Respect For Difference

RESPECT FOR DIFFERENCE

Professor Fernandez-Armesto: ‘Brendan O’Leary is Irish and
therefore knows something about the struggle for Statehood. He
says patriotism is traditional – a deal you make with the State.
States buy Patriotism from their subjects with services, protection,
nurture…Britain may have jettisoned a lot of the traditional
baggage of the Patriotism of the past, but the regime of political
rights and Social Welfare has created a new focus of allegiance.
Oliver Letwin is susceptible to this idea even though he’s from that
Conservative tradition which is suspicious of the State.’

Oliver Letwin: ‘I have been happy enough to live under its Laws
and to benefit from it so it has a right to expect from me a return.’

Professor Fernandez-Armesto: ‘And that would include things
like the benefits of the Welfare State.’
Oliver Letwin: ‘Yes. That is part of it…It’s the whole structure of
a liberal democracy.’

Following Oliver Letwin and Professor O’Leary were the
contributions of Lindsay Paterson, George Schopflin, Marianne
Talbot and myself. Listening to the programme recently, I
reflected on the pros and cons of the disputed ‘Weapons of Mass
Destruction’ debate just before Britain went to war against Iraq,
and on what Professor Paterson had to say: ‘I’m pretty sure that
if the UK government decides to join in the war against Iraq…
there will be support for our troops out there facing danger. At the
same time, however, I doubt if that will actually still debate here.
So I think what we see there is a very deep attachment to Liberal
freedom that we were in fact supposed to be defending allowing
people to continue to Debate the validity of the War even while
its in progress.’

At this juncture, I thought that such a deep attachment to
liberal Freedom, so fundamental to democracy (and democratic
traditions) was indeed the key prerequisite of my idea of respect
for difference.

Professor Fernandez-Armesto: ‘So is that a form of patriotism? I
mean, are those liberal values precisely the culture to which people
feel allegiance?’

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Professor Paterson: ‘Yes, I think that’s the key point here. We
don’t any longer, if we ever had it, have a notion of our country,
right or wrong.’

Professor Fernandez-Armesto: ‘ Whether you advocate values or
culture as the underlying generators of the continuity of Patriotism,
the problem is particularly acute in Britain today; not just because
we’re facing the prospect of a war which will galvanise some peoples
patriotism and dissolve that of others. There are deeper, long-
term structural difficulties. We’re living in a country of rapidly
multiplying loyalties.’

Reference to ‘we’re living in a country of rapidly multiplying
loyalties’ was a turning point in the Debate. All the more so,
because it related to my own thoughts arising from history, culture
and identities. In relation to ‘British Patriotism’ Professor O’Leary
stated that ‘there is a civic territorial identity which united Scots,
Welsh and the English – that’s begun to fragment and its quite clear
that significant proportions of the Welsh and Scots populations
either have vigorous dual identities and, in some cases, strongly
nationalist identities . They prefer to see the break-up of Britain and
it will be a major challenge for the power-holders at Westminster to
maintain the notion of a British patriotism in the circumstances of
running a multinational state.’
Because patriotism had ‘amazing powers of adhesion,’ considering
that it was perfectly possible for people in Scotland, for example, to
be both Scottish patriots and British patriots, Professor Fernandez-
Armesto commented that while the Irishman O’Leary feared
‘conflicting patriotisms may be uncontainable in a single State, the
Scotsman Lindsay Paterson is confident that they can co-exist. But
how elastic is this sort of patriotism which can embrace difference
and sanctions uneasily compatible allegiances?’ Oliver Letwin
responded by saying he was ‘not a pessimist about this in the sense
that I think that most people think themselves as both English and
British or Scottish and British or both Welsh and British. Except
for Northern Ireland, I think there always has been and there
remains bifocalism.’
Giventhatbifocalismcouldbecometrifocalism,ProfessorFernandez-
Armesto argued that ‘you could also have European patriotism
and, of course, its not just devolution and Europeanisation which

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are blurring loyalties, there was immigration too.’ Moreover, the
presence of immigrant populations in northern world democracies
prompted the following response from Professor O’Leary: ‘If
you’re a State which is taking significant populations of peasants
in, they’re quite happy to be socialised in return for Citizenship. It
is somewhat more problematic I think for current states either to
homogenise or to integrate to their immigrant populations.’

