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While everyone in Washington is worried about Grenada's exporting revolution, the island is having enough problems trying to import it. English may still be the first language of the island, but it often comes off second best when it comes to translating socialist slogans. The revolution communicates by billboard in the way that Californians do by bumper sticker, posting its noble but often mind-numbing reminders at almost every road turning and intersection: THE LAND IS OUR WEALTH, EDUCATION IS OUR LIBERATION, WORK HARDER, GROW MORE FOOD, BUILD THE REVOLUTION. With equal alacrity, the Grenadians have adeptly copied the dress code of the revolution, and the streets of the port capital town of St. George's are filled with remarkably accurate understudies for Che Guevara. The government's "mass rallies" have got the stem-winding syntax of fighting socialism down to the last fist-raising rounds of "Long live! Long live!"
All this, of course, should explain why Grenada's revolution has failed. In fact, the country's economy is growing, and a youthful leadership still in its late 30s has proved to be what some neighboring Caribbean governments are not: competent, noncorrupt and capable of actually working harder than its own citizenry. The achievements have often been on a human scale as miniaturized as the island itself: 45 miles of sorely needed new roads, a tripling of fruit and vegetable exports in the past three years, canning, asphalt and concrete-block plants, a 12% drop in dependence on food imports and a 50% increase in fresh-water production since the 1979 coup. The government even managed a $2.5 million surplus in 1982, half of which went to repay the country's past debts. Social tranquillity has appeared: the major crime in Grenada is "praedial larceny," the theft of garden vegetables. Some of the government's highest marks, in fact, come from its chief critics. "I would vote for them if they trusted us with a free vote," says one of Grenada's leading figures in his own twist of sensible island logic. "But they won't, so I'm one of their attackers."
None of the revolution's accomplishments is greater than the $70 million international airport due for completion next year. It may seem extravagant and dangerous to Washington, which fears that Soviet or Cuban military aircraft may want to use the nearly two-mile-long strip, but if free elections were held the government of Prime Minister Bishop would win hands down on just this issue. It may be a matter of national image and prestige: Caribbean islands want their own airports just like some larger countries want their own airlines. The difference is that there is more than vanity at stake. Grenada is a major source of migrant workers in the Caribbean, with maybe three to four times its population outside the country. They still leave and they still come home to the island, each time having to spend a day in Trinidad or Barbados waiting for an air shuttle. Their food-export market to the other, more developed islands will depend on larger planes being able to fly from Grenada. The Grenadians have been asking for this airport for almost 25 years, and the Cubans finally gave it to them. "The one mistake Reagan made was to interfere with the one project he should never touch," commented Bishop.