Lloyd Best

CENTRE FOR RESEARCH ON
LATIN AMERICA AND THE CARIBBEAN
RACE, CLASS AND ETHNICITY:

A CARIBBEAN INTERPRETATION
The Third Annual Jagan Lecture

presented at York University on March 3, 2001
by
Lloyd Best
Director, Trinidad and Tobago Institute of the West Indies
Publisher, Managing Editor, Trinidad & Tobago Review
CEO, Trinidad and Tobago International Business and Economics Consulting
CERLAC Colloquia Paper
April 2004
THE JAGAN LECTURES SERIES
The Jagan Lectures commemorate the life and vision of the late Dr. Cheddi Jagan, Caribbean thinker, politi-
cian, and political visionary. The series of annual lectures is founded upon the idea that the many and varied
dimensions of Chedii Jagan’s belief in the possibility of a New Global Human Order should be publicly ac-
knowledged as part of his permanent legacy to the world.
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CERLAC COLLOQUIA PAPERS SERIES
April 2004
RACE, CLASS AND ETHNICITY:

A CARIBBEAN INTERPRETATION
The Third Annual Jagan Lecture

presented at York University on March 3, 2001
by
Lloyd Best
Director, Trinidad and Tobago Institute of the West Indies
Publisher, Managing Editor, Trinidad & Tobago Review
CEO, Trinidad and Tobago International Business and Economics Consulting
Abstract
"From Belize and Havana to Cayenne and Paramaribo, there is currently a crisis of Caribbean civili-
zation...." Thus begins this unflinching analysis of Lloyd Best into the present Caribbean politico-
cultural malaise - an analysis in which no historical figure or ideology is deemed beyond the need for
critical reassessment, and in which the urgent need for a creative new departure is emphasized. As-
serting that the promise of independence in the Caribbean was never realized, Best calls for a new
beginning that eschews the superimposition of imported theories, values, and knowledge. He im-
plores the people of the Caribbean, instead, to creatively seek a new understanding of their region in
order that it may become, in Best’s phraseology, its "own first world".
Jagan Lecture 2001 – Lloyd Best
When Cheddi finally gave up the ghost, my

obituary notice described him as “brahminic”.
PREAMBLE He was priestly in his ministrations; The West
on Trial chronicles the journey that made him
I’m delighted to have been invited to deliver so catholic in his concern for the lame and the
this Cheddi Jagan Memorial Lecture and to do weak and for which we cannot but salute him.
so in a community format so that we can fo- I have had the added advantage of having
cus on practical problems and compelling is- been one of two UNTAB Planning Advisers
sues. I’d like to thank the Committee of to his 1961 Administration. I know what a
CERLAC both for organizing the series and gentle person he was – his ideological stub-
for providing me this opportunity to come bornness notwithstanding. He was also a very
once again to Toronto to share ideas with the handsome man with limitless charm. You had
Caribbean Community in a very welcome re- to love him and after we parted company, I
newal. A particular word of appreciation to came to realize that I did and I’m happy to
Chandra and Ramabai who have already admit it now in retrospect.
proved such solicitous shepherdesses. I feel as
if I am at home, as in the glorious days of the I recall I first met Cheddi in 1961 just after
1960s and 1970s when I was in Canada so the Black Friday riots triggered by the Budget
often and appeared re- proposals of my former
peatedly on the electronic Cambridge Economics
Dr Jagan is one of the few Carib-
media as well as before Teacher, Nicky Kaldor.
bean leaders for whom it is not
University audiences. President Kennedy had
necessary to fake admiration.
said that he would send a
Speaking under the aegis mission to British Guyana
Cheddi stands out for integrity
of the Jagan Memorial is to sift the possibility of
and devotion to duty.
to me appealing because giving economic assis-
Dr Jagan is one of the few tance. People had sug-
Caribbean leaders for whom it is not neces- gested that I be asked to serve as the Guyana
sary to fake admiration. As you, I have pro- professional on the team and Secretary. I
found disagreements with the whole transi- would decline and go to the Ecole Pratique
tional generation, however broadly or nar- des Hautes Etudes at the University of Paris
rowly defined, whether revolutionary scholar- from which I’d return for UNTAB within a
practitioners or not, older or younger. year, after a stint in teaching and research with
Professor Charles Bettelheim, then Consultant
But among them, Cheddi stands out for integ- to the Government.
rity and devotion to duty. He may have made
costly mistakes; his brand of Caribbean radi- What I remember most from that first en-
calism might not have been the most imagina- counter was the simplicity and directness of
tive or the most fruitful on the ground but Dr Jagan’s method, quite the opposite of his
what to me is winning is that he believed even celebrated rival’s artful teasings. We spent a
in the most patent contradictions of what he whole afternoon exchanging ideas in the Red
had become committed to and he never House, the Prime Minister’s official residence
flinched – not even from the most absurd on King Street. We had a delicious lunch of
consequences such as providing critical sup- white basmati rice and curried hassa (in Trini-
port to Burnham, his arch antagonist and dad, cascadoo) with green salad. We both wore
tormentor. the then insurrectionary shirt jack in very ele-
gant fashion. Soul brothers enjoying a great
1
sense of anticipation on the basis of what and obsolescence of one-man rule all over the
turned out to be false premises. The memory, Caribbean. Not only in government and poli-
however, will endure and abide. tics but also in every steel band and every
football side, maximum leadership, Doctor
This evening, I feel bound to attempt, admit- Politics, central domination and personal
tedly in only a skeletal sort of way, what I power are an article of faith by which equal
wish now could have the subject of our trad- participation by the great majority is system-
ing that memorable November afternoon. I atically frustrated.
think we owe it to ourselves to set out a the-
ory or an interpretation of Caribbean society While the people on Robinson’s side perceive
dealing in the issue of race, class and ethnicity the problem only from Panday’s antics, those
but doing so in deliberately Caribbean terms. I on Panday’s side perceive it only in terms of
would say that, as the indispensable point of Robinson’s manoeuvres. Since Robinson has
departure, that is what we needed then, forty now, to all intents and purposes, succeeded
years ago, when we were still innocent, as we Williams as leader of anti-UNC forces by en-
need it now, two generations later, when we tering into the breach left by a hapless Man-
are more traveled and hopefully wiser. ning, the whole country is now seeing the
problem, admittedly from different angles of
vision.
A CRISIS OF CARIBBEAN The upshot is this. Whether the Afro-Saxon

