A.E.: The Cultural commentator, Donna Bailey Nurse, says of you: “When I think of Austin Clarke, I think of how his fiction irrevocably etched West Indians, Bajans, black people, and himself into the landscape of Toronto and the collective imagination of Canadians. I think of the courage with which he exposed to white people the psychological realities of being black in the world.” What is the psychological reality of being black in the world, in Canada precisely?
A.C.: I think I am going to answer by saying that general white Canada does not understand the pressures, hopes, fears and anxieties of black Canada. One commentator put it well – Doug Sanders in the Globe and the Mail of July 16, 2016. He compares it to the situation blacks face in the USA. I refer to his article “Why Black Canadians are facing U.S.-style Problems”: See it at:
http://www.theglobeandmail.com. But the article adopts a justice-system-critique approach. I will talk from a more overarching cultural vantage point. There is a silent marginalization of not only black but the immigrant community – right from when they do come in… Remember our past government hierarchizing immigrants as second order Canadians? I think that says it all. In officialspeak we are all Canadians but in terms of the ways in which institutional and official bureaucracies and the general culture actually work, visible minorities are on the fringe of the society. They are economically marginalized, they are socially marginalized in terms of not being properly integrated into white society; they are forced to mostly re-create the home they left by seeking Jamaican, Bajan, Nigerian, Ghanaian, Indian, South African etc. communities to attach themselves to. Politically, I am not sure if they have any real impact as a collective group. The shortfall is that those marginalized immigrants and Black Canadians cannot contribute all their talents and resources to the nation. Canada as a country loses.
A.E.: In your memoir you wrote, “I have never held a Canadian writer as a model of my own work. This is simply because the theme and the style of Canadian literature are irrelevant to my work. I do not therefore see any connection, in the sense of ‘literary ancestry,’ to my writing. I am alone, singular, peculiar, and foreign to the establishment that governs and controls Canadian literature.” Do those words mean that you felt alienated even while living in Canada all those years? Words do come to haunt.
A.C.: I like the ghosts of these words because they are true. I was an insider-outsider… My writing drew sustenance from my Caribbean experiences even though I began living in Canada since September 29, 1955. You must also have read somewhere that I delayed taking a Canadian citizenship until 1981. This reflected my ambivalence. Barbadian-Canadian; split down the middle, but with one side torn more towards the Barbadian left than the right that Canada can be.
A.E.: So this is why your former publisher, Patrick Crean, says that your work was “an early example of the literature of diversity and displacement, a quality which now informs our literature.” He also says that your “influence was huge”, that your work “broke the mould of white Canada” – specifically in relation to your first book in 1964, survivor of the crossing. What writers of colour would you say you have influenced?
A.C.: David Chariandy, Esi Edugyan, Shyam Selvadurai, Rohinton Mistry, M.G. Vassanji… to name a few. Don’t get me wrong, those influences might not be very direct – as in the case of writers who are closer to, or not too far apart from, my earthly age before I left the body. I am thinking of Mistry and Vassanji, who are more or less contemporaries. However, contemporaries still do influence each other. I opened the floodgates so to speak. As for the younger writers – Edugyan particularly…. Just read the electric and jazzy vernacular in her powerful Half-Blood Blues and you will clearly see the influence of The Polished Hoe.
A.E.: You opened the floodgates you say…. See why I said you are privileged?
A.C.: Ah, come off it, Amatoritsero. You mekin’ sport. I am darkness made visible as I have said with all the punning intended. Being literary-visible did not remove my ‘darkness’ and all the accursed Freudian symbology attached to it and to my being a black man in a white world. Literary celebrity only made me a token – I was the exception to a ‘keep-dem-down rule; an example to be pointed at as proof of the fairness of a system rigged against the coloured immigrant. Remember that sealed and deadly reference letter (meant for employment purpose in white America), which a white school principal gave to the black protagonist in Ralph Ellison’s invisible man? It said without flourish: “To whom it may concern; keep this boy running.” I was just a token.
A.E.: But there are new minority writers coming along as you have noted. Maybe things are changing. I mean Chariandy, Edugyan, Shyam…younger generation…
A.C.: They are part of that token few. Look at the numbers. Go to any Canadian writers’ festival and count the coloured writers you see as invited guests. They are token and few.
A.E.: Finally, I will like to ask you to lighten up the prospects. Some word of hope. What advice do you have for black or immigrant communities, especially young writers trying to thrive under the conditions you so eloquently painted for us?
A.C.: I am out of it. I did my part. I would say it like Bob Marley and Peter Tosh did: “Get up; stand up; don’t give up the fight!”
A.E.: But….
