The New World Journal

It was a time of remarkable intellectual flowering in our region.

Calling themselves the New World Group (NWG), these young people from across the region [academics, artists and politicians-to-be] sought to put the West Indies at the centre of the decolonisation process, interrogating conventional philosophies and ideas in relation to West Indian integration and identity, imperialism, decolonisation, racism, socialism, democracy, mass party, and economic development.

These topics formed the core subject matter for the publication the group founded. New World, a journal, first appeared in 1963 and over the years featured the thoughts and writing of Norman Girvan, Lloyd Best, Alister McIntyre, CLR James, Martin Carter, Basil Ince, George Lamming, Vaughn Lewis, Edwin Carrington and many more who went on to influence the social sciences and political thought and economy in the Caribbean.

Before he died in 2014, Girvan, admired and influential Jamaican scholar who made Trinidad his home, requested that the New World Journal be made available to all. His family and professional and personal friends have been working diligently to realise that desire and now four of the 14 editions that were published between 1963-72 are available free of charge online at: www.neworldjournal.

org. The others will be up within the next six months.

The website is a most valuable treasure as a history of critical Caribbean thought and should appeal to anyone interested in how we arrived at where we are now.

As the website says about the immediate post-independence period, “There was a widespread sense that the emerging post-colonial order was in crisis.” Writing in “Lloyd Best and the birth of the New World Group,” Girvan recalled some of the burning issues of the day: “What kind of societies and economies could, and should, be shaped once political independence was attained? Was Westminster democracy an appropriate form of government for the West Indies? Could politicians be trusted with their newly acquired power? Could economic regionalism be a substitute for the failed West Indies Federation? Was there such a thing as a ‘West Indian identity’ and what was the role of the artist in reflecting and shaping it? What about Rastafarianism and pan-Africanism?” As David Abdulah, another contributor to New World Journal, remarked in his speech at the launch of the website, the New World Group was a call to take charge of one’s affairs, “We had arrived at a point of transformation and we have arrived at another such point.” That is undisputable but Best believed that before action there is thought.

The world has changed and while many of the concerns of the NWG persist, many others require a new depth of philosophical enquiry and original thinking to help us map a way towards a future in the fast and radically changing 21st century.

To our benefit, the Internet makes the communication of ideas easy but from where do today’s critical ideas spring? Island thinking and a distinctly lacklustre approach to pan-Caribbean welfare is today’s wont. The New World Journal should serve as an inspiration and proof of what we can aspire to.

Update on my mother’s pension application: Third visit to Pension Office is another failure. Submissions accepted according to where you live.

For us, only on a Monday and my 96-year old mother must come in person, queue up at 7 am until the doors open at 8 am. My protest elicited that it is possible for the applicant to be interviewed at home but only after the a p p l i - c a t i o n is accepted.

M a y - be my f o u r t h visit will be lucky.