On a visit to London in December 1986, journalist
Knolly Moses journeyed to Brixton to interview
the late C.L.R. James. From a comfortable armchair
in his cozy flat above the office of Race Today,
James expressed his views on a variety of subjects.
This is an excerpt of that conversation that
was first published in the Trinidad Guardian.
What will You Like West Indians To
Remember You for?
I was one of the leaders in the struggle for
independence, not only political but in historical
and social and literary criticism. I not only
began it but laid the foundations on which others
built. That is a part of history and I am satisfied
with it. Various people have worked for independence.
That broke with the old orientation toward "the
Empire" and Western Civilization. West
Indians had something West Indian to say. West
Indian are a colonial people. Economically they
are not independent. That is the difference.
On Leaving Trinidad:
From early I realized I wasn't going to spend
my life in a little Caribbean island. If you
were doing anything there it meant you had to
use the local press, and the local press meant
the banks and the foreign interest controlled
everything. So I said no I am not going to work
for them. The only thing left for me was to
go abroad. That's why I went abroad. I was a
teacher but I was writing all the time and publishing.
Then when I reached a certain stage I asked:
"James what are you going to do?"
They wanted me to take a degree and teach at
the Queens Royal College. What kind of garbage
is that? What scope do you have in Trinidad
as head of the college? So I knew that if I
was going to write and all my interests were
literary, social and historical, I had to go
abroad. That's why I came to London.
On Breaking With Eric Williams:
The tendency in modern world and in the Caribbean
today is to break away from the domination of
the imperialist powers. I had always Known that
and when the time came I got involved. But Williams
had never been aware of that. He had been speaking
about this independence, but not seriously.
When the time came and it faced him he fumbled
a lot. And we went our different ways. He didn't
have to see my point of view. It wasn't mine.
It was a West Indian (point of view) and a national
sentiment of the independence of the colonial
territories. I believed it. I originated it.
But Williams remained committed to getting along
with the British. And although he said some
of the things that we all (revolutionaires)
were saying he wasn't one. He was the last and
the most extreme of the old colonial type. The
well-educated intellectual who mastered Western
Civilization to put himself at the disposal
of the imperialist power. They had grown up
that way. That is what you had to do. By the
time he was doing that already the independence
movement had started and you could only get
on with the imperialists if you had a covering
of independence. And that is Williams. He was
in reality a member of the old colonial-type
intellectual native. But he had to be a part
if in word only of the independence movement.
But organically he was not that way.
Caribbean People:
Now, the people in the Caribbean are the most
highly educated and the most sophisticated populations
in the world today. Where could you find such
people? The thing that is important about them
is that unlike Sri Lanka or other countries
they are not in anyway native. There is no native
language, there is no native religion, there
is no native anything. They are westernized
people. That's why they are most advanced colonial
territories in regard to Western civilization.
There is nothing native to push or pull them
away.
The First Federation:
The first one was not a genuine federation.
It was an association of political leaders who
got together and said it will be good to have
a federation. So they made an arrangement at
the top. But the populations were not involved
and did not feel that federation meant for them
a change in their status. So the federation
remained an association of well meaning intellectuals
that had no basis in the population.
A New Federation:
The main thing before the Caribbean people
today is federation. I believe that in the world
in which we live, with the tremendous development
in the field of communications, that as years
go by the population in the Caribbean will feel
that there is no point in us being separate.
That if we join together and speak as a federation
we can have weight in the world community which
we cannot have as a set of individual island
territories. A set of small islands in the world
today can do nothing. Who is going to bother
with Grenada, or Montserrat? They are a joke
at any international conference. But those islands
federated will be a real power. The fellow who
can get up and say I speak for the Caribbean,
including Martinique and Guadeloupe, that is
a voice that can have some weight. Until they
do that they will remain little islands. You
can't do much with a small garden. You can plant
some more potatoes and pick some more mangoes,
that's all you can do. Those islands will be
nothing unless they build a federation.
What Does The Caribbean Do Once There
Is A Federation
The Caribbean man lives in a territory that
has a climate utterly remote from spring, summer,
autumn or winter. He is out in the open every
day of the year. Furthermore, he lives in a
set of islands, which means a very highly developed
sense of civilization in all the people. Nobody
in a small island is any distance from the capital.
Everybody in the Caribbean is within ten miles
of the capital or a town which means the level
of civilization, the handling of the English
language, the reading of English books, or French,
is of a much higher degree than it is in Nigeria
or Kenya. Furthermore, owing to the Westernized
practices of the former slaves, the relations
between the mass of the populations, Black and
European white, is very different from the relations
between the people of Kenya or Borneo and the
whites. There is a distinct division in Africa
between the white and the Black, but there isn't
that in the Caribbean. The white man is not
aware of that he is so separate from the people
around him. Neither is the Black man aware of
that. And they are closer to being one people
than those in the other colonial territories.