A.C.: Okay; okay, oh lordie! I did not mean they should join the black panther or things like that. Self-help, group help, community building, education by hook or crook, economic self-reliance. Start businesses, support each other; solidarity. Don tear the family down through ‘crab-in-the-bucket’ behaviour, the PhD ( pull-him-down). Remember that song by the Toronto musician, k-os, – Crabbukit? Aluta continua!
A.E.: MTLS, our readers and I would like to really thank you for giving me audience in the spiritual realm to have this chat. Rest in peace, maestro.
A.C.: I am rested and peaceful already. My soul is liming here. I have gone into the light. It is you on earth who live in the darkness of Kali Yuga and have no peace. Sadly, you all live in an age of ignorance and quarrel. That is the nature of Kali Yuga.
A.E.: Thank you. Bye for now, my astral body must now re-enter my physical body before my silver cord breaks and I cannot re-enter or realign well.
A.C.: Hurry. Good luck. You don’t want to kartspraddle into your physical body.
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16 Comments
Actually it was after I read the editorial that I saluted you on the general page.
I believe it is difficult for a “black” person that finds himself in “white” country to be properly assimilated. The people I really feel for are the ones that are born in a foreign country by immigrants. These offsprings do not know where to belong for example a Nigerian couple going to deliver their baby in the U S for the sole purpose of obtaining American citizenship for the baby. Is the baby an American or a Nigerian? Oh I see! He has a dual citizenship. All well and good. The question is where would his allegiance be if there was an altercation between Nigeria and America.
Where did you get your occult knowledge? I hope you are putting it to good use.
Using Dante’s classification was Mr Clarke in purgatorio,inferno,or paradiso when you met him?
I would have loved to develop my comments but there is no NEPA and the glare from the screen of my system is hurting my eyes!
Sina, Mr. Austin Clarke was not in purgagory. Purgatory is a christian myth. Clarke has moved on in the the next realm and is a very happy and blessed soul. I leant my occult arts in the monastery as an Hindu monk back in the day.
Great take on Austin Clarke post-humously! Who would’ve thought he’d be so open to do this, must’ve caught him in good spirits.
He was in high spirits and glad to be done with this earth!
Hinduism. I don’t know about that. I thought it is the babalawo thing you are into. I would have wanted to be informed.
Well, I am glad to know that Clarke is now enjoying himself after suffering in hell (darkness visible) on earth.
Did you hug or shake hands when you met? This is because I don’t think a corporeal form can have a physical contact with the soul of another person
Sina, I was on the other side in ethereal form. There is no hugging or handshakes possible. I was there as pure spirit just like the soul of our dear departed master writer. I was a hindu monk. These days I am into Ifa, not actively. I would love to research it more.
Very fine work. The dead is never dead, indeed. There remains a connection between the living, the dead, and even the unborn. Bravo, Ama
I have always wondered what goes on after all these experiences life throws on us. I can not say I have found it… But, I welcome the possibility of having limitless possibilities.
I just think what we know about our lives and purpose of existence may just be a crumb from a bread that can not be measured. We can’t possibly know it all now though – besides our researches conducted by us, on us, has said our brains are only functioning at 10% (although this is not a proven fact – I say “the lack of evidence that something exists is not evidence it doesn’t). But then again – we may just be at our climax.
About the racial discrimination of blacks. Honestly, from personal experience I have never been racially discriminated (never left my Black populated country yet). But, I have read enough and talked to people enough to know and feel the pain of being racially discriminated. And like you and “late” Austin Clarke pointed out, the racial injustice is being treated “tactfully”. One writer said “Tact is making people feel at home; when that’s where you want them”.
Invigorating piece Uncle Ama.
Ama, I thought you took a rather brave, interesting and unconventional step in the context of your posthumous interview with Austin. I was surprised at the esoteric vein but then again maybe not so much. I liked the \’Bajan\’ touches and could hear those accents in my head as I read it. Ha Ha! … and wondered by \’Barbadian laugh\’ and what that would have sounded like coming from Austin Clarke? Will never know but that is not the most important aspect of this interview. I am blown away by the fact that after all these hundreds of years that the white supremacy attitudes of Europeans is still so entrenched in our society although slavery was abolished, apartheid done away with, seemingly! But alas only on the surface and we don\’t have to search far and wide to recognize the ugliness rearing it\’s head once more. I refer mostly to state of affairs for our southerly neighbours in the good ole USA. But what happens in the USA also affects and can infect the undercurrent and more subtle thread of racism that certainly exists in Canada as well. We don\’t want a Pandora\’s Box opening here as well.
I hope that the youth can be much more intelligent, sensitive and remain unscathed by poisonous attitudes that destroy our humanity. I trust that they will have a broader and more compassionate view of the world we live in. There is much work to be done and the works, experiences and views of accomplished writers, like Austin Clarke are important to remind us of that fact.
Good interview. Good work. Good points. Will have to work more on the Bajan tho.
