Tim Hector: Caribbean Man, Cricket Man
Fri, Nov 15, '02
During a conversation I had with Eusi Kwayana last Sunday, he
mentioned that he may have to decline an invitation to write an
article on Tim Hector since he has not been in contact with Tim's
politics over the last decade. Tim often referred to Eusi as the
father of Caribbean Black Power and Eusi in turn thought very
highly of Tim.
Eusi and I have talked quite often about Tim this past year as I
try to update him on the new currents in Caribbean politics. On
Sunday we talked a bit about the controversy resulting from Tim's
decision to represent the Antiguan government at regional forums.
Eusi had not heard Tim?s explanation as had tried unsuccessfully to
contact him over the last year. Little did we know that that
conversation would be our last about Tim Hector while he was alive.
On Tuesday morning I got an email from journalist Ryan Naraine
informing me that Tim had died and requesting that I do a tribute
to him for the CaribbeanCricket.com website.
I first learned about Tim Hector in the mid-1970s through the
Caribbean Contact newspaper, which reported on his anti-corruption
struggles in Antigua and his fight for press freedom. I was
immediately drawn to his fearlessness. Later I began to read his
writings in the Outlet newspaper that he founded and edited. Nigel
Westmass and I would devour it as soon as it came to the WPA's
office and throughout the years Tim's ideas would often be the
departure point for our rap sessions.
I knew Tim had been in and out of hospital over the last year
through his columns which are linked to my guyanacaribbeanpolitics.com>
website. Yet his death came as a shock. In his last posted article
written from his hospital bed in Cuba, he reported that he was
optimistic and feeling fine as he awaited his second surgery. I
kept looking for his weekly articles, as I was particularly
interested in a series he had started on Antigua. But their
non-appearance did not signal to me that things might not have
turned out as well as he hoped.
I first met Tim Hector in person fifteen years ago at a conference
on CLR James and Walter Rodney in New York. I remember his
presentation to this day, as I felt intimidated speaking
immediately after him. I last saw him in Antigua in 1998 when I
interviewed him for the TV program, CaribNation. After the
interview we talked informally for another hour as he tried to get
me to explain the problems that had just started in Guyana. We
talked about Antiguan and Caribbean politics and of course about
cricket. He said two things about West Indies cricket that
demonstrated his unique perspective on the game.
First, he opined that West Indies cricket was not in crisis; that
in effect West Indies cricket could not be in crisis as it was the
very essence of our being. Decline yes, but crisis no. I remember
thinking that he must be crazy for everyone knew that our cricket
was in crisis. But Tim was not "everyone". For him, West Indies
cricket was going through a period of adjustment in the same way
that the wider Caribbean society was being structurally adjusted.
This is where Tim Hector stands apart from other cricket
commentators. He was a thinker about the game not only in technical
terms, but also in sociological terms. In this regard he continued
the tradition pioneered by his mentor CLR James. The sociological
work on cricket currently being done by Professor Hilary Beckles is
possible because of Tim Hector persistence. Tim did not conceive of
our cricket outside of the political, socioeconomic and cultural
currents beyond the boundary.
The other comment in that interview that struck me was in relation
to Carl Hooper. Tim was a great admirer of Hooper. Unlike others he
did not see or describe Hooper as an underachiever, but as an
important indicator of Guyana's and the Caribbean's contradiction.
He thought that Hooper embodied the contradiction of a Guyana that
produced Burnham, Jagan, Kwayana, and Martin Carter of one
generation and Rodney, Thomas, and Roopnarine of the next
generation, yet could not put it together as a nation. Tim felt
that Hooper would come into his own once he sorts out his
significance to his society.
Tim Hector comes from a generation of Caribbean thinker-activists
who very early turned their backs on the reformist approaches to
the region's political-economic development that their predecessors
were advancing. He, along with Walter Rodney, Maurice Bishop, Rosie
Douglas, Lloyd Best, Clive Thomas, Trevor Munroe, Andaiye, George
Beckford, Phyllis Coard, Ralph Gonzales, Bernard Coard, George
Odlum and others, sought to advance what they saw as a necessary
Caribbean revolution that would move the region towards an
authentic independence. Of this group, Tim Hector emerged as one of
the most ideologically independent.