In that respect West Indians are unique. They
have no native language, no native practices.
The only thing native is some little food here
and there. But in everything else they are westernized.
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What Is That
Something West Indian They Have to Say They Are
S o Westernized?
The Black people in Africa or other colonials
are natives, or Africans. But the Black people
in the Caribbean are westernized, as are Black
Americans. Here are a people, Black, with all
the ideas of people who are black and want freedom
and complete recognition but at the same time
in language and habits are completely British.
That's very unusual. In Nigeria that is not so.
And it is also different in the French islands.
I asked Aime Caesare: "Why is it that you
write so much about Africa. We in the Caribbean
don't know about Africa, you know. We are not
Africans." He says: " James, I will
tell you something. In Martinique, when I was
growing up, the people were not French, they were
Parisiens" He says the orientation of the
educated person from the French Caribbean islands
was towards Paris. He says: I had nothing. So
I said Africa. You all are black that's where
you belong. "He says that was the reason
for his emphasis on Africa: to break the domination
of France, the French language and the French
customs. One of the strengths and one of the weakness
of the Caribbean is that it has nothing native.
In Nigeria and in Borneo the intellectual when
he is screaming for independence has something
he can fall back on and develop. The Caribbean
has nothing. It's Westernized from point one to
the end.
On Places Where He is Comfortable:
I have lived in Kenya and in Ghana. My memories
of both places are very warm. I like the climate,
the light and the people. I am also very fond
of Marseilles, France. It is very warm in my mind.
I am also very fond of Paris. The intellectual
life in Paris with the books and the conversation
and the food were very attractive at various times.
I can imagine my living there for years and being
quite comfortable. But you notice these are individual
places that mean a lot to me at individual times.
The question has never arisen for me to live in
those places. I don't know what would happen if
I lived in those places. But I suspect that if
I had friends around and found pleasant places
to live and eat that I would be very comfortable
in many places. The climate of an area does not
mean very much to mean as the people I know there.
The friends who live around, or come and go with
that place as their center. That matters to me
most about where I live. And important also is
the food. Good restaurants that have pleasant
and individual but not too expensive food. I have
also found that a good library or various libraries
in a city make a great contribution to my sense
of happiness. But very important to my living
in London is that I'm near a lot of cricket at
Lords. I regret to say that matters to me.
Walter Rodney:
I must say I had warned him publicly - he was
going to Guyana to take part in politics - to
watch his step. That he had to be careful of murder.
I have written that in the West Indian press.
That he had to safeguard himself from being killed.
But he did not take it seriously. He was killed.
He was ready to continue the foundations that
I and my friends had laid.
On Culture:
I am very cautious about this retention of culture.
That word can be used to mean anything. Usually,
it is used in the sense of a highly sophisticated
literary and sophisticated intellectual tradition,
or in referring to the way people live. The West
Indian people live. The West Indian people live
different from people in Europe and America and
once we get more and more independent that is
going to produce separation. The people of Lancaster
and Manchester are very different from those in
Kent and Sussex. The territories in Kent area,
near London, are very different from Lancashire
or Yorkshire, and that's so in the Caribbean.
As they get more and more independent and less
dominated by Britain and the United States, something
West Indian has begun to emerge. The first sign
of that was from the writers like lamming, Naipaul
and Wilson Harris. And the writers are Caribbean
writers, they are not imitators of European literature.
Cultural penetration will not continue. The sense
of independence and original culture will grow.
Of that I'm absolutely certain. They won't continue
to imitate the Europeans. People don't go that
way. And if that goes on for some time one or
two will come and say: "Look here, we ought
not to spend our time copying those people. And
they will dig deep in their native culture. That's
my belief. Oh yeah."
On Working For The Manchester Guardian
Constantine was living in Nelson and he told
me to come and do my writing there. I went to
see Lancashire play, wrote an article and sent
it to the Manchester Guardian, whereupon the Guardian
asked me to come and see them. They told me that
I had a job with them the following summer if
I was interested. I said yes. Before I knew where
I was I had gotten a job working for the guardian,
and I worked for them for years. Constantine was
the professional for Nelson, a town in Lancashire.
There was a league in which the two Constantines
played. Writing for the Manchester Guardian was
quite a job in those days.
On South Africa:
The regime is bound to be broken up. There is
no question about that . One reason is that the
South African Black is the most highly developed
Black in Africa. And he has a peculiar characteristic.
Not only is he a master of Western languages -
Europeans have been there for over 300 years -
but he has retained his own African languages.
And I have met quite a number of Black and white
(South Africans) revolutionaries and those who
more or less will accommodate themselves to the
regime and all of them agree that what exists
in South Africa cannot continue. It's bound to
stop soon.
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