Tribute to Lloyd Algernon Best

Of the tributes directed to Lloyd Best that I have seen the one that resonates best with me is that given by Professor Norman Girvan. Girvan writes, “Lloyd Best was one of the greatest, most original Caribbean thinkers of his time. He was at once economist, political scientist, sociologist, literary critic and above all, philosopher. His ideas and insights and the brilliance and eloquence of his expression, illuminated our understanding of the Caribbean condition. His work and example inspired countless numbers of Caribbean scholars, political leaders, journalists and others from all walks of life…” In a short paragraph Girvan has captured the essence of who Best was and the impact he has had on the region.{{more}}

Even before meeting Lloyd I was introduced to him by the New World Quarterly of which he was co-founder and leading light. Like other Caribbean people who interacted with him and followed his writings and his lectures I was profoundly influenced by this gentleman who searched steadfastly for truth and who felt that Caribbean people must look within themselves and the history of the region for answers to the region’s problems. His was not only a search for truth but also a call for independent thinking and a challenge to prevailing orthodoxy. A measure of his success and his impact on the region was his achievement in receiving the Order of the Caribbean Community granted to him by CARICOM in 2003, an Honorary Doctorate of Letters given by the University of the West Indies and a Conference held in his honour by the Institute of Social and Economic Studies, at the University of the West Indies, St. Augustine, Trinidad.

I was happy to have invited him to St. Vincent to deliver the Annual Independence Lecture on October 24, 2002 when he spoke on the topic “The Challenge to Caribbean Independence.” I knew then that he was ailing but was not aware of the extent to which he was until he arrived and was taken from the plane in a wheel chair in the company of his wife, Sunity Maharaj, a former editor of the Trinidad Express. Lloyd was driven from the hotel where he was staying and assisted into the Methodist Church Hall. Being very concerned about his state of health and frailty I had made arrangements to have him deliver his lecture seated. He insisted that he would stand at the podium and I was the most surprised person when he stood up and delivered a sterling lecture, growing from strength to strength in the process of doing so. I had to remark when making a comment after his one hour lecture that the best cure for his illness was to put a microphone in front of him. Really once he opened his mouth he was a different kind of person. The audience then was exposed to the enormous power of his thinking.

Best was a central figure in the New World Group that emerged in the twilight of colonialism and at a time when Jamaica and Trinidad and Tobago had ventured on their journey to independence. Students of the 1960s and 1970s would have been profoundly influenced by the generation of scholars associated with that group. Lloyd began his academic career at age 23 as a Junior Research Fellow at the Institute of Social and Economic Research at Mona in 1958. He had returned from his studies at Oxford and Cambridge and was associated for a long time after that with the University of the West Indies serving in the Economics Department. He was foremost an economist but one whose intellect and understanding of the Caribbean economy was informed by a study of the history, culture and politics of the Caribbean. In fact what struck one most about him was the depth and breadth of his knowledge, equally at ease with history, literature and philosophy as he was with economics. It was this that made him such a formidable intellect. Lloyd Best worked with the government of Premier Cheddi Jagan in the early 1960s in the then British Guiana before the externally inspired problems that led to the split with the country’s two major political figures that paved the way to the downward slide. At different times, later, he served in Haiti and in Africa working on development plans in the respective countries where he was based.

Lloyd Best is best known for the plantation model theory on which he worked with the Canadian economist Kari Levitt. The plantation model went beyond the plantation to touch on other aspects of the political economy of Caribbean societies. In his last years he worked on an economic history of Trinidad and Tobago from the latter half of the 20th century to the present. Best ventured into the political sphere and actually served as a Senator in the parliament of Trinidad and Tobago for two periods, 1974-1976 and 1981-1983, forming a part of the NAR. His efforts with an independent party were largely unsuccessful partly because of an approach and style that did not cut well with the deep racially divided politics that shaped the political culture of the country. He tried through the Tapia Movement to bring a different approach to the politics of the country and to bridge the racial divide. Although he was able to influence many who dedicated themselves to the movement it lacked the mass base and did not impact on the country as it was hoped.

I kept in close touch with the thinking of Lloyd Best through the Trinidad and Tobago Review published by the Trinidad and Tobago Institute of the West Indies with Lloyd as Publisher and Managing Editor. It was always a pleasure to read his writings and to listen to his speeches that challenged you even if you did not always agree with him. The tributes paid to him by his students and the comments by persons serving in prominent positions in the region reflect the impact he has had. In my opinion Lloyd Best stands tall in the company of men like Walter Rodney and CLR James and was undoubtedly one of the outstanding intellectuals of the Caribbean in the 20th century. His death on the 19th of March after a long struggle with cancer has robbed the Caribbean of one of its truly outstanding sons. George Lamming’s comment about Dr. Lloyd Algernon Best as quoted by Rickey Singh captures a dimension of the man, “there was no corner of this archipelago which escaped his political concern and his politics was the name of an intellectual culture.” Best was simply among the best and Caribbean intellectual development was all the stronger because of him.