CIVILIZATION regime was established since we’ve enjoyed
self-government in the 1940s, or since we
From Belize and Havana to Cayenne and gained Independence in the 1960s, it is sud-
Paramaribo, there is currently a crisis of Car- denly under threat. Whether the incumbents
ibbean civilization, which is a genuine crisis, are Indos or Afros, it seems to be the same
first, because so many of us do not even sus- khaki pants. The public has come to realize
pect it – though developments in Trinidad are that many arrangements, institutions and
making it impossible not to take notice; and agencies are outmoded. Many methods, pro-
second, because it reduces to a crisis of self cedures and attitudes are simply outworn.
awareness.
Many have discerned that the running quarrel
In Trinidad, over the last year, there has been between the Chief Justice and the Attorney
a recurring stand-off between the two General is merely another symptom of the
branches of the Executive, the President as same disease. As is the enduring failure of
head of the ceremonial branch and the Prime CARICOM to achieve meaningful results to
Minister as head of the effective and instru- help ordinary people. People also see that the
mental branch. The gravity or hilarity of the quarrels over the Caribbean Court of Appeal
encounter has only been enhanced by the ac- have more to do with jealousies over power
cident through which two old foes have been and succession rather than genuine concerns
obliged by circumstances nobody planned to with the improvement of justice and the re-
collaborate in spite of themselves and to ele- moval of dispossession and disadvantage.
vate each other to their respective thrones.
Suspicions are heightened by the anxiety of
There is other detail but the essence of this the CARICOM leadership over developments
situation is that this unprecedented quarrel in T&T and the willingness to precipitate a
within the hitherto exalted and impregnable brokered solution lest the whole cover of one-
one-man leadership has exposed the absurdity man rule in the Caribbean is somehow com-
2
pletely blown. It seems possible that we are suggestion of violence or military activity.
witnessing the end to the old dispensation
under which Independence and Integration The main instigators of lawlessness and reck-
have come and gone. After more than 40 to lessness are the official representatives both in
60 years, nobody quite knows where we have government and opposition. A consistent 40
been transported by the popular movement percent of the electorate stays away from the
that the labour movement served to trigger in polls and the largest single force in the coun-
the 1930s by the region-wide disturbances that try might well be those who opt for None of
threw up Manley, Bustamante, Bird, Brad- the Above.
shaw, Butler Adams and later opened the gate
to Williams, Jagan, Burnham, Manley, Seaga This is an entirely novel situation. It dictates
and many others. that, instead of the tired and mechanical mod-
els the old generation has systematically im-
It is this new sense of anticipation that has ported from the experience of the North At-
generated impetus for explaining anew how lantic, Marxism and Liberalism in particular,
Caribbean civilization actually works and what we should now seek a whole new interpreta-
is the next step. The emerging young generation, derived organically from Caribbean his-
tion has hitherto been completely turned off tory and set in Caribbean institutions and cul-
by the sense of stasis and ture.
stagnation. It rejects the The emerging young genera-
idea that the Caribbean is tion rejects the idea that the This is where we’re reached.
not its own first world Caribbean is not its own first The objective of this eve-
but somebody else’s world but somebody else’s ning’s presentation is to pro-
third. The new genera- third. vide us a relevant sketch by
tion wishes to advance way of a new beginning. I
not simply from prole- think that this is what Dr Ja-
tarian agitation and violence to expert negotia- gan would have been looking for had he been
tion by technically competent and confident able to come back as a young student.
cadres: it wishes to become the proprietors of
the landscape and governors of the dew.
For the first time in over nearly two genera- PUTTING SOMETHING FRESH ON
tions, the explosion of discussion in the media THE TABLE
and everywhere else has presented to the
young generation a view of themselves as the Now you’ve seen I read that. I don’t usually
subject and makers of history, not simply the read what I have to say but I read that because
object and takers. Those who favour the I wanted to put it on the record in that par-
status quo have been complaining of tension ticular kind of way. And I also wanted to get it
and possible unrest and even racial and ethnic over quite quickly.
confrontation and violence.
I know I have about three-quarters of an hour
In practice, nothing in that vein has occurred. or so to put something fresh on the table,
The country has proceeded to Carnival as the which I have arrived at after 40 years of very
central rite of the civilization. There is no hard speculation and resisting all the blan-
doubt but that we have a sense of a revolu- dishments of established theory. I would say
tionary new dawn with something about to as an introductory statement that I think that
happen. It could lead to new alignments and the origin of the Caribbean disaster under
new politics altogether but somehow with no conditions of independence – almost 40 years
3
of hardly advancing, internecine warfare be- dustry, or commitment of any kind. You can-
tween one-man parties – I think that the ori- not have a catastrophe of such colossal di-
gin of this disaster is the failure of self- mensions out of personal inadequacy. We had
knowledge. Though for a very good reason, in to have been describing a system problem,
that the interpretation that we have of our- larger than the individual.
selves is always made in the third person.
Through the eyes of the Other. But it is the paradox of that situation that we
were riding such a tiger, nobody could take
The situation before and after emancipation in the time off to think through an interpretation
many ways dictated that as the optimum solu- based on our own experience from which we
tion since in order to become free we first had would be the centre of the world – like every
to become the colonizer. Norman Manley said other centre. And we have made catastrophic
it very elegantly when he said we had to ac- mistakes that we have now to correct. And
quire “fitness to rule.” That is to say, we had fortunately, there is a ferment of anxiety in the
to see ourselves as the Colonial Secretary saw world in the transition to the 21st century that
us, or as did the Minister of the Board of compels us, at last, to face up.
Trade.
Now there have been many interesting inter-
And we produced a brilliant transitional gen- pretations of the Caribbean. Very rich. But
eration, than which there was no better. So only in bits and pieces – I think, looking at it
much so that, at the time of the upheaval in as a whole. Whether you take black power and
the 1930s and for a decade or so after, every- the Garvey-ite interpretation, whether you
body expected the Caribbean countries to take Marxism from Padmore and James or
emerge as the '‘hotshots’ of the formerly co- their descendents, or whether you take the
lonial countries. Nowadays it’s commonplace, liberal interpretations that are the mainstream
in every interpretation, to say that we have for giants such as Arthur Lewis who based all
fallen behind, and the Asian Tigers have gone, his work on 18th and 19th century England –
and we are still hoping to protect systems of Ricardo, Adam Smith - and the classical
non-reciprocity and preferences and sheltered economists and devised a model that was bril-
markets, and old ways of doing business. liant and adequate for everywhere in the world
except the Caribbean.
We had to write a document which we said
was the most important document in the his- I don’t say that as an indictment. When you
tory of the country; it was titled ultimately go through the statement that we have made
“Time for Action: The Ramphal Report on over the course of the last 60 years or so, you
the State of the West Indies at the Junction of have a lot of experience to sift of people of
the 21st Century”, and we could not get those very high quality. And nothing I am going to
studies off the ground until we got a grant say wishes to dismiss any of that. I think it is
from CIDA. Or a grant from the UNDP or a wrong, quite frankly, because the premises are
grant from anybody. The West Indian gov- wrong, but you can say wrong things and say a
ernments wouldn’t put up a cent to do the lot of right things in between, so to speak.
most important study ever in the history of And there’s plenty of absolutely relevant and
the country they serve. powerful stuff there. James is perhaps the top
of the heap, and he’s so fertile that every time
And I am suggesting that it is not because the I speak I have to say that he was my mentor
practitioners of leadership and politics were and friend and teacher. And there are many
foolish, [or that they] they lacked capacity, others.
that they lacked integrity, that they lacked in-
4
But I think that what is wrong with the state- the Southern cone – Uruguay, certainly: these
ment that we have fashioned over these years are really European settler countries in Amer-
of adventure in speculation about the nature ica, like the United States of America and
of the universe, what is wrong is that they all Canada, if you abstract from the autochtho-
take the rest of the world as the centre from nous population and from the maw in the
which to perceive reality. And I think we have American south where they are mainly blacks.
to reverse that and examine the Caribbean
from inside the Caribbean. So, we have colonies of settlement of one
character. We also have colonies of conquest,
I was mortified in recent years to see that al- mainly in South America along the spine of
most all the discourse about the Caribbean in the Andes. All these countries are really
the international order begins from the per- American countries – not European countries,
spective that the Cold War is over and there- not African countries; they are American
fore we are no longer of any strategic signifi- countries of autochthonous population. Any-
cance to the United States. All the scholars body who goes to Mexico sees immediately
start from there. Or “ the money is now going that Mexico is an Indian country, is an Ameri-
to Eastern Europe, because you have the can country. They talk about Catholicism [in
transitional countries.” Everything is deter- these countries], but Catholicism and the con-
mined in terms of what quistador and the Span-
the rest of the world iard were merely a garland
does to us, rather than In the Caribbean, the key thing - about the neck of Ameri-
how we see our own described most brilliantly by cans who withdrew into
situation from inside. Edouard Glissant of Martinique – the Andes as their de-
is that it is a place of introduced fense against the conquis-
And I think we therefore and transplanted populations. tador and created all these
have to start the analysis countries down the spine.
by recognizing what it is It is a very different rela-
that people do recognize when they do that, tionship to the landscape from what they have
which is that the whole of America today is a in North America and from what they have in
giant creation of impetuses and impulses the Caribbean, which is the third part.
which have come from the rest of world or
the continent but particularly from the North The Caribbean of course consists of colonies
Atlantic – the Mediterranean countries of of exploitation. I take the term from [Lowell
Europe certainly – and what these impulses Joseph] Ragatz, the American historian. And
confronted when they got to these parts. the important thing about the colonies of ex-
ploitation is that there is no autochthonous
So we need to recognize that the experience in population to speak of; they eliminated it
America has created many different situations, pretty quickly. And there are no settlers – no
but we can perhaps lump them into three. The proprietors of the landscape who are intent
first being the colonies of settlement in North on owning the place and running it from the
America, where the people who came, came start, [who] are escaping from where they
to own the place. And that has consequences came from and … are establishing their own
that we have got to trace if we are to under- house.
stand why North America is different from
South America and the Caribbean. There are In the Caribbean, the key thing - described
elements of North America in South America, most brilliantly by Edouard Glissant of Mar-
of course; it’s not neat. So Argentina and the tinique – is [that it is] a place of introduced
south of Brazil – Sao Paolo – and much of and transplanted populations. And that’s the
5
first thing about it: the population is not one another, they also had to adapt to the
autochthonous and it hasn’t come to own the straightjacket in which they were put by the
place. What is important about it, is that the colonizer.
population has come as a proletarian popula-
tion in a way that Marx did not understand. C.L.R. James wrote that we were brought
As a proletarian population also in a way that from Africa and thrown into modern industry
he did understand, which is that it came with and organization, and we either had to adapt
nothing to bargain with but labour. And dur- or die. And we have lived. (If you write noth-
ing the course of the 500 years, [this popula- ing else down when you leave here, write that
tion] has still not inherited the landscape and down.)
become the proprietors.
What is going on in America all over is that
Everything that we see - the shambles that we we are founding new societies and Louis
see, has to be explained in terms of that initial Hartz, the Yale scholar, wrote a book called
condition of being transplanted and intro- “The Founding of New Societies”. But of
duced from another place, and therefore hav- course he wrote it from a very Euro-centric
ing no connection with the secrets of the sea- perspective and treated all the new situations
scape. in terms of three types of outcome: The first
outcome he described as “feudal outcomes,”
Secondly, the people come from many differ- like Quebec, where people left Europe before
ent places at many different times. Many dif- the French and industrial revolutions and
ferent circumstances – they come from the therefore came with a concept of the world
Senegal basin, they come from the Congo ba- that was pre-industrial. He thinks that Quebec
sin, they come from the Niger basin, they can be explained very largely by what hap-
come from everywhere. They have no concept pened as a consequence. Methodologically I
of Africa before they left Africa. They discov- find it very fertile.
ered Africa in America.
Then he says that there are “liberal out-
The big issue of douglarization began among comes,” with those people who left after the
the Africans [from] requiring to find a com- Enlightenment in Europe and created liberal
mon tongue, a common art, a common music, systems. That is North America, other than
a common culture; of founding a new civiliza- Quebec. Then there are “radical fragments”.
tion out of many disparate pieces. It is only Those that came into existence after the in-
through the eyes of the colonizer that all dustrial revolution had initiated mass societies
blacks seem to be one. The problem would – large numbers of people in the cities of
repeat itself with blacks and Indians. They Western Europe – and all the radical politics
think that it’s new! It’s a frightening gap in that ensued from that: unions and all the in-
self-awareness that they think that the prob- terpretations of the left. That is Australia,
lems that Africans and Indians have did not New Zealand as examples, and so on. You
exist right from the very start. can see how that can be very fertile.
The first problem is the population is intro- Well, it doesn’t describe our case. Though un-
duced and transplanted. The second problem fortunate, almost all of the interpretations that
is that the population is introduced from the radical left – and all the parties in the Car-
many different cultures and institutions and ibbean are radical left parties – proposed ini-
they have to make it anew in a new place. And tially disappeared; after independence, there
the third thing is that they were colonized. So was nothing left of the Social Democrat there.
in addition to the adaptation to each other, to That is why the European interpretation
6
makes no sense, because all the parties really wrong!

