Freedom, Power and Sovereignty: The Thought of Gordon K. Lewis

239 Pages·2015·1.324 MB·English

by  Brian Meeks, Jermaine McCalpin

Caribbean Reasonings
Freedom, Power and Sovereignty:
The Thought of Gordon K. Lewis
Other Titles in the Caribbean Reasonings Series
After Man, Towards the Human: Critical Essays on Sylvia Wynter
Culture, Politics, Race and Diaspora: The Thought of Stuart Hall
George Padmore: Pan-African Revolutionary
The Thought of New World: The Quest for Decolonisation
The George Lamming Reader: The Aesthetics of Decolonisation
M. G. Smith: Social Theory and Anthropology in the Caribbean and Beyond
Caribbean Political Activism: Essays in Honour of Richard Hart
Caribbean Reasonings
Series Editors
Anthony Bogues
Rupert Lewis
Brian Meeks
Caribbean Reasonings
Freedom, Power and sovereignty:
The Thought of Gordon K. lewis
edited by
brian Meeks
Jermaine McCalpin
Ian Randle PublIsheRs
Kingston • Miami
First published in Jamaica, 2015 by
Ian Randle Publishers
11 Cunningham avenue
box 686
Kingston 6
www.ianrandlepublishers.com
Introduction and editorial material
© 2015 Centre for Caribbean Thought, university of the West Indies
Isbn 978-976-637-863-9 (pbk)
epub edition @april 2015, Isbn: 978-976-637-899-8
naTIOnal lIbRaRY OF JaMaICa CaTalOGuInG-In-PublICaTIOn daTa
Freedom, power and sovereignty: the thought of Gordon K. lewis /
edited / by brian Meeks, Jermaine McCalpin
p. ; cm. – (Caribbean reasonings)
Bibliography: p. – Includes index
Isbn 978-976-637-863-9 (pbk)
1. Lewis, Gordon K. – Criticism and interpretation
2. Caribbean Area – Civilization
3. Caribbean Area – Politics and government
4. Caribbean Area – Social conditions
I. Meeks, brian II. McCalpin, Jermaine III. series
320.9 - dc 23
Freedom, Power and sovereignty: The Thought of Gordon K. lewis © 2015 by Centre
for Caribbean Thought, university of the West Indies. all rights reserved under
International and Pan-american Conventions. by payment of the required fees, you
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Cover Image: Gordon K. lewis and sybil Farrell lewis. Photo courtesy of lewis Family
estate Collection at university of Puerto Rico, Caribbean Collection, Faculty of social
sciences, Rio Piedras Campus. Photo taken at lewis Family home in Trujillo alto,
Puerto Rico, Circa 1988.
Table of Contents
acknowledgements /vii
Introduction
The scholar as Optimist /ix
Brian Meeks
PART 1
In The VAnguARd Of CARIBBeAn ThOughT
1. Deciphering the Marx-Burke Counterpoint in Gordon K. Lewis’s
Work /1
Anthony P. Maingot
2. Gordon lewis and the Writing of afro-Caribbean Political
Thought /14
Paget Henry
3. ‘An Extended Debate with Europe?’:
G.K. lewis, denis benn, Paget henry, and the epistemological
Challenge in the Writing of Caribbean Political Thought /46
Tennyson S.D. Joseph
4. a lens of a different Colour:
Gordon K. lewis, Postmodernity and Cuban antislavery
narratives /69
Claudette M. Williams
5. Opening the Canon:
The Place of Theology in Caribbean Intellectual Thought /79
Delroy A. Reid-Salmon
6. Toward Reconstituting Caribbean Identity discourse from within
the Dutch Caribbean Island of Curaçao /94
Rose Mary Allen
PART 2
ReThInkIng CARIBBeAn POLITICS
7. The ‘Slums of Empire’ and Gordon K. Lewis:
Reflections on Decolonization and Sovereignty in the
Caribbean /113
Jessica Byron
8. Some Perspectives on Gordon Lewis’s Legacy in the
understanding of Regionalism /145
Edward Greene
9. The Reshaping of Freedom and Power in Puerto Rico:
Community-based social Change in the era of neoliberal
Reforms /154
Rafael A. Boglio Martínez
10. Gordon lewis and the Mass suicide in Jonestown, Guyana
1978 /177
Ralph Premdas
bibliography /195
Contributors /211
Index /215
Acknowledgements
I am thankful to my colleagues in the Centre for Caribbean Thought
and fellow series editors Rupert lewis and anthony bogues for their
invaluable help and intellectual support extended over a decade in
the hosting of numerous conferences and seven accompanying books
in the ‘Caribbean Reasonings’ series. The critical interrogation and
foregrounding of a selection of important Caribbean intellectuals has
