James, Dhondy notes, 'was the only intellectual of the black diaspora to espouse and embrace the intellectual, artistic and socio-political culture or Europe'. In an age in which the struggle for black rights often meant the espousal of separatism or of an 'African' road to socialism, James 'uniquely submerged racial awareness and distinction to democratic and egalitarian goals.' It was a worldview, Dhondy observes, forged originally not by politics but by literature and cricket.
Today the notion of 'Western civilisation' and 'Western culture' is more often than not seen as hopelessly Eurocentric, a means of marginalising black experiences. James argued the very opposite. 'We live in one world', he wrote in his 1969 essay 'Discovering Literature in Trinidad', 'and we have to find out what is taking place in the world. And I, a man of the Caribbean, have found that it is in the study of Western literature, Western philosophy and Western history that I have found out the things that I have found out, even about the underdeveloped countries.' For James, the works of Shakespeare and Hegel, of Mozart and Melville, provided black people with a means of breaking out of the particularities of their experiences and of entering a more universal form of discourse that they would otherwise have been denied.
And what of the influence of cricket? 'It may seem absurd, or at least far-fetched', Dhondy notes, 'to associate affection for a game with so large an ambition as delineating the directions of the history of our time. But James's origins and life as a colonial in early twentieth century Trinidad led uniquely, but precisely to such an association.'
For the architects of the British Empire, cricket was more than just a game. It was a means of transmitting the values of discipline to the masses while training the elite in its role as guardian of the Empire. James drank deeply from such a Kiplingesque well. 'I never cheated', he wrote. 'I never appealed for a decision unless I thought a batsman was out, I never argued with the umpire... From the eight years of school life this code became the moral framework of my existence. It never left me.'
But, as with literature, James saw in cricket not simply a building block of Empire but also a vehicle for forging an anti-imperialist consciousness and a sense of national pride. In the 1960s, as editor of the Trinidadian paper The Nation, James successfully campaigned for Frank Worrell to be selected as the first black captain of the West Indies team, at a time it was still assumed that the West Indian team must be led by a white man. And throughout his life, James viewed cricket as a means of helping unite a disparate set of islands, of establishing a West Indian as opposed to an island mentality. He had little difficulty in understanding why Norman Tebbit should make cricket the basis of his loyalty test - or why most blacks should fail it.
Given his background and inclinations, it was inevitable that James should, in 1932, leave Trinidad for Britain - 'an Englishman going back home', he once said. In Britain, James earned his money writing about cricket for the Manchester Guardian.
-----Original Message----- From: lbo-talk-bounces at lbo-talk.org [mailto:lbo-talk-bounces at lbo-talk.org] On Behalf Of Carrol Cox Sent: 18 June 2007 07:07 PM To: lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org Subject: Re: [lbo-talk] Sports and politics (Was: A question regarding
Dennis Claxton wrote:
>
> >
> >They are obsessed with
> > >sports. Why? Maybe because it's a common language?
> > >
> >Or maybe because it's an "even playing field" where physical prowess,
> >skill, and the team count.
> >