The appropriate ese Ifá here is Ogúndá Méjí
Orúnmìlà ló dòdèdè ni bèrè
Ifá mo ní ta ló tó Alásàán bá ròkun?
This is a profound engagement with Clarke’s interventionist writings, Ama, as well as the circumstances we currently find ourselves. This is a good interview. And I think you should produce more editorials such as this.
Brilliant! This was an original, well- thought-out and captivating interview. It will provide some much- needed food for thought to anyone who will have a chance to read this amazing work.
The Hindus say that the universe is trillions of years old but I think they are off by a few years… On a more serious note the issue of colour and racism… it might take another 100 years before all humans are considered equal… the internet will help educate the children of the racists, it’s always the younger generation… Some other comments… the freedom of being bodiless… I think it’s an illusion; the universe consists of limitations so that if one is removed another limitation appears elsewhere… same with gifts and talent… In Chinese philosophy the I CHING says that unlimited possibilities are not suited to man; if they existed, his life would only dissolve in the boundless. To become strong, a man’s life needs the limitations ordained by duty and voluntarily accepted.
Which brings us to the question of privilege; it’s possible that privilege is an Ouroboros, that legendary serpent that eats it’s own tail, or else that privilege is circular ladder whose head joins it’s base, so we are all privileged compared to the ones below us and likewise there are more privileged above us… and possibly the notion of privilege does come full circle as in the song of the wealthy man by Simon and Garfunkel “Richard Cory went home one night and put a bullet through his head… but I, who work in his factory, how I wish that I could be, oh I wish that I could be… Richard Cory.”
But the most pressing issue is blackness in a white world, when we’re in a world in which the majority is ‘colored.’ Of course racism comes from strangers, the ignorant, the fearful. Even as a Caucasian, I was a Hungarian kid in a French school, then a French kid in an English school, knowing the role of the stranger, the minority. Which of course are yet miles apart from discrimination on the basis of colour. There’s hope that with the internet disseminating global information we learn to see all races as equal, as with global travel eventually we’ll grow up with other kids of different continents and colors and then colour will be a wonderful difference to be enjoyed rather than a barrier that marks the stranger. Even as there are bad people there are also others working to make a good thing of life, so there’s hope? Even at this minute the U.N. reports that war on this planet is on the downswing and at an all time low for the last 10 years. Yet I don’t think it’s being reborn as a white man to experience whiteness… instead it’s being reborn as wealthy and powerful, for they get the respect. Then we poorer ones, we writers and artists, may achieve that wealth and power if the world recognizes our genius… hee hee…
And finally the literary device of the interview with a dead man… One certainly runs the risk of solipsism yet what a brilliant solution. I imagine you may follow this up with interviews with famous writers / brilliant politicians, both of today and ages past, without needing to actually interview them, simply imagine what they would say if asked. It would be hard to discern or to disprove telepathy, for one. Forcing your brain to take on another’s personality to answer your questions may lead to actual channeling of souls, if that exists and is not some quaint delusion…
As a literary device it is inventive, as a wordsmith Amatoritsero Ede doesn’t disappoint; in so many issues as in this editorial we encounter piercing observation, complex yet well explained thoughts, beautiful and brilliant command of the language… and I’m not one to compliment freely but must recognize talent when I see it.
This is a brilliant and courageous undertaking. You clearly succeeded Ama. I never expected an interview with a departed spirit could be so insightful let alone the complexities in achieving what you attempted to do. Well done.
Thank you for introducing Austin Clarke to those of us who are encountering him for the first time. Thank you for this very creative interview.
“Having no body and no colour, because of which spiritually ignorant humans vilify and demonise you, is a great experience.”
This is poignant. Thanks for this excellent interview. This is amazing literary necromancy. 🙂 I paused several times to ponder, the metaphor of darkness visible is stronger than ever as black lives and bodies are put to insist they matter and should not be erased. Rest in peace, *Mr. Clarke. Thanks ,Mr. Ede.
Your piece put me in mind of Mark Abley’s outstanding book, Conversations with a Dead Man: The Legacy of Duncan Campbell Scott (Douglas & McIntyre, Oct. 11 2013). It was quite daring, as a nonfiction book. But the daring was a success, the result a book I feel should be taught in schools.
Your posthumous interview with Austin Clarke is a success too. Abley’s book is a deeply troubling study of a man who played a part in the attempted destruction of the soul of the Native People. Your interview is an enlightening and uplifting and also gloomy and cutting look at Clarke’s place in Canadian literature and society. Clarke’s place, but also the place of the Other. (So sad that we must have this concept of other at all.) You have woven together the words Clarke spoke and the words he might have spoken had you been able to meet before he left this astral plane for another. The result is a convincing interview with much to mull over.