By J. Edward Chamberlin, ContributorTHE RECENT announcement by the Rhodes Trust of the Rex Nettleford Prize in Cultural Studies, tenable at the University of the West Indies, represents much more than many readers may realise. It is, of course, first of all a tribute to Rex Nettleford himself, on the occasion of the 100th anniversary of the scholarship which he was awarded when he was a student, in a distinguished line of young Caribbean men and women over the years. But it also signals something new.
Last year, in a move that surprised many people, Nelson Mandela announced that he and the Rhodes Trust were establishing the Rhodes Mandela Founda-tion to provide support for educational and cultural projects in South Africa and put bluntly to return to Africa something of the wealth taken from there to create the Rhodes scholarships. I was in South Africa when the announcement was made, and heard Mr. Mandela talk about how the bringing together of his name with that of Cecil Rhodes symbolised the closing of a chapter of exploitation and the opening of a new partnership.
NO IDLE WORDS
These were not idle words, certainly not from Nelson Mandela. To underline the principles to which the foundation was committed, he made the announcement in the name of the labourer who toils on the African farm, fighting for a life of dignity; the girl child battling against great odds for an opportunity to realise her potential; the poor AIDS orphan bereft of family or care; the rural poor eking out a subsistence, deprived of the most basic services and facilities, seeking that a better future be built for all of them. In this, I am certain, Cecil John Rhodes and I would have made common sense.
Great care was taken to ensure that the ambitions of the new foundation were embodied in other ways that would convey the message widely. One was the awarding of honorary doctorates by Oxford University to four distinguished former Rhodes Scholars from around the world. Rex Nettleford was one of these. It was a rare honour, and one that he richly deserved.
But it was also an honour for all citizens of the Caribbean. And so too is the Rex Nettleford Prize, which has no counterpart anywhere. It is a unique initiative, representing the special place of the Caribbean in a world trying to find ways of bringing together what Rex Nettleford once called the rhythms of Africa and the melody of Europe, but this time with the music of what is happening everywhere else as well.
DANGEROUS AMBITION
It is a difficult and sometimes dangerous ambition, as every Jamaican knows. And as Nelson Mandela knows too, for it is in the spirit of the courageous, some would say outrageous, ideal announced a decade ago in the preamble to the new South African constitution, which promised to "recognised the injustices of our past, honour those who suffered for justice and freedom in our land, respect those who have worked to build and develop our country; and believe that our country belongs to all who live in it, united in our diversity."
There is an unfashionable faith here, and a challenge to the all-too-fashionable politics of discontinuity and disenfranchisement. The Rex Nettleford Prize in Cultural Studies was conceived as part of this challenge, and represents a renewed faith in the future of the peoples of the Caribbean.
A WORLD OF CONFLICT
We live in a world of conflict. And yet one of our oldest conflicts has nothing to do with race or religion or land or language, but with something else. It is the ancient conflict between those who do things and those who dream about them. In the early days, this often took the form of a conflict between those who went out to hunt and those who stayed to dance.
All of the world's cultures include stories about this, most of them telling how the conflict can be solved by understanding that both doers and dreamers struggle with spirits, and that all such struggles are a central part of any community.
Nobody represents this struggle, and this sense of community, better than Rex Nettleford... dancer, dreamer and doer of things. He was born in rural Jamaica; and for all his honours and titles he has never really left there. In a lifetime of intellectual, artistic and administrative achievement unparalleled in the Americas, he has kept the moral dignity and imaginative integrity of the Caribbean people at the centre of his life, and at the core of his work. The Rex Nettleford Prize in Cultural Studies acknowledges that; but in the spirit of Nelson Mandela, it also reminds everyone that anything done in one person's name, if it is done properly, is also done in the name of all.