are one fragment of Europe, in a sense.
I sat down there in Cambridge University to
So many of us have been educated, or mis- listen to Nicky Kaldor and all the finest pro-
educated or half-educated in Europe – Nai- fessors in the world and I go “What the hell is
paul says that the most provincial Universities going on? You’re not talking to me at all.” I
that you could imagine are Oxford and Cam- grew up on a sugar plantation, like Panday or
bridge, where I was educated. He says they Jagan, so I knew from my experience that
teach the economics of England and they these theories didn’t make any sense – the as-
teach it as the economics of the world! They sumptions don’t make any sense! The whole
appropriate the whole world within their con- of economic theory is pure foolishness as far
cept. They have no concept that the rest of as we are concerned. It does not describe the
the world is somewhere else. And we go to initial conditions under which production
these Universities and we’re brilliant up there started and through which people were in-
and we congratulate ourselves about how little ducted into the system. I’ll come to that pres-
we know about ourselves. [Laughter] ently.
All the interpretations We have to have a very

are interpretations like While in all other situations that I simple description of what
that given by Louis know in the global order, the soci- happened. The first princi-
Hartz: very fertile. Or ety founded the economy, in the ple of science is to describe
Marx. I think we have to Caribbean it is the economy that what is on the ground –
jettison them for the founds the society. what happened. Before you
time being. I don’t say start to speculate to the
that as an indictment of extent that you can remain
them. They have tremendous power and they clinical and objective, you need to find out
are fertile within their assumptions, it’s simply what is there!
that the assumptions don’t fit - as Arthur
Lewis proves convincingly. And he was a real The most important thing about the Carib-
giant, a real giant. He wrote a model that was bean - after the fact that the society is not
fertile for the whole world and therefore Asia autochthonous, does not belong to the place -
could take it and use it, as I said before. is that, while in all other situations that I know
in the global order the society founded the
But the assumptions didn’t fit because the economy, in the Caribbean it is the economy
crucial thing about the Caribbean is that the which founds the society. You have the econ-
population is not autochthonous. The whole omy first, and then you bring in society as la-
theory of international trade in the Universi- bour power. It has to fend for itself and it has
ties is based on the assumption that people to grow up.
produce for their own consumption, and they
sell exports with the surplus of domestic out- We need to describe our population – as Nai-
put - the surplus of domestic output over paul is doing in all his work, all his novels;
domestic consumption. You have a surplus; he’s our most clinical observer, so far. He is
you sell it abroad; you earn foreign exchange not afraid to say the truth of what he sees. We
and you buy imports. That’s the basis of all are inducted into the situation in a state of
the models of all the work in economics. In complete terror. We have nothing to bargain
the Caribbean, we begin our lives selling only with except our labour. We own nothing, no
exports! We never had domestic consump- concessions are made to what we know, what
tion, for home use. So all the models are just we bring, who we are. We are introduced and
7
we are transplanted. Therefore, given the into it: if you have the colour required or you
other factors I have cited – the fact that there come from the same place, or you work in the
are many of us from many different places, same environment, in the same situation and
and the fact that we are in the straight-jacket so on.
provided by slavery and indenture and coloni-
alism - the most important single thing to us So ethnicity is not race, as you see in all the
thereafter is to find a home. To find a com- literature. It has nothing to do with race. Eth-
munity – to found a community. That is why nicity has to do with automatic belonging, so
ethnicity is at the root of everything else. that race is one basis of ethnicity, because you
believe or are made to believe that if they are
The extreme state of alienation in which we all one race, they necessarily have all the same
live, the complete loneliness - because all interests.
these people are not coming as families.
They’re all coming as individuals, including Or if they are one class. I came to a confer-
children, come as a child ence in Canada about two or
slave or a child indentured three years ago with a lot of
worker – you come to We need to understand the French philosophers and we
work! They have no idea of concept of ethnicity and why it were talking about ethnicity.
who your family is – they is a compelling requirement I put it to them that class is
don’t care about that. You for people in the Caribbean on an ethnic factor. Marx un-
are there as an individual, any basis whatsoever. derstood that. That is why
alone. I think that is the he thought that workers of
psychological pre-condition the world would get to-
that pre-disposes a community to find any gether as soon as they met each other; they
port in a storm. If that is your condition, then would recognize each other.
ethnicity becomes important.
When I was a student at Cambridge Univer-
What is ethnicity? I took the trouble to look in sity, I realized that public school boys were a
all the European dictionaries in English, race apart [laughter], from all the fast-bowlers
French and Spanish – many, many genera- we had on the cricket side. All the fast-
tions of dictionary. Europeans have no idea bowlers were from the North of England and
what ethnicity means! You see the definition grammar school, and they were one stone
changing every time because of the total con- lighter than all the fellows who were from the
fusion about what ethnicity is. public schools in the South of England, and
were the batsmen and the captain. Of course:
Ethnicity is automatic solidarity. That is to two different races.
say, you do not adhere to something; you
don’t think about it, you don’t deliberate Class is race in Marx. That’s what he and
about it – you belong to it. You are in it be- Engels saw. He saw that when you are from
cause something about you – external to you one class you are really a completely different
– fits you into that hole. So you’re not Indian genre of being. A different category of human
because you thought about it; you’re Indian animal.
because you’re born so, as somebody put it.
Or you’re Muslim, or Hindu, or Orisha or So ethnicity describes many different bases of
whatever your religion is. It is not something automatic solidarity, and this can be class, it
you have reasoned about and decide you want can be race, it can be religion, it can be tribe, it
to stay or you don’t want to stay, you’re in it can be clan, it can be homeland – like Trini-
because you’re born into it. Or people fit you dad and Tobago: Trinidadians and Tobagoans
8
seem to be the same people. They are worlds

apart! And I could tell you where I corrected You need new Gods, so that the Indians in
scripts in the University of the West Indies, in India don’t recognize many of the Hindu
the examinations, I could tell when I was cor- practices that we find in the Caribbean. Eve-
recting a Tobagonian as distinct from a Trini- rything has to adapt in the new situation. New
dadian: a completely different view of the language, new art – and Haiti is the extreme
world! [Laughter] Yes! Completely different case of that; they have invented a new lan-
worldview, a different civilization altogether – guage, a new art, a new music, a new religion.
a different race of people! [Laughter]
Voodoo is not what you read in the newspa-
We need to understand the concept of ethnic- pers. It’s a whole culture. When I lived in
ity and why it is a compelling requirement for Haiti I could tell you that a woman could walk
people in the Caribbean on any basis whatso- a hundred miles in the night. Nobody would
ever. People are so terrorized by the condition touch her; nobody’s ever drunk in Haiti. Peo-
under which they come and are inducted into ple drink a lot of clairin, the Voodoo white
the civilization, that they hold onto any port rum – but only in Church! [Laughter] You
in a storm. What the Caribbean has done, is never see a drunkard. When I first went to
encourage people to have ethnic solidarities of Haiti, you could leave your car in downtown
different kinds. So you might be a Tobago- Port-au-Prince with everything you bought in
nian and a Muslim, and you’re holding onto town – nobody’d touch it! Leave it open –
ethnicity on both bases. So what we have they won’t steal a thing.
done – we have creolized ethnicity.
There’s an article which I published in a book
People live all these ethnic identities that are from a French anthropologist who describes
convenient to them. So you have a kind of all these things about what really goes on in
paradox: ethnicity is not thinking about what Haiti, as distinct from what you read in the
you belong to, but being in it; but at the same newspapers about violence and Voodoo and
time, thinking about how you can use all the so on. There is that, too, but it is restricted to
possibilities to get out of this hole that you’re a particular part of the civilization in Port-au-
in. [Laughter] Prince. But the country outside, where the
bulk of the population lives in that culture,
The paradox of it is that an equally compelling they have invented a whole new civilization
requirement as ethnicity is inter-culturation, or where they don’t allow the state to enter.
creolization, or douglarization. So that the There’s no state – it’s a society without a state.
business of making room to accommodate the I can’t go into detail here, but I want to tell
other and sharing cultures on the margin is as you that you need a completely different read-
central to the civilization as defining a sepa- ing or interpretation about what Haiti is about
rate identity to protect you for who you were – quite different from what you read in the
when you came. The core existence of ethnic newspapers.
solidarity and creole integration is par for the
course in the Caribbean. Both are absolutely We are talking about a civilization of the Car-
necessary. Part of the complication is that ibbean which is a civilization unto itself,
people practice them both at the same time – forged out of these peculiar circumstances of
they are compelled to. If you’re in America our introduced population, of individuals
and you’ve come from the Congo basin or coming in a state of terror who have to create
from the Indo-Gangetic Plain or whatever it a new society and who need both ethnicity
is, you have to live here; you have to survive and creolization at the same time.
here.
9
We need to tell the story – once you postulate