But how loyal could we expect our present and future immigrants
to be? On this question, Professor Paterson added: ‘Let’s take,
for example, the role of Islamic culture…in fifty or one hundred
years time, will we not in fact have a variety of Islams in Western
Europe just as we have of Christianities. I’m not just talking here
about the distinction between Protestantism and Catholicism but
actually the way in which the various Protestant Churches and
indeed the various branches of the Catholic Church have quite
recognisably distinct national characteristics.’

Professor Fernandez-Armesto responded: ‘The Britishness of
British Islam then, will become a source of patriotic pride for British
Muslims. For Paterson, patriotism which seems so elusive and
insubstantial can actually be stronger than culture, absorbing and
redirecting culture of foreign origin. There doesn’t seem to be any
logic to this but historical precedent on Paterson’s side.’ Professor
Fernandez-Armesto then asked: ‘But what if he is wrong? Isn’t
it more likely that mixed cultures means divided allegiances? Dr
Ron Ramdin arrived 40 years ago from the Caribbean. His book
Reimaging Britain is about British identity. Does he think the
British today can sustain patriotism of the past?’
Ron Ramdin: ‘The truth is they can’t sustain it because we are in
a new British society, a new situation of multiculturalism in which
there are many diverse groups. And one has to ask the questions
today: Whose Britain? Whose culture? And whose identity we
are talking about. So you cannot invoke that sort of patriotism
anymore. In my view, patriotism now will have to include a sense
of belonging that would help to make the affected excluded groups
feel they belong with no one culture imposing its will upon the
others. For example, if patriotism was problematic for the Scots,
Welsh and the Irish during Empire days with being “British,”
it has become even more problematic in today’s devolutionary

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pro-European Britain which is confronted with harnessing the
creative potential of cultural difference to formulate a new political
community. So everything is in a state of flux – nothing is static,
its evolving and…’

Professor Fernandez-Armesto: ‘How can you be patriotic about
something which is always changing, which is always shifting,
which is always in transition, which doesn’t have any stable values?’
he asked. I said: ‘That’s the reality. Britain today is not what Britain
was 50 years ago. It’s this constant (continuous) reconstituting of
what the values were, are and will be. All my life I’ve looked for
something that would give me a sense of security, something which
I believe in and what I came up with, time and again, (in spite of
disappointments) is the recurrent need to reassess, to renegotiate
and I feel quite secure in that now.’

Fernandex-Armesto: ‘So you feel secure in your state of flux? Yes,
I do in my state of flux.’

Admittedly the sense of homelessness that followed my arrival in
England had gradually given rise to an increasingly strong feeling
of belonging. What follows are the closing contributions to
the Debate. Professor Fernandez-Armesto continued: ‘Can the
British lion become a chameleon? Ron Ramdin’s starting point is
unchallengeable: patriotism has to tahdeap1t9ttoh survive. His analysis
recalls working class patriotism in century – which was
also perhaps confidence in a process of regeneration towards an
evolving, increasingly democratic image of Britishness. I can
see that some people might like an environment of perpetual
renegotiation: it may enhance their sense of freedom. They may
want to fight to defend it. This sort of sentiment could, perhaps
replace patriotism, but it can hardly become patriotism. On the
contrary, renegotiation could adulterate loyalties or create new
conflicting ones, as communities of different ethnic origins define
themselves in relation to each other. This is suggested not only by
apparently unbridgeable fissures which divide some ethnic groups,
but also by psychological studies of the way patriotism happens.’

