Thoughts Of CLR James

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.

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.