these founding conditions. You need first of At the University of the West Indies - when
all to know what happened; what accidents he was principal and I was a boy, I got there
took place; what forces emerged from inside; at the age of 23 years when they recruited me,
what forces - what shocks hit the society from he needed to see that we needed some time
outside, and you have to explain empirically - off to integrate the social sciences by locating
you have to describe first and then explain all of them in Caribbean institutions, and Car-
empirically - what happened over time. ibbean history, and Caribbean culture. But
they were so anxious to get people all these
The next step in developing a proper theory useless Ph.D.s and to prove that they had a
of what happened in the Caribbean is to de- good CV and so on, that nobody had the time
scribe the stages of evolution of this thing, if to do any work! They had the time only to get
you understand where it started. For the sys- promotion.
tem as a whole and for all its sub-types. It’s a
lot of work! And nobody wants to do the Therefore, the social sciences in the Univer-
work because all the rewards in political sci- sity all developed as bits and pieces borrowed
ence are for all this from Malinowsky if
foolishness about poll- it’s Anthropology,
ing. All the famous What they describe as under- and from Parsons if
people in political sci- development is that the elites in all it’s sociology, and
ence [do is] all these these countries are educated in London Adam Smith if it’s
damn foolish polls! and Oxford and Cambridge… they are economics – or
Polls that tell you noth- just repeating ideology that they pick up Keynes or Marx.
ing! And they write in some book. Wherever they went
books and they get to school – in Prince-
large grants and they’re very famous and so ton, or Yale, or Stanford, or Cambridge – they
on. And they know nothing about the coun- felt that was the best place in the world.
try, which is what is showing up now in Trini-
dad. The University of the West Indies and schol-
arship became an aggregation of little bits and
In the middle of an explosion of political con- pieces that nobody understands! That is what
sciousness - we have a country where The underdevelopment is: what they are describing
Express could sell 80,000 copies of the consti- as underdevelopment in all these countries is
tution one Sunday! People are reading every- that the elites are educated in London and
thing, going to every meeting ands so on, and Oxford and Cambridge and they can’t add up
nobody is citing anything that anybody ever the bits and pieces! That is what they are call-
wrote in the University of the West Indies. ing underdevelopment because they can’t un-
Nothing. And all the professors there are dis- derstand it.
credited in this debate. [Laughter]
But there is no pristine condition called un-
Because a piece of work needs to be done, derdevelopment. I never used the term, not in
and - I don’t want to indict the University, 40 years. From the time I hear it I say “who
but I want to say the main person responsible say that?” [Laughter] And “Third World”
for this not happening was Arthur Lewis, our and “South”: we’re in the North in Trinidad;
best man! Because he was so bright and could how the hell we get in the South? [Laughter]
use the culture that he imported so effectively,
he thought everybody could do it. But every- They say we are developing countries; so the
body couldn’t. developed countries stopped developing?
10
They’re not developing countries too? It’s wealth and so on. But class requires a con-
foolishness! cept of responsibility. You have to have dif-
ferent responsibilities in the place. The thing
The whole of the academic infrastructure that about the Caribbean is that everybody has the
we imported from these Universities has to be same responsibility, which is no responsibility
thrown out - hook, line, and sinker! We have at all! [Laughter, applause.]
to start fresh by doing scientific work, really
scientific work! There are no scientists; they The people who run the place, don’t live
are just repeating ideology that they pick up in there. Absentee investors set up the system
some book. I want you to describe what you and they live in London, or Marseilles. They
see! Tell me how it works! What it is! And live somewhere in Europe. They have over-
theorize on the basis of what is in front of seers and managers and so on but the deci-
you. That’s not going on in these Universities. sion-making capacity and the capacity to say
[Applause] where expansion takes place, where invest-
ment takes place, that’s somewhere else. So
So we need to describe the initial conditions – there is no class at the top.
how the thing was set up, how it started. What
were its properties? The proletarians come
What were its laws of and they don’t own any-
motion over time? In the Caribbean, you have no re- thing; they say, “Give
What moves it? We are sponsible class at the top nor one at me what is mine, let me
beginning to see that the bottom. That is why “doctor poli- go; all I want is my
ethnicity is a fundamen- tics” and maximum leadership are wage! Give me more!”
tal principle of organi- absolutely indispensable to the opera- They take no responsi-
zation and of mobilization of the place. bility for the plant. A
tion. It takes place on proletarian is only deal-
many different bases. ing with labour, as Marx
We have to explain the behavior of individu- said. He takes no responsibility for the place,
als, of groups and communities, and nations the decisions – “I don’t care about that; let me
and regions, and so on in terms of the laws of go; give me what is mine.” You have no re-
motion that drive people: the actors, whoever sponsible class at the top, and you have no
they are. responsible class at the bottom.
The most important thing about the actors in The Prime Minister of Trinidad - my very
the Caribbean is that they are of two types. good friend, we were in the same party. Rob-
One is that you have the proletarians - the inson, Panday, and myself, in ’81 we ran to-
multitude of the people, and you have the gether. [Laughter] Basdeo Panday is always
proprietors. I have argued for 40 years (and quoting me, saying that “Lloyd Best says that
the Marxists are going to kill me - those who everybody in Trinidad is a second-class citi-
are still here) that the important thing about zen, with no first and no third.” [Laughter]
Caribbean society is that it is classless. Nobody accepts that anybody is better than
him. Nobody is allowing himself to be called
People don’t want to hear that at all, but I will “at the bottom.” We are all hoping for some-
show them right now. It is classless in the im- thing to happen. But everything that happens
portant sense. I am not talking about stratifi- is an act of God. We are not responsible for it
cation; I am not talking about rank; I am not at all. [Laughter]
talking about hierarchy or status - you have
that. You have differences in occupation and That is why “doctor politics” and maximum
11
leadership and central power and personal governor was in charge of everything. Because
domination are absolutely indispensable to the they wrote a document in 1962 – a piece of
operation of the place. You have to have men paper, they write a text; Capildeo and Williams
who are going to tell other men what to do. sit down in London and they [came to an
One of the things we have discovered in the agreement], and they drafted it, and they car-
political system - people are learning about the ried it back to Trinidad and that is the consti-
political system - is that in the political system tution… That is the piece of paper they
of Trinidad there is only room for one politi- passed through parliament.
cian. That politician, he appoints everyone in
parliament. Whether the man is elected or not What is going on is what the country has al-
he is nominated. Nobody can become a can- ways known. CLR James said that the gover-
didate if the political leader does not want him nor was the viceroy, he was the boss of par-
or her. liament, he was the chief of the executive, and
the head of the administration. Four in one,
The lower house is a sham: it is not Westmin- and one in four.
ster; there are no politicians there. The only
politician is the leader! When he is the Prime We have a political system that is quite differ-
Minister, he is the minister of everything! ent from what the paper says. The Westmin-
Everybody is his heir; it doesn’t matter what ster thing can’t work. What happened last year
you call them. That is why Panday could put and this year was that the contradiction be-
anyone to act as Prime Minister, because they tween what was on the paper and what edu-
know it doesn’t matter who walks in. They cated people think is the Constitution, and
don’t dare to make one decision in their own what people are actually doing… came to a
minds. He is the minister of everything! head in the elections of 2000, December 11th,
made that patent[ly clear]. Because Panday say
The logical extension of this is that the leader “I want to appoint seven losers to the cabi-
of the opposition, although he is a political net.” And everybody agrees with that, at one
leader in his own right, does not dare to assert level, because in the West Indies whatever the
that. So Manning is the perfect opposition Prime Minister says is law - for everybody,
leader, because you want somebody who is including the President, except that the Presi-
not a politician to lead it. But when you do dent was the Prime Minister. [Laughter] The
have one like Capildeo - Williams arranged it President say “I don’t want this… This is a
for Capildeo to go to the University of Lon- Westminster thing, and there are conventions
don and teach while he was in the opposition. and ways of proceeding and so on; you can’t
[Laughter, applause] do that.” You have two things that you can’t
do – contradictions!
Yes! And they both agreed on it, because they
understood very well, in the system that they Of course we are beginning to see now, we
founded after independence, that there is are beginning to understand, that there is a
room for only one politician. If you can get gap in our knowledge; that all the things we
that and make the government change and really do - we never recognize until there is a
you become the leader of the government, crisis. All the things that we would like to do,
then you become that politician and the other because our self-esteem is boosted by being
man has got to find work somewhere else. the colonizer, we write down on paper. That
forces us to recognize the difference between
We are describing a political system that has formal cognition - schooling, books - and na-
its own properties. This political system was tive intuition - instincts, the things that people
established under slave conditions, where the do as a matter of course because of culture,
12
habitat, and tradition… That is the fundamen- from itself when it is reproducing its best ex-
tal conflict that is now at large in the Carib- amples?
bean.
The problem of the Caribbean is much more
It is a conflict that I am arguing is going to complex than ever assumed by CLR James,
bring the Afro-Saxon regime down. You who is the most brilliant of them, or Cheddi,
know what an Afro-Saxon is? An Afro-Saxon or Manley, or Coard, or Bishop, and so on. I
is an African practicing European institutions read their statements and it’s really hilarious to