In turn, George Shopflin said: ‘Each cultural community has a
particular way of putting its case. I think the technical terrain for
this is a thought-style. In the case of the Anglo-Saxons its emphasis
is on pragmatism, if you like empiricism, of dealing with a problem

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that’s immediately in front of us…’ Far from being clear-cut,
guiding the Debate, Professor Fernandez-Armesto said: ‘There is
something odd about British people who are willing to abandon or
abolish their own traditional and historic peculiarities of culture,
yet anxious to impose loyalty tests on immigrants. For British louts
abroad, hatred of foreigners seems to be their last refuge, the closest
they come to patriotism. Maybe in multicultural society and a
multi-civilisational north we would be better off without patriots.’

Thus far, I felt the person who came closest to my now long-
awaited position was Marianne Talbot who said: ‘I think that in
a way being patriotic is precisely self-differentiation, the same for
feeling identity with your Brownie pack…I mean I don’t think
there is anything particularly bad intrinsically about distinguishing
oneself from others. It is one’s attitude to the others from whom
one can draw an analogy here with the Bully in the playground who
doesn’t respect himself and so takes it out on others. He, because
he has lost a sense of self-esteem, distinguishes himself from others
and needs to put others down in order to bring himself up! I think
if you don’t feel a sense of belonging in your own country’s culture,
you’re likely to turn into a cultural bully.’

Professor Fernandez-Armesto: ‘For Marianne Talbot patriotism
can give you confidence for co-existence – self-respect - which
precedes respect for others. Plausible in theory. But has Ron
Ramdin found it works?’

Ron Ramdin: ‘In the way that patriotism has affected me at the
time (of my migration and thereafter) negatively, terribly negatively,
I felt no it can’t be a good thing. But then, you know, there are
positive things about belonging…For example, having been in
Britain for (over half a century) I’ve had many opportunities to do
things. I look at that as positive. Whether or not I’m a patriot is
another thing, but I do feel British.’

And so, my sense of belonging was at one with respect for
difference.
Finally, Professor Fernandez-Armesto closed the Debate by saying:
‘Perhaps true patriotism survives if we don’t think about it too
much, for in this field in which scrutiny leads to scepticism perhaps
there are abiding values at present which may re-emerge as they did

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in Russia or France or China after the Revolutions. Those bifocal
and trifocal allegiances of which we have heard are testing many
countries’ patriotism today. In some, including Britain, it may
fragment into regional patriotism or dissolve amid renegotiation
or vanish into some future super-State. For as long as it lasts, it
will surely be abused. I suspect, however, that in Britain, at least,
it will go on surprising us by its durability as well as its mutability:
because an attachment which has so little for so long clearly has
amazing powers of adhesion.’

The high regard and social importance of this timely and
fascinating ‘Debate,’ broadcast twice in a week, was reflected in
widespread public interest: According to the BBC Producer,
Professor Bernard Crick of Birkbeck College, University of
London, a leading authority was one of the first to request a copy
of the Transcript of that ANALYSIS programme.

***
In the wake of the Debate on ‘Patriotism…’, given that a pending
film project ‘The Sand Road’ about my life and work had stalled,
interest in it was revived by another company. Tuareg Productions
came forward to consider doing an hour long Documentary film,
but with the new title ‘Making a Difference.’ The word ‘Difference’
was significant in that it mirrored even more clearly now my ideas
and exploration of the social realities that I’d been writing about.
‘This document is about a very unusual life,’ the film synopsis
stated, ‘the life of Ron Ramdin, an uplifting story of a teenage boy’s
courage and determination to gain experience and knowledge…it
is the story of self-discovery, dedication, compassion and hope…
Ron’s life and work had made a difference to many people and
certainly to Ron himself. He believes that respect for each other
(in our various communities) can be genuine only when, as he says
in Reimaging Britain, we recognise and “celebrate” the creative
potential of human difference.’

