Gabriel Christian - 2 - Dominica Academy of Arts and Sciences

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CHRISTIAN, Gabriel
Gabriel Christian was born in Goodwill, Dominica in 1961. He was educated on the Island before going to college and law school in Washington, D.C. He co-authored In Search of Eden with Irving Andre, a contemporary history of the island in 1992

Books

Aboard the Commandante Pineres

Print Length: 279 pages
Paperback: Email conrad@gclawmd.com to purchase hard copies for $25US + shipping & handling
Publisher: BookBaby; 1 edition (June 7, 2016)
Language: English

The trip to the Cuban Revolution is at the center piece of this well documented memoir of the Caribbean independence movement by Gabriel Christian who participated in it as a young student leader. The trip to Cuba in the summer of 1978 provides Christian with a platform from which to observe and opine upon the social changes and political upheavals on Jamaica, Dominica, St. Lucia and the Grenadian Revolution made one year later on March 13, 1979. The Grenada Revolution is made, in part, by some of the delegates who represented Grenada at the 11th World Festival of Youth & Students and who befriended Christian.

Syracuse University Sociologist Dr. Cecilia Green, an eminent Dominica-born sociologist and former high school teacher of Christian wrote an insightful preface to Pineres. In that preface she noted, “ Two features of this memoir are particularly noteworthy. One is the historically unique and noteworthy perspective of a radicalized son of the emerging black professional middle class, founded on modest public service careers during the pre-independence period. Christian describes his neighborhood as “the middle-class enclave of assorted civil servants such as nurses, policemen and teachers amongst whom we lived,” and a family headed by a patriarch steeped in the values and traditions of British colonial order and Christian discipline. Mr. Christian is disarmingly candid about his rejection of some of his father’s values and his embrace of others, and the pragmatic, but steadfastly anti-colonial political path enabled by this complex (but familiar) amalgam.” In the introduction to Pineres by historian and Canadian Judge Dr. Irving W. Andre, he states, “Gabriel Christian’s Commandante Pineres takes us on an excursion into history when the Eastern Caribbean in general, and Dominica in particular, was bristling with political upheaval. Union militancy, Rastafarianism, an incipient socialist movement and political radicalism coalesced and found expression in publications, public meetings and political activism. The return of Rosie Douglas to Dominica in 1976, after being deported from Canada, and the proliferation of “study groups” in Roseau, Portsmouth and Grand Bay, leavened the bread of militancy that nourished Dominica’s intelligentsia within the decade.”

The work reveals that Christian is a leader in the radical surge which removes Dominica's Prime Minister Patrick John following the May 29, 1979 riot and uprising on his island. Invited by his Grenadian revolutionary comrades to celebrate the first anniversary of the Grenadian Revolution, Christian glimpses the first signs of the intolerance which ultimately dooms the Revolution. Christian had been involved, in some form or the other, in the radical politics which shaped his youth from the relatively tender age of nine when news of the 1970 Trinidad Regiment mutiny during the Black Power surge in that sister English speaking island stirred debate in his household.

After witnessing the rise and fall of Caribbean radicalism, and the efforts at post-independence leaders to build just and prosperous societies Christian has had great exposure which allows some to comment with some wisdom. Indeed, Christian has served as Caribbean Diaspora leader advocating unity and socio-economic development for his region of origin while in the United States during his time as President of the Caribbean Students Association at the University of the District of Columbia, founding member and General Counsel of the Institute of Caribbean Studies and a member of the Maryland Governor’s Commission on Caribbean Affairs. As a past President of the Dominica Association of Washington, DC and co-founder with Raglan Riviere, Dr. Clayton Shillingford and Dr. Dave Shillingford of the Dominica Academy of Arts & Sciences, he has also promoted the involvement of the Dominica Diaspora in the development process on his island of birth, and Africa.

A practicing attorney in Maryland and US federal courts, Christian is an active civic leader in the Washington, DC metro area, the wider Caribbean and to his island Dominica, to which he remains committed. His memoir confirms the importance of democratic norms such as: free and fair elections, strict adherence to parliamentary procedures, rule of law, due process, a strong civil society, an independent judiciary, a dynamic private sector committed to social responsibility, an equality of opportunity society, and integrity in governance as key to the continued freedom and prosperity of the Caribbean people, Africa and its Diaspora.

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Paperback: Email: conrad@gclawmd.com to purchase hard copies for $25US + shipping & handling

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