in America. [Laughter, applause] That is a see the foolishness that people talk. They
tradition we have brought down from the were talking about “seizing power” and all
past. All our brilliant sons have had to be that this kind of thing. You can’t seize no power in
in order to survive. We want them to do that: the Caribbean: the Americans will put you out
first in the first class, great books and so on. the next morning. [Laughter]
As Arthur Lewis said, we have to deal with
the colonizer on his own ground. And Arthur You have to understand that Rodney and all
Lewis was also first in the first class, you these things that they’re lionizing is pure fool-
know. ishness, you know. Any sane man reading this
will ask: “What are you talk-
This problem that we have ing about, taking the power
is inherent and the reason it An Afro-Saxon is an African and so on; it does not make
is tragic is that it was neces- practicing European institu- any sense.” First of all, it
sary to our liberation. But tions in America. All our bril- does not describe the people
the moment we were liber- liant sons have had to be that as they are; it does not de-
ated, we wanted to be in order to survive. scribe the complexity of the
something else. So that the relationships. It does not de-
leaders that were carried scribe the people as the cen-
over from before independence to after inde- ter of anything – everybody is doing some-
pendence became a liability the day after pre- thing for them. The whole thing has to be
cisely because they were such vastly good ma- thrown out!
terial before independence.
I hope I have said enough to suggest to you
That is why, incidentally, Moses was killed by why this is so. We are now being forced to
God. When Moses led the people into the confront reality in the Caribbean, the reality of
promised land, he became immediately obso- what we developed, how we developed it,
lete. All the rules that he had to develop to how we traveled over the years before eman-
deal with the Israelites before they crossed the cipation [and] after emancipation and then in
River Jordan, became useless under the condi- the current period. One of the most crucial
tions of freedom in a whole new place - the things that ever happened in the Caribbean
promised land. So God put him to sleep and was that by the 1930’s we realized that all the
said “Joshua, you take over.” [Laughter] adjustments we had made after emancipation
had come almost to naught. There was a tre-
The difficulties with the West Indies, with the mendous upheaval by labour. All over the
practical situation, is that we can’t kill these Caribbean, not only English-speaking, and
people. [Laughter] Worse than that, because that ushered in a whole new stage of self-
they are the role models of the transitional determination and self-government. What we
generation, the next generation comes out just found out was that you can only find out what
like them! Then the crucial question becomes the job is after you have gotten it. As every-
in the Caribbean, how does the culture escape body knows, you think of all kinds of things
13
before you get a job and when you go you about - where you can see it and deal with it!
begin to see complexities. Marx was arrogant in the sense that he wanted
to speculate about the whole world. About
What has happened is independence has given everything he did not know about - and we
us a hand-on responsibility, whether we like it imported all of that!
or not. We developed many irresponsible hab-
its in the days before - not because there was I am suggesting we have to change that. We
anything wrong with us or because we were have to describe what happened and we have
inferior, but because we never had the chance to follow it through. I would like to have the
to make the decisions, to take charge and run opportunity of doing that for you - helping to
the place. Once we became independent, we do that. We [at my institute] are certainly go-
got self-government and independence, we ing to bring out a lot of work, quite a few vol-
were compelled to take umes in the course of the
charge and we begin to next eighteen months, in
find out what this place Cheddi Jagan made a great con- which everything I am
really is - how it works, tribution, but the framework he saying here - all the re-
what the conflicts are, real used did not liberate the imagina- search to back it up is
things! All the absurdities tion of the Guyanese people be- there: 40 years of work
of these 40 or 60 years, of cause so much of it was dogma. and so on.
all these people in the
University of the West We must have the honesty to say But I wanted to come
Indies - the young social- that, and still love and admire him here tonight and just pose
ists, describing all kind of and see that he was a great man. the problem in a way that
fanciful things about what would excite your fancy
Lenin said and Plekanov, and all kinds… and I hope that I have done so. Thank you
very much, ladies and gentlemen.
We are finding out our real situation, we’re
coming to grips, we are learning and we are [Applause]
growing up. The reason I came here tonight
was to give you a glimpse of the way we have
to proceed methodologically in describing
how the system started, how it evolved, how QUESTION AND ANSWER PERIOD
ethnicity was crucial and how class and race
are merely bases of ethnicity. Do you honestly feel that in the Caribbean – primar-
ily in Guyana and in Trinidad and Tobago – that we
All of this means we have to reconstruct the can avoid inter-ethnic conflict, serious violence? Do you
theory of Marxism, all of Marx’s simplifica- really think we can avoid it? Isn’t that a stage we have
tions. Marx understood nothing about these to go through before we can move on to what you would
countries – it was just speculation by someone call “reality”?
living over there. Marx’s great power was that
he really understood what was going on in I don’t take any teleological view of the kind
England. If you want to find out what was that is implied in what you said. There is no
going on in England – perhaps in France, and stage that we have to go through, or have not
perhaps Belgium, the low countries - in the to go through. Everything depends on our
industrial revolution, Marx is irresistible! It is intelligence and what we do. There are no
not because he was a white man, or a stupid formulas. What is wrong with the Caribbean
man, or an irresponsible scholar, it is that you and especially the Left, which has been catas-
can only find out about things that you know trophic in the region - all of them: Bishop,
14
Manley… Manley was the most catastrophic The first system is to add up self-awareness -
leader I can ever imagine. In Jamaica, he which is lacking.
talked all this left-wing talk - totally irrespon-
sible, things that he couldn’t do. Guyana is such a backward place after Cheddi
Jagan. Good friend of mine that he was, he
What is wrong with the Caribbean is taking did not do the work. Not because he did not
over all these formulas instead of being intel- do work: he did a lot of work. Not because he
ligent. Describing the situation in which you was not interested in poor people, not because
are and dealing with it and knowing that there he did not make a large contribution. But the
are not answers to every question. There are framework within which he made it did not
not solutions to every problem, and no act of liberate the imagination of the Guyanese peo-
God is going to help either. We have to do it. ple because so much of it was dogma. Because
he believed. We have to have the honesty and
I don’t think you should bracket Trinidad the straightness to say that, and we can still
with Guyana. I see no sign of any violence in love him and admire him and see that he was
Trinidad. Of course, when I read the papers a great man.
tomorrow morning there might be violence,
but that still won’t refute what I am saying. I Guyana and Trinidad are two quite different
don’t see any fundamental basis for military or places and I don’t see it [ethnic violence] hap-
insurrectionary activity in Trinidad and To- pening in Trinidad at all. All the conditions
bago. Trinidad is a one city-state. Guyana is are assembled for complete integration in
three countries. To go from Georgetown to Trinidad - to the extent that we want com-
the Corentyne, it’s an expedition. If you want plete integration. We don’t want it completely!
to go up the Essequibo, it’s two expeditions. Because what the Africans have got to see in
But Trinidad, everybody in Trinidad, goes to Trinidad is that all that they fought for - when
Port-of-Spain everyday, if you know what I the slaves and the maroons resisted the colo-
mean. Everybody in Trinidad has car, televi- nizers; that is what the Indians are fighting for
sion, radio, telephone - everybody has got his now when they say “we want to keep what we
techno. [Laughter] This is a completely inte- brought with us.” You can’t have it both
grated place in which the cultural integration ways. If what we did in fighting against the
has taken over. In every office and in every colonizer in the days of slavery was valid in
school, the integration is taking place. That is order to keep what Africans bought with
why 40% of the population is “none of the them, how can you condemn the Indians for
above.” They do not support this ethnic doing that now?
thing - what you are calling the ethnic thing.
What we have to do is to understand it and
Of course there are genuine reasons why In- become part of it and let them become part of
dos should be in a party that is started by In- ours. Because of the fertility of the communi-
dos. They all are in the same place. There are cation, I am very optimistic that in Trinidad
a hundred reasons why it should be so. Good we are going to do that. One of the reasons
reasons, from what I have said. Ethnicity is why we are going to do it in Trinidad first is
important. But that does not mean it is viru- that the objective conditions are favorable to
lent. You don’t have to convert racial organi- it, and secondly we have also done the work. I
zation into racism. What you have to do is to can’t say that of many other places. [Applause]
evolve, what I have proposed there: parties of
parties. You have to recognize that there are
good reasons for macro-mobilization. You
then have to invent systems to add them up. I agree with all that you have said, but… it has left
15
me with the question of what the solution is… If you persed elements. What were the processes,
have a theory toward a solution… and what were the costs and the sacrifices and
so on.
I have a short answer to that: The solution is
to understand it. That is half of it. You have That is why the University of the West Indies
to become master of what actually happened. could earn enough foreign exchange for the
I think that is what humbles you. Much of the whole of the West Indies to pay all its bills.
violence that we have is an expression of im- Our University should be bringing 200,000 -
potence. Violence is another form of impo- 500,000 students from all over the world to
tence. All this hitting out and killing people Kingston, Bridgetown, and Port of Spain, to
and so on: people do this when they are not in learn all I have been talking about. They’ll pay
charge of themselves. When you have a com- foreign exchange for that. Many industries will
plete command of the situation, you don’t be spawned from that.
want to fight.
The real crisis is that the people who run the