While considering the ‘Making a Difference’ film proposal, I
received an invitation from London Metropolitan University
and the Trades Union Congress to do an Archival Recording of
my decade-long Leadership role during the tumultuous years of
industrial struggles; and, as if in furtherance of my ongoing work,
the British Library’s fortnightly Newsletter Shelflife published an

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article which read: ‘HERITAGE Partnership: Ken Livingstone has
appointed Dr Ron Ramdin of Asia, Pacific and Africa Collections
to serve on the Mayor’s Commission on African and Asian Heritage
(MCAAH). This Project a Heritage Strategic Initiative will play a
ground-breaking role in establishing partnerships and a programme
for action that will address the dearth of effective representation in
London. Since Ron is serving on the Commission as an individual,
the Library was represented by Graham Shaw, Director of APAC
(Africa, Pacific and Asia Collections), at an Open Session at City
Hall. Among the issues raised were the need for community
involvement in the Curatorial interpretation of objects and Ethnic
Diversity in the staffing of institutions.’

With the approach of the 200th anniversary of Anti-slavery
legislation in Britain, I had hoped that the British Library would
curate activities connected with this ‘anniversary.’ Indeed, I was
filled with joy when I heard about the possibility of the British
Library hosting a Diversity ‘Exhibition’ as a result of working in
partnership with the Mayor’s Commission. Words, words, words.
Over the years, countless words were written and spoken mostly by
me in the hope that such an Exhibition would happen. Now at
last, I thought, the Library’s commitment to act would truly reflect
the modern community it served.

Having spoken out in my characteristically positive way during
the crucial foundational years of the British Library, especially on
behalf of the poorly-paid, I was perceived and demonised as a
‘Communist’ by certain managers and branded a ‘black sheep’ out
of step with the fold. So following publication of the ‘HERITAGE
PARTNERSHIP’ article, through continued input on the Mayor’s
Commission, my hope for greater inclusiveness in recruitment
and policy-making, for example, in the British Library (and other
British institutions) was higher than ever.

***
History, culture and identity continued to inform and become an
integral part of my ongoing activities in relation to multicultural
Britain, as well as cosmopolitan Trinidad. On Sunday 15 August
2004 during the ‘London Mela’ held at Gunnersbury Park, I was
invited to give a ‘Talk’ and spoke on a much-neglected subject:
‘The Indian influence on Trinidad Carnival.’ My presentation was,

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in essence, as follows:
‘Much was said and written about the Trinidad Carnival and
steelband or Pan. But a little known aspect of the story is the
Indo-Trinidadians cultural contribution to the development of the
steelband and Carnival in Trinidad, in particular their ‘Tassa drums
and the Hosay (or Muharram) procession.’

In this colony, while drumming was an essential component, I
went on to say:
‘Since 1845 the Indians’ songs and music which they had brought
with them from India gradually impacted on the development of
Creole culture in general, especially on Carnival. The Hosay or
Muharram procession in St James (Port of Spain) in the later 1840s
was a cultural reservoir for the convergence of peoples and cultures.
Creativity and Craftsmanship were expressed in the construction
of floats and effigies in the parades, songs, dances, tassa drumming
and stick-playing. The musical instrument which linked all these
was the Tassa. The Tassa drums are basically used in Indian culture
as a means of communication to, and in praise of, God… These
drums were prominent during the Hosay celebrations in St James…
In Trinidad, gradually communal Indian-African separatism began
to disappear. Music had a unifying effect and the commingling of
Africans and Indians grew over time. Africans consistent contact
with Indian culture dating as far back as the 1850s is reason to
believe that Carnival in general and Pan in particular drew some
of its features from Hosay as more and more Africans participated
in Hosay and Tassa drumming. One consequence of this was the
coming closer of the Tassa with the steelband.
When Carnival came to St James, Indian Tassa drummers saw an
opportunity of extending their music-making into a secular affair
for the first time. The practice has still been retained in St James
which is especially interesting for it was considered the home of the
steelband movement. The possibility existed that some features of
the Hosay would rub-off on the Carnival celebrations, especially
when the participants and venues were more or less the same...
But how much of an influence was the Tassa? According to Errol
Hill, the drum was as prominent in Indian music as in African and
the arrival of the Indians helped to reinforce and enrich the already

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strong rhythmic foundation of native music.
During the Annual Hosay parade, Africans not only observed,

but also participated in playing Tassa… Anthropologist Dr J. D.
Elder concurs with another writer Mr Simmonds on the point that
Pan like Carnival and calypso “is a result of cultural mixture of
European, Asiatic and African strains”…Great controversy rages
on the origins of the steelband; and to attribute the beginning of
the steelband movement to a single individual or band or place
would obscure its true significance. It was a national community
effort which bore fruit after years of evolution. No amount of
collection and collation of documented and oral information could
give an accurate account of the history of Pan until researchers
pay cognizance to the Tassa-drumming which was played annually
during Carnival and Hosay to the delight of Afro-Trinidadians
since the 1850s.

