The title “Post-Modern Politics” invokes the memory and legacy of that great world citizen born in Trinidad -- C.L.R. James, one of the greatest minds the world has ever produced. In 1960, James gave a series of public lectures at the...
moreThe title “Post-Modern Politics” invokes the memory and legacy of that great world citizen born in Trinidad -- C.L.R. James, one of the greatest minds the world has ever produced. In 1960, James gave a series of public lectures at the Trinidad Public Library in San Fernando entitled “Modern Politics”. Those lectures are still important and fresh today. Now, I do not pretend to approach James’s depth, breadth, or stature, but I would like to think that I approach his spirit. He was speaking at a time when Trinidad and Tobago was in its last stages of struggling for Independence, in the infancy of the Post-Colonial world. Today, however, we live in different times. We are in the infancy of a globalized world characterized by fluidity and a technology of images, information and symbols. This is the Postmodern world. Although all of us may not agree with this particular characterization, I think most of us will concede that Trinidad and Tobago has profoundly changed in the last 15 years. Whether we want to call this Postmodern or not is semantics.
