the missing link in the debacle that our brother Herbert Garvin relates. If he were in the mix, there would have been no strike. He would have solved that in one, with basic wisdom. The whole thing would not have happened. No chance risking the whole thing, knowing the wolves were at the gate, waiting to kill the experiment. No chance at all.
Mausica was Harry Joe, Daphne Cuffie, and FitzJames Williams.
And part of what they understood is how precarious was the experiment, because of the jealousies, that Herbert relates, what with GTC, Naparima etc, being non-residential...and we being so privileged.
Ad we were priviledged, at least I felt so. I died and went to heaven when I got into Mausica.
The decline started when Bunny Osbourne came in as Principal. His first assembly and he says to us...Mausica stinks. Too many stray dogs here. That was the beginning of the end. We hated him. He hated us.
He could not relate to Fitzie and the Cuff, and that is where the power lay. He tried to get the girls to wear boleros at graduation. He ran in to Gwendolyn on that one, and to me.
This Garvin account troubles me very very greatly.
Theodore (Scratchy).