While considering the Trinidad Carnival and Steelband music,
we should remember that Indian culture in Trinidad had never
been seriously considered outside its own sphere of involvement.
Despite the attempts of some purists to dismiss the fact that Tassa
was influential in the making of Pan, the artefactual elements of the
Tassa, it was argued, is still visible in certain characteristics, features
such as the steelbands’ two sticks; metal cylinder; heat to provide
tonal quality; posture of the musicians; and of late, the thong around
the neck. The steelband is related, but does not belong to the family
of African or Indian drums. It is essentailly a product of Trinidad
of which both Afro and Indo- Trinidadians should be proud. The
connection of Trinidad Carnival and steelband music with India
is therefore clear and, it is in this context that we should view the
timely and beautifully made film “Din Shuru”. Importantly, we
should also bear in mind that it was the mutual influences of the
Africans and Indians and their descendants who were instrumental
in creating the steelband and carnival in Trinidad.’
Predictably, a lively discussion followed my Talk.

Soon after the ‘Mela,’ I was contacted by Ms H, a Senior British
Library Consultant Manager. As a direct result of my Membership
on the Mayor’s Commission on African and Asian Heritage, Ms H
informed me that the Library was planning to hold an ‘Event.’
Given that I was regarded by many as the foremost historian of

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both Blacks and Asians in Britain, she suggested that we meet.
During the brain-picking discussion that ensued, to the various
questions put to me, I responded positively. To hear officially
that the British Library was considering holding a Conference on
‘diversity’ I was moved immeasureably! Why? Because after two
decades of working in a variety of ways towards greater inclusiveness
in various institutions, particularly in the libraries, museums and
galleries sector, now there was more than just a glimmer of hope.
Furthermore, as I soon learned, the focus of the Conference was
not on an ‘Exhibition’ but on the theme of ‘Exhibiting Diversity.’
I had long held dear the true meaning of the words Difference,
Diversity and Inclusiveness. When, Ms H said: ‘We are looking
for a high-profile’ person from the black community to introduce
and present the Conference,’ it was clear she was looking for a
person from a particular ethnic background. In the conversation
that followed, either knowing (or not knowing) that I’d been living,
working and writing about ‘diversity’ in Britain for a long time,
Ms H (an unusually young ‘Consultant’) not merely inferred, but
made it quite clear that I was a relatively new immigrant (though
I’d been in England for 42 years!) whose presence in Britain was
preceded by other groups. In her view, immigrants from East
Europe or the former Soviet Union and Afro-Caribbeans were
much longer settled and therefore more integral to Britain (more
British) than an ‘Indian-looking person’ like me from Trinidad.
Oh dear! I thought. This was the first time that I’d experienced
the undisguised privileging of one minority over another in a major
British institution! More broadly, in terms of ‘race’ and racial
superiority, this positioning and ‘privileging’ was indeed the very
approach used so wilfully and callously by Europeans to initiate,
justify, consolidate and perpetuate the all-too familiar effect of
racial oppression and the consequent horrors of slavery.

