Professor Rex Nettleford, Contributor

Nettleford

Jamaica and the rest of the Caricom Caribbean are the poorer for the passing of one of the region's finest minds to embrace the discourse towards better understanding of self and society. For Lloyd Best flourished and endured as forth-teller, priest and monarch (though not of all he surveyed) in the role of socio-economic 'adviser' to governments, including the governments of the Caribbean Community, whether such advice was given pro bono or in trenchant prose, which sometimes rankled even while it enlightened.

Lloyd Best, the economist, was never one to make exaggerated claims for the discipline for which he received formal accreditation from one of the world's finest universities. Nor would he expect to go unopposed, any claim of its not being simply primus inter pares in the social sciences but the only social science of any significance. It is not by accident, then, that he was respected by a wide range of academic colleagues with the full range of expertise in a number of social science disciplines on which Lloyd Best, the polymath, engaged in serious debate in his relentless search for truth as far as knowledge goes and for what he has felt would be sane, sensible and salutary for the development of his Caribbean.

History absolved him

In this sense, history has already absolved him despite the controversies he either himself initiated or in which he has so often found himself deeply embroiled. Legend indeed has it that if a counter-argument did not exist, Lloyd Best would have to invent it. But then, is this not the mark of a genuine scholar willing to have all ideas contend and to be able to find the irreducible kernel of an intellectual project in contestation, debate and civilised discourse? His contribution in this sense to Caribbean intellectual thought and, by extension, to developing-country discourse about issues ranging from economics, through sociology, to philosophy and culture, is impatient of debate. Caricom had no choice but to confer on him its highest honour - the Order of the Caribbean Community - even while he fearlessly and feistily chronicled the shortcomings of an institution which though by no means short on ideas, he saw as deficient in implementation.

His own native Trinidad and Tobago came in for frequent criticisms in terms of its performance not only in electoral, constitutional, and political performance, but also in economic management since gaining Independence.

The exciting thing about the fervour and fecundity of the Bestian critique is the hope-in-despair dimension of his forth-telling since he understands paradox and the nature of the contradictory omens that characterise Caribbean reality. This for him does not spell hopelessness or defeat. Lloyd Best believed passionately in the region's capability to exploit its innate capacity to find solutions for its own development if only humbug, hubris and self-indulgent leadership could give way to humility, sustained application of energy, hard work and creativity which the region possesses in abundance.

The mission statement for the Caribbean, according to Lloyd Best is nothing, if it fails to address the imperatives of diversification and transformation of the region's economy for safe conduct through the 21st century.

Educationsector overhaul

Indispensable to this as part of the Lloyd Best vision is the thorough and comprehensive overhaul of the education sector in ways that will equip the tenants of the region, itself diverse and textured, to cope with the contradictions of globalisation. It was typical of Best to infuse the intellectual tradition with the reminder that the region was after all the creature and creation of the initial global process 500 years ago and that it would be able to deal with the new international order only if our Caribbean society(ies) "accompany the parallel task of finding out about themselves and of distilling the lessons of their 500-year experience" (Trinidad and Tobago Review, December 2002).

That Lloyd Best should from the depths of his creative intellect and imagination continue up to the time of his passing to give meaning and significance to such truisms which are too often missed by the institutionalised intellectuals, is to his lasting credit and deserving of a range of tributes which were offered by his colleagues not so long ago, happily before he passed.