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Lloyd Best

Lloyd Best

Lloyd Best has passed away, what do you remember the most about Lloyd Best?

Best Lloyd

Basdeo Panday always had a problem with Lloyd Best. I think Mr Best enjoyed provoking Mr Panday. I remember at one time, Lloyd Best described himself as Basdeo Panday's "best enemy."

Lloyd Best Caribbean / Tobago & Trinidad

We refer to Lloyd Best as economist, historian, thinker, intellectual, social commentator,educator. The list could go own for quite a while. He was all of these yet no one word or phrase may be able to capture all that he was. For me immersed in the plantation economy - Lloyd Best is the "Giver of Hope" Best gave me hope after my suspicions that 'something was desperately wrong here" were confirmed by Naipaul. Even though this place can seem dark and small at times, I now accept it as "Our Space" and have the belief that "we can save ourselves by our own exertions". I would like to think that my hope is not blind, nor awaiting divine intervention It is rooted in self-belief and a scientific approach - values continually espoused by Lloyd Best.

* Independent thinking and self-belief: in this place where we suffer from over dependence and self-contempt (Afro-Saxon and Indo-Saxon - if I can take the liberty to risk corrupting his scientific approach). We will do his legacy justice if we embrace the liberation of self-belief.

* Scientific approach (In Best's own words): "We're not trying to follow any other country, "developed" or "developing," whatever those may mean. We're striving to call into existence a culture, society and civilisation to respond to our own needs. Nor is any of this autarchy, or myopic, inward looking, bogus nationalism. The first principle of science is to deal with the reality on the ground, for both theory and action, inextricably intertwined. Falling back on arid text-book approaches comes up only where the leaders of society, the privileged elites, lack the confidence to disentangle themselves from stuff they picked up in schools. This utterly idiotic talk under the rubric of Vision 2020 is the extreme example.

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Best Lloyd

Wasn't Mr. Best a politician with NJAC? Despite his knowledge he seemed to fail in this area - not so?

Best Lloyd

Best was not an NJAC politician. If politics is about getting elected, he was indeed a 'failed' politician.

Rather off topic, but... Our recent successful politicians Manning and Panday can explain the state of our society. One has bank accounts that he did not (could not?) declare and refused to explain until the courts demanded one, he then came up with the most laughable explanation that required the testimony of a pundit and a business tycoon. The other boasts that we are on the "edge of of developed country status"- but appoints his wife to cabinet, says he is born again, and would like to save our black souls with religion of the colonizers who accidentally stumbled on this place some five hundred years ago. He has the religion bequeathed to us by Europe, but cannot see that appointing his wife to Cabinet "reeks of cronyism". Such a nepotist appointment would not happen in any of these so-called developed countries, but it is okay for Manning, he consults Jesus and wants to become a preacher when he leaves politics. The leadership we have continued to elect since independence is a reflection on the follower-ship. Best like Naipaul devoted much scholarship the accidents that brought us thus far. Where he differed from Naipaul is that he also devoted much of his life in attempting to plot OUR way forward, and to get us to plot our own way. We by and large have ignored the scientific approach, too many in the "philistine society" still look to the ethnic messiah. In Best's word's 'we can only save ourselves by our own exertions' . Maybe the first step is to find our self belief.

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