Book Review… An in-depth look at a political icon

May 15, 2016 Book Review…, Features / Columnists

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Book: The Legacy of Eric Williams: Caribbean Scholar and Statesman
Editor: Colin A. Palmer
Critic: Dr Glenville Ashby
The Legacy of Eric Williams: Caribbean Scholar and Statesman is a sobering account of an iconic figure who arguably shaped the political discourse of a region. Given the slew of material on this subject there is always the risk of academic excess, but Editor Colin A. Palmer is deliberate and selective as he presents more of a psychoanalytic oeuvre than a political

hagiography.
Contributors search for meaning in a life that was engaging as it was complex. This subtle psychological thrust, albeit unintentional, adds a new dimension to deconstructing the genius that was Eric Williams.
His erudition, nationalistic spirit, enviable political IQ and oratory skills are rigorously examined. Yet there is a heuristic thread that runs through this undertaking. Maybe, Williams is too difficult to fully grasp given his multilayered personality, his impervious mind, and inscrutable aura. But slowly, painstakingly, each writer peels away these layers,
Selwyn’s Cudjoe’s Eric Williams as a man of Culture offers a metaphysical overview of Williams’ life.  From the ossifying world of politics Cudjoe delves into Williams’ spirituality and philosophy. At the outset he dismisses the charge that Williams trafficked in racial and tribal politics. There is no smoking gun in his comment that failure to capture the 1958 federal elections was due to a recalcitrant minority within the democratic party, an obvious volley against East Indians.
Williams, according to Cudjoe channeled the best of Nehru, Tagore, and Gandhi.  He argues that Tagore’s temperance moved Williams, shaping his balanced approach to the colonial struggle. Williams absorbed the inspirational philosophy of this Bengali philosopher, embracing his idealism as his.
Of ‘Mahatma’ Mohandas Gandhi, Williams wrote that he was “one of the most gifted human beings who ever lived [and] by whose progress and emancipation from misery and poverty the standard of Indian civilization was to be judged. Williams also noted that “the standards against which [Gandhi] fought in South Africa and developed his capacities were in some respects very similar to those which existed in Trinidad at the time, [and] his relations with the Indians and Africans in South Africa should form a chapter of history that should not only be of interest, but of profit to all of us at this particular time.”
However, Williams’ encomium begs the question: Was he was aware of Gandhi’s alarming racist dribble against blacks during his time South Africa?
What we do know is that Williams’ philosophical pursuits were in line with Asia’s greatest thinkers. A key observation is made by Arnold Rampersad in his Life and Work of Eric Williams. He writes that in the face of stark elements that threatened to unseat him, he never came “even remotely close to resorting to the abuses and even atrocities that other members of his generation of independence leaders around the world seemed to take easily in their crooked side. No newspaper was shut down, no journalist dispatched to jail, no ethnic cleansing perpetrated.”
Lydia Lindsey’s Eric Williams and the Anti-Colonial Society is a compelling portrait on revolutionary thought. Here, radicalism and moderation compete; and intelligence is beholden to charisma and oratory. It is a fascinating world of political fomentation and ideology. The scene is London, circa 1930s. Trafalgar Square is a hub for young black activists and intellectuals; so too are social clubs and restaurants. Ethiopia is invaded by a European power. Albert Padmore, CLR James, T. Albert Marryshow, Amy Ashwood are in their element. And ever present is Williams. Alliances and activist groups are formed.
It is here that Williams honed his skills and cultivated his magnetic appeal. Williams, we learn, “was exposed to an array of open-air oratory at Trafalgar Square and Hyde Park….At times, [he] would speak to over twenty thousand people as they stood in silence…He was quick at repartee and quick to deflect questions.” More importantly, it is during his sojourn in the UK that Williams refined his political doctrine. The struggle, he concluded, “was about promoting and supporting a people’s movement that could lead to constructing anti-colonial societies rather than decolonized units.”
Williams, the prolific writer, is ably captured in Franklin W. Knight’s Eric Williams and the Construction of a Caribbean History. He opines that Inward Hunger is a “remarkable autobiography” that “may be compared to Simon Bolivar’s famous letter from Jamaica in 1815, and CLR James’ Black Jacobins.
And in Capitalism and Slavery Revisited by Dale Tomich, Williams’ depth and scope as a thinker is relived. Tomich highlights the responses of Seymour Drescher, David Etlis, and David Beck Ryden to Williams’ thesis, and later challenges his conceptual views on history and economics.
“The new economic historians” Tomich writes, “have generally accepted Williams’ analytical framework, but they have submitted his claims to quantitative scrutiny based on neoclassical economy theory. With few exceptions, they feel that they have disapproved his claims on empirical grounds.”
Tomich states that “Williams’ conception of the empire in its relation to the more comprehensive Atlantic or world economy exhibits [a] dualistic structure…Relations outside this sphere – including with the French and Spanish Empires, Brazil and the United States – are treated as external to the fundamental relation between Britain and its colonies.”
He concludes that the decline and abolition of the slave trade “is not reducible to a single event or series of events. Rather, it is a unified and long-term structural shift…It is within this long-term movement that social history, politics and ideology of slavery and emancipation needed to be reinterpreted and reassessed.” But he concedes that, “in such rethinking, Eric Williams remains the fundamental reference, both for the questions he asked and the insight he provides.”
In essence, ‘The Legacy of Eric Williams’ transcends the life of a celebrated political leader and academician. It veers a political narrative toward aesthetics and ontology. Questions abound. Is political greatness preordained? Are nations merely reflections of their leaders? Have centuries of beguilement created a perverse political archetype that infects the best among us? The door is swung wide open to these philosophical inquires.

Feedback: [email protected] or follow him on Twitter@glenvilleashby
The Legacy of Eric Williams: Caribbean Scholar and Statesman
Editor: Colin A. Palmer
Publisher: University of the West Indies Press, Mona, Jamaica
ISBN: 978-976-640-556-4
Available at Amazon
Ratings: Highly recommended

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