country are able to run it because they know [Regarding your assertion] that there is only one leader
nothing about it. That is [in most instances of Carib-
what they were trained bean national politics], regard-
for. Once you have ethnic solidarity, less of the fact that there is an
in which people belong without a opposition: did you see that
hearing, then you can have a operational in the days of Dr.
maximum leader because nobody Williams, or is that only op-
Do you think that if we are else is thinking. erational now?
able to understand ourselves,
we in some way will be able to change others? Dr. Williams invented it. [Laughter and ap-
plause]
Yes, but we begin by changing ourselves - all
of us. I think what the Caribbean really has to Dr Williams soon realized, though I don’t
sell to the world is the process by which we think he started that way, that the crown col-
have learned to do that. Precisely because the ony system that he inherited in Trinidad could
Caribbean is an introduced population, from be used to legitimize central domination by
all the continents. the political leader. When he referred to cabi-
net in the government, or general consul in
There are Chinese from China - North and the party, he really meant himself to himself.
South, Mandarin and Cantonese. You have He developed an elaborate system of not lis-
Africans from every part of Africa. You have tening to anybody else.
Portuguese from Europe; you have English,
Irish, Scotch, Dutch, Spanish. They are all All the people since then are just pale imita-
there in the Caribbean and if we all discovered tions. Except that Panday has raised it to a
who we were, where we came from, and how level almost approximating that of Williams.
we came to be what we are it will give us an That has a very complex story, I can’t tell
enormous abundance of resources to deal here. It has to do with the fact that being
with the rest of the world. leader of the Indos, he got a kind of legitimi-
zation that nobody else could get because the
What we really have to sell to the world under country realized that they had to give the In-
conditions of globalization is the experience dos their turn after the Afros. Panday’s emer-
of making one society out all of these dis- gence re-legitimated the political system and
16
gave him almost all the resources of incum- solution is inevitable to the extent that there is
bency that Williams had had, but which Wil- a solution. Which is not always the case, of
liams had systematically lost, so much so that course. But then you can do nothing about
he actually gave up the ghost in 1981 volun- that.
tarily, some say.
I haven’t any gloomy picture – I am extremely
I coined the concept of “doctor politics” not optimistic. We understand how this place
to deal with Dr. Williams... I saw what he was works, I understand it!
doing. I had a kind of illumination. I saw what
the phenomenon was. I realized that it really I am not pessimistic about anything. I think
had a much more generalized significance. I Trinidad is going to make a very big leap
came into the business of exploring the nature there. One of the reasons is that we were
of leadership in the Caribbean and its origins. there. If TAPIA were not there, Trinidad
would be a disaster. [Laughter] I am not the
I am giving you some notions as to why first person to say that. I think that the rea-
maximum leadership is what it is. It has got to son why Jamaica is a disaster is because we
do with initial conditions of introduced popu- were not there. [Laughter] I saw it happening.
lations and ethnic solidarity. Because once you I saw all my colleagues falling into all this
have ethnic solidarity, in which people belong foolishness about young socialists and all
without a hearing, then you can only have one these Marxist incumbents just taking over the
leader because nobody else is thinking. same theories because it made them popular
and because, above all, it gave them resources.
The system of mobilization does not require
you to think. If you are Indian you are already I can tell you that when I started, the interna-
there before you start! You don’t have to tional left thought I was one of them. I have
think about it. But if you join a serious party been to every continent, all kinds of things, I
you have to deliberate and think about it and have been everywhere. When they found out I
then issues become open. You have to evalu- was autonomous, I had a completely different
ate - including people, and therefore the busi- relationship with them. I had to get quite a
ness of personal power does not arise. But if different audience. The most reactionary thing
nobody is thinking, then the leader is the Mes- in the world are these left-wing movements,
siah. He himself is an act of God. let me tell you - in all these countries.
These are specific experiences and you cannot