Though a Marxist-socialist, he was not keen on the Moscow-Leninist
approach. He preferred the Janesian approach of popular
participation and organization and as the WPA statement observed he
came the closest of his generation to living out CLR James'
philosophical-political outlook. My generation got in touch with
James through Tim's theory and practice.
Like so may left radicals of his generation, Tim Hector did not win
elections and so did not hold public office for most of his career.
His movement-party, the Antigua Caribbean Liberation Movement
(ACLM) participated in elections with no success. Yet Tim Hector
towered in Antiguan politics. This was due largely to his public
education mostly through the pages of his weekly newspaper, OUTLET,
which was perhaps the best leftist newspaper in the post-colonial
Caribbean experience. OUTLET dealt with everything Caribbean
whether it was cricket, history, politics, art and culture, or
gender issues. And the analysis was second to none. Tim's own
column, Fan the Flame, was distinctive for its popular orientation
yet rigorous analysis and independence of thought.
But it was Tim's crusade against corruption in Antigua and his
struggle for an alternative to the neo-colonial structural
adjustment project that he will be best remembered for. He saw
corruption as an enemy of development and went after it with a
vengeance. For this he was harassed and jailed many times, but he
continued to slug away for the cause of the downtrodden even after
the decline of the Caribbean left. He never abandoned socialism for
his socialism was not a product of a particular experience in a
given set of states.
At the time of his death, Tim Hector was in the process of
reassessing his politics. He had "retired" from what he called
adversarialpolitics. He advocated power sharing as a means of
harnessing the energies and talents of the working people. This led
him to controversially represent the Antiguan government at
regional and international forums. Some of his admirers felt
betrayed and charged him with sleeping with the enemy, but Tim
argued that service to country overrules parochial politics. This
last phase of his political practice, therefore, raises an
important question for the immediate future of the region's
political culture.
What is the significance of Tim Hector's life for our Caribbean?
First, I think that Tim's life demonstrates the possibilities of
our region in terms of staying the course against imperialist
domination and internal authoritarianism. Tim was never a quitter
and in the end even those he confronted are forced to declare him a
winner. Second, Tim's life poses the question, in much the same way
as Rodney?s did: what is the true role of the Caribbean scholar in
helping to shape and reshape the practice of politics? Is it as
agitator operating outside of formal political institutions or is
it as agitator working inside these institutions? Is it as
collaborator with reformist politicians in the quest for
nationalism? Is it as scholar-activist remaining true to
conventional scholarship while attempting political activism or is
it as radical scholar serving as the bridge between scholarship and
popular movements?
Third, one aspect of his political behavior that is an example for
all political activists to follow was his ability to oppose
vigorously but never to hate. His assessment of Vere Bird Snr,
Lester Bird, George Walter and Baldwin Spencer are classics in this
regard. Finally, I think Tim Hector's life represents the formation
of the Caribbean personhood that responds to the elements of his
society--politics, cricket regionalism, history, reggae, calypso,
and fiction in an engaged rather than detached manner. Hector never
lost sight of his significance to Antigua but that never clouded
his vision of Caribbean nationhood.
As with all public persons, Tim committed some acts of indiscretion
and poor political judgment. But in the end I think he was an
example of tenacity, independence, and patriotism. Antigua and the
Caribbean would certainly miss his physical intervention, but his
life's work will always be a pillar of strength and fortitude for
those of us who continue the journey towards facilitating the
environment for true empowerment and liberation of our Caribbean
and the powerless of all regions of the world.
Perhaps the words of one of Tim?s favorite poets, Martin Carter,
sums up my farewell to a warrior, a Caribbean warrior:
Now from the mourning vanguard
moving on dear comrade
I salute you and I say
Death will not find us
thinking that we die.
* Dr Hinds is a lecturer in Caribbean Studies and Political
Science at Arizona State University in the USA. He is also a
political activist and International Secretary of the Working
People?s Alliance (WPA) of Guyana.