ON the day they cremated George Radcliffe John, that illustrious journalist son of this land, there came the passing also of another native son, Lloyd Algernon Best - the renowned independent thinker and a titan in the kingdom of Caribbean intellectuals.
With a sense of humour that triumphed over her grief, Jean John, George’s widow and lifetime partner, was to observe when I telephoned her following Monday’s funeral, and mentioned the death of Lloyd:
’Like they had a secret compact to leave us together...what a situation,’’ she chuckled.
Both John (86) and Best (73) died after long battles with cancer, George eventually at hospital, Lloyd at home in the care of his journalist wife Sunity Maharaj, a woman of indomitable spirit.
Many will be the very deserving glowing tributes to flow in the days ahead, but yesterday I turned to George Lamming, that formidable icon of Caribbean thought, long-standing friend and co-worker of Best, for an immediate response on the passing of the Caribbean man with whom some have been at variance for his critique of so-called ’doctor politics’:
’With the passing of Lloyd Best,’’ said Lamming, ’an irreplaceable light has been put out. Lloyd and I shared a friendship which survived the sharpest of disagreements, but each disagreement deepened my respect for his integrity.
’For more than 40 years he put his formidable intellect in the service of one singular cause - independent thought and Caribbean freedom.’’
According to Lamming, ’there was no corner of this archipelago which escaped his political concern, and his politics was the name of an intellectual culture.’’
Lamming recalled that Best ’fought to the very end to help us dismantle the imperial boundaries we inherited. We failed because we do not recognise the difference between politics and government; and dare not see our mimicking of a Westminster model as the greatest obstacle to genuine representation’.
Himself viewed by Rex Nettleford as ’one of the Caribbean’s finest intellects and foremost literary artists whose creative imagination has primed our consciousness to arousals... to faithfully reflect the region’s diverse historical experience’’, Lamming extended his tribute on the passing of Best by noting:
’To find a language of our own creation that would define the Caribbean collective experience was the gospel he preached.’’
Notable publications like New World, Tapia and Trinidad and Tobago Review, said Lamming, ’are some of the significant markers of Lloyd Best’s abundant legacy. He will be remembered as one of the richest gifts Trinidad and Tobago made to its Caribbean family.’’
A subjective view may leave some asking how formidable Caribbean thinkers like CLR James and Lloyd Best could have drifted into the confines of narrow party politics to effect - unsuccessfully as happened - the changing of governments in their native land.
Surviving any such questioning would, of course, be the wealth of ideas located in their respective body of published works.
While he writhed in pain from the cancer that tortured him in his final years, both the University of the West Indies and the Caribbean Community hastened to appropriately honour him. The UWI did so with an Honorary Doctor of Letters (DLitt) degree and Caricom conferred on him its highest award, Order of the Caribbean Community (OCC).
He will long remain a reference source for any serious discussion on the history, politics, economics and culture of the Caribbean region. The discourses he inspired as an economist and columnist will certainly be missed in the media.
In my salad days as a journalist working in Guyana, I had the great privilege of being introduced to Lloyd Best when he turned up at the invitation of then Premier Cheddi Jagan to help in creating what was to have been the first-ever Economic Planning Unit in our region.
Since then, it has been for me a learning experience, thanks to the man, his ideas and aspirations for this stretch of land and water we call ’our Caribbean’’.