You have painted a dismal picture… I accept the transpose Russian accidents into Caribbean
basic premise of all of that, but I am wondering if… accidents. We are going to have situations
there is a “best of breed” model or theorization that where change is possible, where accidents will
comes from the Caribbean itself or maybe even from take place and give us openings that we can
outside the Caribbean experience, that we could use to exploit or not, and so on. But we have to do
advance? … Or do we have to re-invent the wheel, work to understand that we can’t import these
which is effectively what you are saying? …How do things from anywhere.
we move beyond the crisis that you have painted?
The generalities that you can import from
I thought I had gone beyond crisis. I said a other people’s experiences are very few and
crisis is only a crisis when you don’t know very algebraic. They are not unimportant, but
about it. The more that you begin to get self- you have to understand them as algebra - not
awareness and take charge of the materials as arithmetic. Arithmetic is a special case; al-
and to understand how the machine works, a gebra is a transcendental generality. You need
17
to understand both. But you can’t import the But we don’t know how it happens. We can
generality into the special case. The thing only follow the promptings that come to us
about x is that it has a particular value in every from inside or from outside. We can just em-
particular situation. [Applause] bark on the journey by which you can achieve
congruence.
Now what happened in all colonial cases, as

I am interested in this opposition you presented us of Edward Said saw so brilliantly in Culture and
formal cognition and native intuition, or, in other Imperialism, is that you are always torn be-
words, on the one hand we have theories such as liber- tween two lovers. The requirement of becom-
alism and Marxism, and on the other hand we have ing free compels you to become the colonizer
the experience that comes out of history that might first. You are always parking what Wilson
teach us better ways… What kind of intuition are we Harris calls “ sleeping resources.”
talking about? Could you go a little more into that
idea? There are things that come to your imagina-
tion but you discard them because they are
Epistemologically speak- not good business
ing, we really do not strokes, as they say in
know how people learn Calypso is saying what you’re saying cricket. Cutting is a bad
and we certainly don’t but not really saying it. stroke. Driving in the
know how a culture es- front of the wicket is a
capes from itself. Cul- That is an essential string in the bow good stroke. There are
ture is a set of pre- of the Caribbean personality. things that are good for
dispositions and pre- you and things that are
conceptions that you ac- bad for you, and you
quire without learning them and they govern neglect and ignore the things that are bad for
what you feel. Education, formal education, you and you go with the things that make you
tries to lead you out of that - that is what the like the colonizer. Because this is necessary
word means. By helping you to formulate a [in order] to get yourself in the situation
whole lot of concepts that are not necessarily where you can be not the colonizer. That’s the
derived from what you feel, but from what contradiction.
you observe or what is pointed out to you.
That is what creates this cleavage of persona
There is a necessary disjunction between what and personality that is everywhere at large
you feel and what you think - between the among Caribbean people. They need to fight
formal cognition and the instinctual grasp that different existences. I didn’t have time to deal
you have. But when you grow up in a single with this; I could have told you that the logical
culture, the process of learning and knowing expression of this is mas. No, mas is not carni-
and growing, and ripening and maturing, is val; carnival is a central rite which includes
the process by which you articulate the links mas. But mas is when you are always playing
between these two worlds of reality. There- the Other. There are many different Others
fore, for most of the time they are congruent. and you are making yourself like all the Oth-
Though the process of innovation is when ers you have to deal with, for the purpose of
they are not. When one of them tells you lubricating society – for making relations easy.
something different and compels you, the
clash compels you to reassess the whole posi- There is a fabulous piece [by another author]
tion and that is how you get into new things. that I published in The Review that describes
what Trinidad life was like 40 years ago, and
18
how all the people were playing so many dif- civilization is impregnated with this resource
ferent roles at one and the same time. of software. We are very powerful, very rich,
very fertile because of that.
It is not only that mas compels you to play
many different roles, so today you are Catho- So you have mas, you have limbo, you have
lic, tomorrow you are Hindu; today you are calypso – you also have pan. What is pan? Pan
white, tomorrow you are mulatto. Depending is making music wherever you go and what-
on where you find yourself, you are all these ever you find. So you see the whole business
things. The reason mas is necessary is that you of ingenuity, of imagination, of software to
have to do that; but the more intriguing thing make the system work, is central to the civili-
is that mas also requires you play yourself in zation.
many different incarnations. So you are not
only playing the Other you are playing your- Mas is one of the expressions, and carnival is
self. So the Caribbean personality is very the place where you legitimate all these adap-
complex. A Trinidadian comes to Brooklyn, tations by one central rite. Once a year every-
the first day he talking Yankee. [Laughter] The body comes out and you have pan, you have
first day! mas, you have calypso, you have limbo, you
have everything and so on and people cele-
You have to understand why he or she does brate the things and then they go back to liv-
this. There are very good reasons why they do ing this hell-hole we have down there. With all
it. And we are doing it all the time. But mas is these Marxists. [Laughter]
only one of these subversions that we adopt
in order to relate to many different situations.
The other thing is calypso. It has very differ- To discuss the Caribbean without mentioning Cuba
ent variants in different countries. What is [is an oversight]… I would love to hear your view-
calypso? Calypso is saying what you’re saying point… Could you comment on that 40-year experi-
but not really saying it. It’s always double- ence [under Castro]?
entendre. You have all the different meanings
and you are exporting them and you are ex- Yes, I want to and I did, in fact. I began by
pecting different people to pick up different saying “from Belize and Havana, to Cayenne
things. That is an essential string in the bow and Paramaribo.” I don’t exclude Cuba from
of the Caribbean personality. anything I said, though I think there are miti-
gating circumstances in the Cuban case be-
But that is not all; there are many others. Wil- cause Cuba has been in a greater state of war
son Harris talks about limbo. What is limbo? than the other Caribbean countries – which
Limbo is making space where before there are equally in a state of war, though they don’t
was none. Wilson Harris argues that when appreciate it. They accept their submission to
the slaves came into the Middle Passage from the United States. Not that I am hostile to the
the very first day, in those holes where they United States. But I don’t accept their domi-
were tied and chained down, there was no nation.
space. Figuratively, they already had to make
space as a key adjustment. Even if it was Cuba was overtly dominated by the United
physically impossible, they had to create a States and therefore there is some partial ex-
world of mind – so that the software is what cuse or cause for the ship that Castro is run-
we have always developed, not the hardware, ning. But I don’t think Castro is a success. I
we couldn’t have the hardware – what we had don’t celebrate him.
were the resources of imagination. Caribbean
19
I like him very much. I go there to the Uni- have risen behind him. But he didn’t know
versity; I speak there. I’m working with cricket that.
in Cuba. They’ve asked me to help them to
start a league and I sent them a ton of stuff - So he’s made a lot of mistakes. He’s made a
of bats and pads and all the things. I’m in mess there in many ways. But you can see this
close contact with the English-speaking West is not a reason for opposing him, or for pull-
Indians, of whom there are 1.2 million there ing him down or not recognizing his great-
in Cuba. ness. Because you can see what he is trying to
do by what he has done, and what he has tried
I am very sympathetic to Castro and to the with education. He is not there to get women
regime but I don’t think that he made the and money and so on, like most of these Car-
right choice. In 1959, ’60, ’61, when he said “I ibbean politicians. They want to get to be
was always a communist” – you remember Prime Minister to get all kinds of easy life.
that? And he went over to the Soviet Union –
I was very critical of that. I thought it was the Castro made real sacrifices and he’s built a
wrong decision. I could see why he was different civilization in some ways. With edu-
tempted to do it, but I cation, and health, and re-
thought that if he un- sources for the poor peo-
derstood all the things I Castro has built a different civiliza- ple. And when he has to
have told you here to- tion in some ways. When he has to choose between the poor
night he would not choose between the poor people people and the rich people,
have done it. And Jagan and the rich people, he knows how he knows how to choose.
would not have done to choose. So he’s in many ways supe-
what he has done. rior to the Caribbean poli-
tician.
I am not indicting him. I am saying he did not
have the information and he couldn’t assem- But on balance he made a catastrophic mis-
ble the insight to see that the shot he had to take by becoming a Marxist-Leninist. He said:
play in 1961, when he chose the Soviet Union, “I was always a Marxist-Leninist and I am go-
was to choose the Caribbean. But he made the ing with the Soviet Union.” The Soviet Un-
mistake of thinking that Cuba was a Latin ion was one of the most reactionary countries
American country. the world has known. Inside and outside. We
have to describe what Stalin really did there.
Now when I went to Allende’s Chile, and they How that thing emerged and so on. I don’t
heard that I was from the Caribbean, I kept buy all the folklore. It doesn’t fit with the
asking them “ What about Fidel? What do you facts. I have no use for them [i.e. the Marx-
think of him?” And they said: “Es un poco ists].
tropical”. They say he is not a Latin American
at all, he’s tropical, from the Caribbean. And let me say I have no use for the liberals
either. [Laughter] I don’t buy the folklore with
But he didn’t understand that – he thought he America either.
could make revolution in Bolivia, and he
never devoted the resources he needed to de-
vote to the kind of speculation that I am talk-
ing about here tonight, to understanding the I wondered what sort of ideological underpinnings you
reality and of playing the shot of mobilizing are using to frame your whole discussion. Also, it was
the people who came out of sugar and the interesting listening to your comparison of Trinidad
plantations all over the region, who would and Guyana and the inference of Guyana as a back-
20
ward country. What framework or assumptions were everything you have cited there is absolutely
you using to make that sort of statement? Is it almost first-class and indispensable to the work that
like a European saying that Africa is like a dark we have to do. All I am saying is that the
continent? Could you clarify it please? methodological framework into which they
were cast did not apply. It is a very serious
I find it strange you should ask me a question criticism, but it does not propose to, or intend
like that. The [intellectual] underpinnings are to, or wish to dismiss the importance of these
the institutional and cultural realities of the works. Beckford was my closest collaborator.
Caribbean. I don’t import them from any- He himself says in the book that he doesn’t
where – what’s this nonsense about “what know which ideas are mine and which are his.
ideological framework
are you using?” My I am not embarking
own, of course! I am not embarking on any attempt to as- on any attempt to
[Laughter & applause] sassinate our best people. However, it is assassinate our best
important to show the mistakes that they people. What I am
It is the only valid one made in order to move on. trying to tell you is
and it arises from de- that it is because our
scribing the facts as If we continue all this mindless adulation, best people are in
they are. I can’t take just saying that everything they did was the predicament that
over Marxism – Marx good – we are in serious trouble. we can see it most
is describing industrial clearly, because we
England, which I un- know their quality,
derstand very well. And he was correct to do we know their industry, we know their insight,
so. It is incorrect to describe the Caribbean in we know their intelligence, we know their
those terms. We have to describe the Carib- work and we know its high quality.
bean as an imported population that came
there and met a situation and then we have to And yet it has made a mess. That should tell
say, “What happened then?” That’s the only you that there is a system problem, as I said
way you can proceed. That is what science is! earlier, which rises above the individual. So in
Socialism is not scientific, it is just stupidness! spite of first-class work within the paradigm
[Laugher] that they had, we have not clarified our situa-
tion. And we are lucky to be able to do it now.
Not because the present generation is in any
way superior. It is that the responsibilities of
You have used the words “outmoded”, “obsolete” and independence and the hands-on experience of
“ out-dated” to describe the modes of thought that have running the place, is compelling us to come to
governed Caribbean thinking over the past 40 years. terms with reality.
We have had the privilege of being exposed to some
really good, seminal works; I can recall Capitalism You couldn’t legitimately expect Williams and
and Slavery by Eric Williams, The Black Jacobins by Arthur Lewis and the people who have made
CLR James, How Europe Underdeveloped Africa by these statements – you couldn’t expect them
Walter Rodney, and of course Beckford’s Persistent to do what we are doing now. Because they
Poverty. Who would you say are the current visionar- came out of a situation before independence,
ies, or current thinkers – apart from yourself, of course and the speculation was based very largely on
[Laughter] - that come close to describing the reality received and second-hand knowledge. They
as you see it. didn’t have the access to the materials. This
historical work had not been done. But 40 or
Nobody you’d know and let me say first of all: 60 years later, we don’t have that excuse.
21
deal with it. Though it doesn’t say you will

But we made the mistake in the 1950s not to succeed.
design the University to do the right kind of
work, and the University is lionizing all the CLR James has a great abundance of wisdom
wrong things. Which I think was the bane of on all these questions, in spite of the fact that
both Manley and Seaga. In Jamaica, the lec- he evokes Marxism and cites all kinds of
tures have been quite catastrophic. To some things. In the final analysis, his intelligence
extent that includes Beckford, my very close always dominates; his intelligence comes to
friend. the fore. He is very clear on this, about the
requirement to be sensitive, alert, organized,
in charge, and ready in the full knowledge that
you may do everything you can do and you
I am very glad now to be able to see you in person… may still fail. Because the one thing you know
My question is more in regard to the systemic discon- is that you’re not God and you can’t com-
nect between the elites and the real situation, as you mand anything into existence.
have rightly described it… What can be done to
change the situation in the Caribbean and in Jamaica When I look at the Caribbean today – and I
in particular? should add that the next best man is Rodney,
who is also very fertile, very sensitive, very
The way a culture escapes from itself, as I said intelligent – making a lot of mistakes, the big
before, is not something that anyone can sit mistake being founding a Marxist party in
down and write down and declare about and Guyana. What kind of judgement [was that]?
be sure about. One of the reasons there is so And you have Jagan and Burnham mashing
much hilarity in so much of what we have up the place with this damn Marxism. You
written in the last 60 years is precisely that: the come there and you start a Marxist party –
problem is generally difficult, in all cultures. you have to distance yourself from that. He
One thing we can say… couldn’t! He was tied up in it for all kinds of
reasons I didn’t want to go into here.
First of all, we have to say that there is no law
or any guarantee that says that we are going to In spite of all these things, when you look at
solve all problems, including our own. Or that the quality of Rodney’s statement – the in-
a civilization like that which we have in the sight, the industry, the work that he puts into
Caribbean will survive and endure. We may go this thing, the thing is irresistible in many
under. Many civilizations go under, because ways. What is wrong with it is the paradigm in
they don’t find the resources of imagination which it is set.
to open up the questions and deal with them.
And they just fall by the wayside. It is quite I am not pessimistic – even about the work
conceivable that will happen to us - though I that has gone. You have to make a clinical
see no sign of it, that we are going to go un- interpretation of the mistakes that it made,
der. Even in Jamaica. and what is wrong about it: you have to say it!
It is precisely because I am confident that
What we have to recognize is that we can only these people are going to survive and endure
play for change, what I call “playing for – that the work is of good quality, of our best
change.” That is to make yourself available people – I can’t shoot them down by saying
and open to new possibilities, by doing the anything about them; there’s no way I can
work of sensitizing yourself to your own situa- shoot down Arthur Lewis or shoot down Eric
tion so that when the crucial accidents take Williams or shoot down Walter Rodney. Why
place, that you don’t plan, you are ready to should anybody listen to what I say?
22
pen in the world are not planned by anybody,

