Contributions of Lamming

VISHNU BISRAM

GEORGE LAMMING, who passed on June 4, is widely known for his extraordinary writings against race prejudice. He was an outstanding literary figure with tremendous output who, like VS Naipaul and Derek Walcott, examined, related and analysed Caribbean life experiences through the critical lens of poetry, fictional novels, short stories and other genres. He even penned an autobiographical sketch that reflects life in Barbados and the larger Caribbean society.

I remember the works of Lamming having been made required reading as part of my early university training in America. His writings, much like Naipaul's and Walcott’s, focused on the relationship between imperial powers and their colonies and the effects of their rule on subjects.

Lamming’s writings were Afro-nationalistic and Pan-Africanist in nature. And though he was proud of his African identity with almost all of his writings on his people, he was not “racial” towards others. He was a fair, non-racial man who did not judge others on account of race or encouraged racism, especially against Indians.

He batted for Indians when they were attacked in Barbados, and he came to the defence of Guyanese Rickey Singh when Tom Adams deported him in 1983 and when Bajan politicians used slurs and micro-aggressions against Indians. He reminded his countrymen and Afro-Guyanese who had set upon Indians that Indian hands fed Guyana and the region. He also pointed to Indian productivity in and economic contributions to Barbados.

When I was a sophomore (second year) in university in 1978 studying biochemistry, a required elective was a course in literature. I opted for a course on Africana literature; there were no courses on Indian or South Asian or Indo-Caribbean literature.

Almost every week of the 14-week course that met thrice weekly was an analysis of a different novel or book of poetry or of short stories. The works of Aime Cesaire, Chinua Achebe, Wole Soyinka, Langston Hughes, Ralph Ellison, Alex Haley, James Baldwin, Maya Angelou, Toni Morrison, Derek Walcott, George Lamming and VS Naipaul, among others, were read.

Lamming’s In the Castle of My Skin was required reading with a ten-page written analysis. It is an autobiographical of growing up in Barbados. Lamming became famous and an iconic figure from that work, an Afro-nationalist piece that is used in virtually every course on the Caribbean.

James DeJongh of St Thomas, who was the professor, described the work as an accurate description of the colonial experience not only in Barbados but throughout the Caribbean, and not only black Caribbeans but Indo-Caribbeans as well. It was a classic narrative of the black colonial experience, not much different from, say, Naipaul’s classic Miguel Street of growing up in the Caribbean or of India: A Wounded Civilization. Lamming and Naipaul recount boyhood experiences of yesteryear during the late colonial era at the dawn of independence.

Castle, like Miguel Street, relates the effects of colonialism on race, family relations, social life, poverty, education, labour movement, migration and more issues in Barbados and, by extension, in Guyana and the rest of the Caribbean. He said colonial education served the needs of the imperial powers, not the colonies or the peoples’ self-satisfaction.

Lamming was a champion of self-determination. He supported the independence movements in the region and wrote on them so that the people could pursue their own goals and interests and their own culture rather than that of the European who saw non-whites as primitive.

He abhorred racism. He saw racism in the relationship between whites, European powers and the varied peoples they colonised or enslaved and indentured. Unlike other academics or scholars and writers, he spoke out against injustice. He condemned the racism directed towards Indians. When Indians were attacked and prevented from entering Barbados, he reminded that those were the hands that fed black Caribbeans. No notable Indian writer or academic made such a factual profound statement.

Lamming condemned Forbes Burnham for denying Walter Rodney employment at the University of Guyana and for Rodney's deportation from Jamaica by the Hugh Shearer administration, the murder of Rodney, and of Tom Adams’s exiling Rickey Singh. He also stood up to Adams, rallying for Singh, leading to the cancellation of the deportation order.

Lamming also accused Burnham of murdering Rodney and WPA activists, and he urged comrades to take protective measures. He described Burnham as a dictator. And he said an injustice was committed against Dr Cheddi Jagan, denying him his rightful place as the legitimately elected leader of Guyana. He praised Jagan’s leadership and non-racial socialist credentials. He stood on the side of justice, cheering Jagan’s return to power in 1992. He also showered accolades on Jagan at his passing. And he condemned those who engaged in violence in 1997 and after during the rule of Janet Jagan.

Lamming’s stance against prejudice and his literary contributions will forever be remembered.