 |
C.L.R. James as a Creole Nationalist: Reconsidering The Case for West-Indian Self-Government
| |
| | Unformatted Document Text:
advancement elsewhere in the empire ‘while men often better than they stand outside
rejected and despised.’
60
Britain can control the West Indies as long as it desires. It has the naval and air power to
do so. Nevertheless, James asserts ‘a people like ours should be free to make its own
failures and successes’. Without that freedom, West Indians
remain without credit abroad and without self-respect at home, a bastard, feckless conglomeration of individuals, inspired by no common purpose, moving to no common end.
61
Britain has promised its colonial subjects ‘self-government when fit for it’. It would lose
little by keeping its word.
62
Evaluating the argument
In a very small compass, James has presented a liberal nationalist argument for self-
government. By that, James does not necessarily mean independence. At the time he
wrote, no colony run by non-white subjects had achieved independence. Only in 1931
had the full autonomy of Australia, Canada, Newfoundland, New Zealand, and South
Africa been recognized by the Statute of Westminster, and all of these, except South
Africa, were territories with white settler majorities. South Africa’s white settler
minority was large enough to dominate the non-white majority and deny it political
power.
The British West Indies was not a collection of colonies of exploitation, as were most
colonies in Africa and Asia, nor were they colonies of settlement in the sense of having a
large segment of the population deriving from the ‘mother country’. It was a region of
colonies somewhere in between containing a population that was Westernised rather than
Western, and imported for the purposes of exploitation rather than exploited in their
60
James (1933), 32.
61
James (1933), 32.
62
James (1933), 32.
15
|
| | Authors: Ledgister, F.S.J. |
|
| |
|
|
advancement elsewhere in the empire ‘while men often better than they stand outside
Britain can control the West Indies as long as it desires. It has the naval and air power to
do so. Nevertheless, James asserts ‘a people like ours should be free to make its own
failures and successes’. Without that freedom, West Indians
remain without credit abroad and without self-respect at home, a bastard, feckless
conglomeration of individuals, inspired by no common purpose, moving to no
common end.
Britain has promised its colonial subjects ‘self-government when fit for it’. It would lose
little by keeping its word.
Evaluating the argument
In a very small compass, James has presented a liberal nationalist argument for self-
government. By that, James does not necessarily mean independence. At the time he
wrote, no colony run by non-white subjects had achieved independence. Only in 1931
had the full autonomy of Australia, Canada, Newfoundland, New Zealand, and South
Africa been recognized by the Statute of Westminster, and all of these, except South
Africa, were territories with white settler majorities. South Africa’s white settler
minority was large enough to dominate the non-white majority and deny it political
power.
The British West Indies was not a collection of colonies of exploitation, as were most
colonies in Africa and Asia, nor were they colonies of settlement in the sense of having a
large segment of the population deriving from the ‘mother country’. It was a region of
colonies somewhere in between containing a population that was Westernised rather than
Western, and imported for the purposes of exploitation rather than exploited in their
60
James (1933), 32.
61
James (1933), 32.
62
James (1933), 32.
15
|
|
 Convention | | Submission, Review, and Scheduling! All Academic Convention can help with all of your abstract management needs and many more. Contact us today for a quote! | | Submission - Custom fields, multiple submission types, tracks, audio visual, multiple upload formats, automatic conversion to pdf. | | Review - Peer Review, Bulk reviewer assignment, bulk emails, ranking, z-score statistics, and multiple worksheets! | | Reports - Many standard and custom reports generated while you wait. Print programs with participant indexes, event grids, and more! | | Scheduling - Flexible and convenient grid scheduling within rooms and buildings. Conflict checking and advanced filtering. | | Communication - Bulk email tools to help your administrators send reminders and responses. Use form letters, a message center, and much more! | | Management - Search tools, duplicate people management, editing tools, submission transfers, many tools to manage a variety of conference management headaches! | | Click here for more information. |
|
|
|
| |
|
|
|