What I say I say about them because it is im- not organized by anybody. Not anticipated by
portant to show the mistakes that they made anybody.
and to show that in spite of that, they will
survive! That’s how we can move on. But if Therefore, you have to have a mode of obser-
we keep all this adulation, this mindless adula- vation and recording that takes into account
tion of just saying that everything we did was all the things that happen without planning,
good – we are in serious trouble. I want us to incidental to what people set out to do. The
break out of that, and move on to a whole whole mode of graduate work needs to be
new scheme. We need a complete evaluation much more hands-on, much more in the field,
of everything we have done in the 60 years. much more among people. And much less in
[Applause] these straight-jackets that they set up for
them, by three years of research you do four
surveys and five tables and so on.
I am extremely inspired by your insistence that the The two most important things that happened
Caribbean is not fodder for theorizing that takes place to me were that I left the university; I went
somewhere else, and also for insisting that the Carib- home in 1968. Because I went to live where I
bean recognize itself - not as just the centre, but also was born and where I am from, it compelled
as a centre with 500 years of experience that could me into a kind of community existence. Not
offer valuable lessons for the rest of world that is now all the phony things people say we do in
undergoing many crises of globalization - and using a community work – just living normally and
lot of terms like hybridity and marronage that, many knowing plenty people and being compelled
of them, were invented in the Caribbean in the first to do things. It compelled me to change my
place. mode of observation, of noticing a whole flow
of event and episode that qualitatively
It is quite clear that your optimism comes from things changed what I thought science was.
that are indigenous to the Caribbean… in the every-
day lives and faces of Caribbean people, that the poten- The second thing was that in 1976 I left the
tial for change is there… I would say that women are university – I resigned completely, I gave it up
in the forefront of many of the changes that are taking after 18 years and I went on my own. That
place in the Caribbean, and I just wondered if you had added a similar dimension, with[out] all the
any other thoughts on some of the everyday ways and resources of money and all the resources of
things that your optimism obviously comes from. Is incumbency – whether it is in government or
there something you can give us to take away as well, the university; you really had to develop highly
at the end of this evening? sensitive systems, highly efficient systems of
finding things out. Because you don’t have all
Not more than what is already old hat, which the funding and all the “fat” that you have
is that the mode of investigation must involve when you are a professor in the university and
noticing all the things that are happening you get grants and you get support and so on
around with ordinary people. I call them acci- and so on.
dents.
I have learned over these years that the most
You can’t find out about a country or a place important thing is just to notice the ordinary
or a culture or a civilization in the way that run of happening in the society and there is an
Universities are compelling their students to accumulation of evidence over time that leads
do – with all these surveys. Surveys have a you to new hypotheses and fertile insight. If
minor place, but most of the things that hap- there is any lesson for the academics and for
23
the universities, it is this: that the very nature to perform only a labour function, because of
of the university and its relationship to com- that the concept of class has to be radically
munity must change as a pre-condition for the revised to explain the Caribbean situation.
kind of epistemological work that we need to
do in the future. [Applause] I think we have to understand class in much
more complex terms. I have suggested that
what we know about it
is that it is one basis of
…Could you just elabo- In the Caribbean, over a short time in a ethnicity c alongside
rate for me: if there is no small place, all the problems that are race. James recognized
class, how social stratifi- posed of ethnicity in the whole world are that in Black Jacobins
cation would exist still? dramatized four times over. and everywhere else,
and Rodney recognized
Stratification is easy: The Caribbean really is the workshop of it – all the seminal
it’s simply that some the world in that sense. thinkers know that.
people have more
than others, and in But it is not enough to
Trinidad it is clear about that. Some people recognize that race and class pose a very com-
have more money, more car, more woman. plex problem in the Caribbean; you really
[Laughter] All the things that they want to get. have to sort through the work – the journey
Or more men, as somebody said. [Laughter] of the region, all the things that have hap-
That is stratification – those who have more: pened, and the responses of individuals and
or income higher, occupation, and so on. groups and communities and nations and so
on, and you have to design a concept of class
But that is not class. I think Heidigger under- that makes sense of that reality.
stood it better than the earlier moral philoso-
phers, in that he had the notion of “being I think I have some sense of what that is, but
there.” Of particular coordinates that link you I am for the moment only posing it as a
to place and time. Being in time, belonging methodological requirement and suggesting
and knowing and being are all the same thing that the concept of class that we borrow from
and they require anchoring in responsibility Marx cannot be easily applied in the Carib-
and in place. You can’t be footloose, running bean. Not because we don’t recognize, as
up and down all over the place, and have no Marx did, that class is responsibility, but that
responsibilities and make any difference. the designation of responsibility and the as-
Class, as Marx understood it, of course, re- cription of responsibility are quite different in
quires you to differentiate between different the Caribbean case. The work has got to be
levels and types of responsibility that people done to make it clear. I don’t want to say any-
have to the landscape in which they are set. thing more at this juncture. But I recognize
that we have to do something more than we
In the Caribbean, because the upper echelons have done before and that there are elements
who run the place economically are absentee of a solution already there.
and have all their income denominated in for-
eign exchange and don’t have to be there, and
because those who are below them in stratifi-
cation terms – in terms of money and so on – …What do you propose… to Caribbean scholars in
are people who accept no responsibility be- how they should go about “de-essentializing” an essen-
cause they don’t own the place, and all they tialized construction of race and ethnicity [Africanism
have had for a long time was their condition and Indianism] in the Caribbean?
24
I explained to you that ethnicity is a different The thing about the Caribbean is that, al-
order of concept from race, because ethnicity though people were inducted in the planta-
embraces all those bases on which people are tions which were more industrial even than
solid. This may be religion, it may be class, it the industrial England that Marx was describ-
may be race, it may be clan, it may be lan- ing, the fact of the initial conditions that I’ve
guage, it may be culture, it may be homeland – described – of so many different people from
where you are from, and so on. We have to so many different places coming into the
recognize that ethnicity is an umbrella cate- situation, plus the business of dealing with the
gory under which falls all the other forms of colonizer – all those three things from the
social organization. start poses a tri-dimensional problem for the
Caribbean person. You could not be locked-
Once you understand that hierarchical rela- in in that simple analysis that people borrow
tionship between ethnicity and race as well as from Marx because it is too simple.
class, as well as the other things, then you
have a basis of theorizing about why people Right from the start there is a dimension of
behave the way they behave, depending on complexity that you have got to deal with.
which bases of ethnicity they accept for them- The Caribbean really is the workshop of the
selves at any particular time, and what ranking world in that sense. Over the course of 500
they give to all the different ethnic relation- years, in a short period of historic time, in
ships they develop over time and in any given very intimate social situations, small island
place. communities – we’ve had to come to grips
with a whole new reality in 500 years. You
That’s why I said in the Caribbean, certainly, have a short time in a small place, and all the
because people are so footloose and because problems that are posed of ethnicity in the
mas is a central condition of people – of play- whole world are dramatized four times over in
ing the Other – what we have done is that we the Caribbean. So you can’t miss them.
have creolized ethnicity. The reason they
have made the mistake of not understanding That is what we have sell, and I want to close
ethnicity in Europe is that the essential prem- by saying that. What we have to sell to the
ise of the sociological argument is stability. world is that experience. Because globalization
You belong to a certain ethnic category. That’s is imposing that experience on everybody
what they do all their lives. now. But we have lived it for 500 years and
we need to write it down and distill it.
Marx, in a way, assumed that once you were
an industrial worker in a factory, that process And pat it and prick it and mark it with “ T,”
to which you were subject was so transcen- and send it home. [Laughter and applause]
dental that it dismissed all other possibilities.
If you were working class, the psychological Thank you.
terror of becoming a worker in a factory in
the 18th or 19th century so re-made you as a
person, that you could become nothing else.
Once conditions were ameliorated, or once
the social conditions were quite different -
where the options open to you to be a whole
lot of different things are far greater – then,
that kind of one-dimensional description of
the person falls down immediately.
25

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CENTRE FOR RESEARCH ON

LATIN AMERICA AND THE CARIBBEAN

RACE, CLASS AND ETHNICITY:

The Third Annual Jagan Lecture

CERLAC Colloquia Paper

CERLAC COLLOQUIA PAPER

Phone: (416) 736-5237

RACE, CLASS AND ETHNICITY:

The Third Annual Jagan Lecture

When Cheddi finally gave up the ghost, my

A CRISIS OF CARIBBEAN The upshot is this. Whether the Afro-Saxon

makes no sense, because all the parties really wrong!

All the interpretations We have to have a very

seem to be the same people. They are worlds

We need to tell the story – once you postulate

The real crisis is that the people who run the

These are specific experiences and you cannot

Now what happened in all colonial cases, as

deal with it. Though it doesn’t say you will

pen in the world are not planned by anybody,

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