served, I hope, to place the discipline of Caribbean Thought on the
front burner of anyone interested in the contemporary history of the
region. Jermaine McCalpin gave unstinting support in the planning
of the 2010 G.K. lewis Conference and as co-editor of this volume. I
offer a special word of thanks to david lewis and the lewis family who
gave support throughout the planning of the conference and strongly
encouraged us to get this volume in print. The cover photograph of
Gordon and his wife sybil Farrell lewis is from their archive. Particular
mention must be made of our conference co-sponsors, including the
Research Institute for the study of Man, The university of Puerto
Rico, brown university, The Caribbean development bank, Caribbean
airlines, The Jamaica Pegasus hotel and the uWI development and
endowment Fund. The G.K. lewis Conference and this volume would
not have been possible without their collective contribution. I am
grateful to beverly sutherland lewis and eleanor Williams both of
whom played central roles in the organisation of the conference and,
before returning home to south africa, eleanor did her usual, difficult
job of rounding up and copy-editing the work of contributors. This
was completed by Carol lawes who joined the editorial team late in
the day, but brought her own energy and skills to the project. Thank
you Carol! a final word of gratitude to Christine Randle from IRP who
took over the risky remit passed on by Ian Randle and published, over a
decade, the Caribbean Reasonings series, against the tide of the typical
CARIBBEAN REASONINGS: GORdON K. LEwIS
book publishing currents in the region. These demand that, at best,
only disciplinary specific, narrowly defined textbooks should appear.
IRP has ignored this imperative and the result is this substantial body
of work on Caribbean thought. Without vision, we perish and IRP has
shown demonstrably, that it is not without vision.
brian Meeks
Mona, May 2014
viii
Introduction
The Scholar as Optimist
brian Meeks
In september 2010 The Centre for Caribbean Thought at the
university of the West Indies, Mona, hosted, along with brown
university and the university of Puerto Rico, Rio Piedras, the
Seventh Caribbean Reasonings Conference, ‘Freedom and Power
in the Caribbean: the Work of Gordon K. Lewis.’1 It turned out to
be the final in a series of captivating ‘Caribbean Reasonings’ that
honoured, for seven consecutive years, outstanding, if insufficiently
heralded Caribbean intellectuals including, in order of appearance,
sylvia Wynter, George lamming, stuart hall, the new World Group,
Richard hart and M.G. smith, the latter posthumously.2 The seventh
Conference was noteworthy not only because it recognized Lewis’s
significant, indeed promethean contributions to Caribbean political
thought and science, but also in that it was the only event in the series
to honour someone who was neither of Caribbean birth nor heritage.
Yet, as was evident from the many testimonials and remembrances
throughout the three days, Gordon lewis, with his long sojourn in
Puerto Rico, intimate connection with people from all walks of life
throughout the archipelago and sensitive, exhaustive studies of the
Caribbean condition, was as Caribbean a citizen as any.
born into a family of teachers in 1919 in the post-War destitution
of southern Wales, the young lewis grew to understand the world
in a time of unrest and uprising. There was intense agitation among
the coal miners in Wales, strikes for better living conditions and in
support of the nascent soviet state throughout the united Kingdom
and myriad uncertainties surrounding the future of Ireland and the
resolution of the Irish Question. So while his early formation didn’t
expose him to the peculiarities of the Caribbean situation, it grounded
him nonetheless in an understanding of class and its dynamics, the
effects of marginalization, as was the Welsh experience at the periphery
of the Kingdom, and the many implications of colonialism and the
resistance to it, as was evident in nearby Ireland.3