Gordon K. Lewis

Introductiongordon k. lewis was a man of sound learning, steeped in the classics and totally interdisciplinary in his approach to knowledge. He was also the complete Caribbean scholar and intellectual, passionate and committed to the economic and political viability of the entire region. He was both a European and a Welshman, and in his own time and style he was also a revolutionary. He married a black woman from 'the islands' (Trinidad) long before the practice was viewed as acceptable, and he wrote bitingly critical things about Europe that white, European men were not commonly known to write. Via his marriage he was afforded an insider's view of both Trinidadian and the wider English-speaking, colonial Caribbean society, but at the same time, because he lived for many years in Puerto Rico, he also acquired a deep familiarity with, and appreciation for, the Hispanic Caribbean reality. The latter gave him first-hand knowledge of the neo-colonial condition and the hulking, imperialist presence of the United States in the Caribbean. Yet Lewis retained the objectivity of an outsider as he sharpened his critique of colonialism, capitalism and imperialism. With this in mind Anthony Maingot declared that of Lewis' works are attacks on imperialism,1 and this fits well with his characterisation of Lewis the intellectual as someone with a penchant for crossing swords, and, drawing blood.2As a European he had a keen sense of what it was like to live in the heart of one of the great colonial empires and to witness the vicissitudes of European 'civilisation, while, given the subordinate place of Wales in the United Kingdom, as a Welshman he had a bird's eye view, albeit from the margins of that empire, of colonial oppression and capitalist exploitation. In other words, though he was white, male and European, Lewis's Welshness gave him a special insight into the shameful record of Europe's human rights abuses at home and abroad, and sensitised him to the tortured history of indigenous genocide, cultural mutilation, colonial tyranny, slavery and indentureship. And these all fed into his passionate and critical defence of the victims of colonial rule everywhere. Lewis also appreciated the glorious and truly wondrous society that was America, but at the same time wondered about the contradictory essence of its own historical record. That contradiction is well captured by Orlando Patterson, who wrote that Americans have never been able to explain how it came to pass that the most articulate defender of their freedoms, Thomas Jefferson, and the greatest hero of their revolution and history, George Washington, both were large-scale, largely unrepentant slaveholders.3This said, Lewis was very aware that the historical circumstances attending the birth of the modern Caribbean meant that it would not unusual to find that many of those who today comprise the region's inhabitants would have a keen interest in their 'identities'. The combined processes of colonialism, slavery, indentureship, servile labour, forced migrations, multiple cultural encounters, all contributed to the debate over the question, Who are we? Thus, he wrote of the confusion about Caribbean identity - what it is and what it ought to be and chided the conventional-minded writers from the imperial centers [who] have seen the region as a backward area requiring guidance from outside to modernise it, which really means to westernise it - which in turn means to shape it into yet another capitalist-industrial society beholden to the foreign investor.* This tells us that Lewis was cautious about the intrusion of capitalist relations of production into the region, just as he was aware that Caribbean identity is a mix of what Caribbean peoples think of themselves, and very importantly, what outsiders think of them. Understanding what some have referred to as realpolitik and the idea that 'might makes right', he knew that if the region were defined simply as America's backyard, American military and economic might could carry the day in spite of any local protests

Environmental ethics · Genealogy · Sociology · Caribbean history, culture, and politics · Commonwealth, Australian Politics and Federalism · History · Island Studies and Pacific Affairs · Philosophy

• From Columbus to Castro

  E Williams, Eric Eustace Williams•From Columbus to Castro•1971

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