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Greetings, Below, I'm circulating the remnants of a debate that flared up this morning in the aftermath of Darcus Howe's Funeral. It demonstrates the fatuous nature of much of the debate that takes place amongst those who have been over-educated in the ways of the system, have too much time on their hands and insufficient experience of real struggle. My brethren Linton Kwesi Johnson recorded one of his poems entititled ' The Black Petty Booshwah'!,which lampooned the aspirant bourgie bourgies who had had a little bit of higher education and then used it to pontificate vacuously, while objectifying those who were being subjected to real hardship and sacrifice and having to deal with the naked exploitation and oppression of the system. Linton, Darcus, Leila, the Race Today Collective and those of us in alliance that brought together the Internation Book Fair of Radical Black and Third world Books, kept our eyes on the people below who were struggling to be free and attempted to analyse and understand them and assist and support their struggles. Darcus's uncle, CLR James had carefully constructed this methodology and developed a body of thinking and writing about it, embodied in works such as the Black Jacobins, the most stirring and accomplished account of the Haitian Revolution ever written and Beyond a Boundary, which looked at how ordinary Caribbean People, had taken the 'Master's Game', cricket and transformed it into a vehicle for their own psychic and social liberation.. This Jamesian approach didn't require radical intellectuals to set them selves apart from the masses, devising ever more elaborate theories and then seeking to lead the people into oblivion through their abstractions but to try and understand the lives and struggles of ordinary people, stay close with them and support their collective struggles. Darcus's membership of the Renegades Mas Band wasn't just about having a group of people to jump up with at carnival time, but represented a mode of being. Aligning ondeself with the most insurrectionary sections of the people and putting your intellect to work to inform their struggles and allowing it to nourish the development of your thought and intellect organically. Being a 'Renegade' was therefore not just some semantic exercise but a careful positioning about who you were for and who you were against and how you were going to live your life and in whose interests you were going to deploy your energies. The Bourgeoisie have problems with this, as their impulse is to leave behind their working class origins and seek their liberation as individuals acquiring status and assets within the current capitalist system. This projects them into circumstances where they are disposed to be used by that system to destroy or damage those from whence they have come. A sensibility that can only recognise 'Renegade' as a negative connotation, displays this propensity. Darcus's funeral accurately reflected his values and the legacy that he has left behind in his family and movement which include the Mangrove Steel and Mas Band. I've described the morning's proceedings in Railton Road outside the former Race Today offices in my previous post. The images below contained in the Voice link, eloquently show the joy and sorrow that the massed ranks displayed as we attended at All Saints Church with brass band, drummers and steel as well. We then 'tek foot' and and hoofed it round to the previous location of the Mangrove Restaurant in All Saints Road and did our salutations there. We then all set out behind the hearse carrying Darcus and the Mangrove Steel Band on foot, led by his wife Leila, all the way down to Ladbroke Grove, all the way up to Harrow Road and on to Kensal Rise Crematorium, propelled by a kind of euphoria and regeneration of spirit. It was as if we were all having to rediscover the buried 'Renegade' in us, to resist the pressures to conform to the expected norms of mainstream post Brexit Britain. Road mek fi walk pon Darcus funeral day! La luta continua Devon C. Thomas-The Griot ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Christian Hogsbjerg <[log in to unmask]> Date: Fri, Apr 21, 2017 at 11:03 AM Subject: Re: Darcus Howe: Rebel with a cause To: [log in to unmask] [image: Boxbe] <https://www.boxbe.com/overview> This message is eligible for Automatic Cleanup! ([log in to unmask]) Add cleanup rule <https://www.boxbe.com/popup?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.boxbe.com%2Fcleanup%3Fkey%3DKIWiaUM62AyzDtaqBxcDL9q49f9X5ng9kBLfFtDbFlg%253D%26token%3DNVxROe1HiIeY7EZgRF%252BH2fLVepa3YpfnKo1k%252Fw2G8et4b8hwrXGP2gvWeNu5S53g986SFMnAJPZRdKlILM%252BlobV9iukPpfle2Gr9VdaSZ6wYpRM4%252BL6QYDJb%252B0Fm299rDUE84vyWZdUq5Wgd5aoHww%253D%253D&tc_serial=29924168712&tc_rand=780640658&utm_source=stf&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=ANNO_CLEANUP_ADD&utm_content=001> | More info <http://blog.boxbe.com/general/boxbe-automatic-cleanup?tc_serial=29924168712&tc_rand=780640658&utm_source=stf&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=ANNO_CLEANUP_ADD&utm_content=001> Dear all, Though I am sure there are others more qualified than me to defend the label of 'Renegade' with respect to Darcus Howe, it seems to me to have been quite appropriate and fitting for several reasons. 1. In his youth in colonial Trinidad, Darcus was a 'Renegade' in the sense that was the name of the steelband he played in (the Renegades). In a context of colonial domination, to have a steelband called 'Renegades' to me symbolises resistance to authority and oppression - and rebellion to the dominant order. 2. He himself identified as a 'Renegade' - as detailed in the order of service for the funeral and no doubt related to the reason given above - so this was not a label others ascribed to him - but he himself embraced. This is, I think, important. 3. As someone who works on his great-uncle CLR James, the label 'Renegade' also cannot help but remind me at least of James's great work of literary criticism - *Mariners, Renegades and Castaways* - about Herman Melville's Moby Dick (the phrase is from Melville championing the multiracial working class crew of the Pequod) - in that Jamesian sense, a renegade is also a symbol of resistance to authority and power - something there is no doubt at all Darcus himself would have understood and appreciated. There may well be other reasons alongside these that others closer to Darcus than me can elucidate if necessary - but I think these should hopefully be sufficient to settle this argument - and we should move on instead to remembering and celebrating Darcus's life and work - as the lovely and moving funeral service yesterday did so fittingly. Christian ------------------------------ *From:* British Black Studies <[log in to unmask]> on behalf of Simon Woolley <[log in to unmask]> *Sent:* 21 April 2017 09:32 *To:* [log in to unmask] *Subject:* Re: Darcus Howe: Rebel with a cause I agree Clive http://www.obv.org.uk/news-blogs/darcus-howe-rebel-cause ----- Original Message ----- From: "Clive Fraser" <[log in to unmask]> To: [log in to unmask] Sent: Friday, 21 April, 2017 10:23:08 GMT +00:00 GMT Britain, Ireland, Portugal Subject: Darcus Howe: Rebel with a cause Dear All As you know, yesterday was the funeral of the late great freedom fighter, Darcus Howe. I find it very sad that someone as particular about words as Darcus was labelled a “Renegade” in a floral tribute on the hearse taking him on his final journey ( http://www.voice-online.co.uk/ article/he-will-surely-be-missed-darcus-howe-casket-stops-se24 ). A renegade is “a person who deserts and betrays an organization, country, or set of principles.” Although there are alternative definitions of “renegade”, the dominant connotation is pejorative. As we know, Darcus was a most principled man who never deserted or betrayed the cause of Black emancipation. Therefore, notwithstanding the unfortunate retitling of the Bunce-Field political biography of him to “Renegade: The Life and Times of Darcus Howe”, I think that it would have been much more fitting for the floral tribute to have called Darcus simply “Rebel”: he had a cause; he fought the law and he won. <http://www.voice-online.co.uk/article/he-will-surely-be-missed-darcus-howe-casket-stops-se24> "He will surely be missed": Darcus Howe casket stops in SE24 <http://www.voice-online.co.uk/article/he-will-surely-be-missed-darcus-howe-casket-stops-se24> www.voice-online.co.uk Clive