***
Eventually, the Exhibiting Diversity Conference was held on 27
September 2004 and I was very pleasantly surprised to read in the
‘Handout’ that the British Library regarded ‘Cultural Diversity’ as
one of the current buzzwords in the Museum and Archives Sector;
and that ‘although almost everyone would subscribe to the concept,
everyone is also likely to have a different view about what it is and
its place in their everyday practice. In principle, this would allow

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everyone ownership of the label which might be a fairly healthy
situation. In practice, the Sector’s view of Cultural Diversity
continued to be deeply influenced by the legacy of our Imperial past.
Historically our national institutions were showcases at the hub of
the Empire, illustrating the variety and diversity of its populations
and at the same time demonstrating the implicit power and control
of British administration.’ In effect, this was saying nothing more
that I’d been writing and speaking about for almost two decades.
But what followed in the ‘Handout’ was relatively new and very
much in keeping with the Mayor’s Commission’s view: ‘In recent
years however, the role of the diversity sector and the needs of its
audiences are no longer the product of an established consensus
about their heritage and identity. While cultural diversity may
well be part of some institutions’ self-image as sites of international
excellence, their own routine processes do not (as I’d been saying)
offer many challenges to traditional views of National Collections
or create an incentive to embrace inclusive practice. Some of what
we need to do in creating new models therefore is to encourage
institutions to consider with fresh eyes the opportunities and the
obstacles which are already implicit in holdings and acquisition
instead of simply seeing diversity as a programme of importing
prefabricated “ethnic models.” Exhibiting Diversity is an
opportunity to pursue a new approach, joining a campaign of
debate and action aimed at encouraging new thinking about how
to reflect not only on the Diversity of our audiences, but also the
diversity of their thoughts and aspirations.’

Containing exciting ‘buzzwords’ of a new vision, a statement of
intent, how much of the Handout’s was rhetoric? I wondered.
Put simply, at the outset, the Conference’s message was ‘how to
construct ways of meeting the challenge of cultural diversity.’
The word ‘diversity’ was clearly a step in the right direction. A
challenge? Yes; and for me personally after 35 years of championing
‘Diversity’ in the British Library, it was thankfully no longer just a
word whispered by a Director or Senior Manager in the confines of
an office during or a post-meeting chat along a corridor, but now
openly proclaimed. To all present, the British Library Conference’s
aims and objectives were admirable.

***.

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So far during the Mayor’s Commission debates and discussions,
my keen sense of history was especially invaluable; all the more
so because the objective of the ‘Commission’ was eventually to
publish its findings on Museums, Archives and Libraries in a
Report and make Recommendations. From the Commission’s
earliest days, there were a few people (including a British Library
Director) who did not think such a ‘Report’ would, given the time
limit, be completed as envisaged. I took the opposite view. And
while we Commissioners persevered with our work, in spite of
the daunting task of 15 head-strong individuals (‘experts’) often
necessarily disagreeing while debating and discussing a range of
issues, as time passed, I sensed an air of growing excitement among
fellow-Commissioners. Knowing well the historic significance of
MCAAH, my innate, unflagging enthusiasm found expression in
both verbal and written contributions. As we advanced towards
finalising the ‘Report,’ Ms Coaston, as Senior Strategy Officer,
requested that I write the Report’s ‘Historical Section.’ Responding
positively to this call, I wrote the crucial First Draft that would
underpin the Final Report.

Prior to completion, Drafts of other Sections of the Report were
circulated to which, I duly offered my contribution. For example, on
‘Education For Life,’ I felt bound to state: ‘that this crucial chapter
(‘Education for life’) exposes the paucity of historical resources,
what is missing and what are needed as correctives, indeed what
comes through powerfully is the urgent need for, as the chapter
states, a holistic, integrative non-Eurocentric text and context;
a history that is inclusive; a history about roots and routes that
provides not only a general framework, but also illustrative detail
which takes a long view; one that is an alternative…to traditional
“British” histories. In other words, a history that covers a 500
year period encompassing colonisation, slavery, indentureship and
migrations (from the far-flung Empire to the ‘Empire Within’) and
necessarily difference, identities and cultures.’

In essence, this response more or less expressed the view contained
in my lectures and talks over two decades, which predated the
British Library’s Conference ‘Handout.’ If nothing else, I felt my
role as ‘Historian’ fully justified my inclusion on the Commission
for I’d written a much needed educational resource highlighting
the vital importance of ‘HISTORY,’ and how the past had

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impacted on my personal quest, indeed my crusade in promoting
‘RESPECT FOR DIFFERENCE.’ Now, as a starting point, I
suggested that most if not all of the main concerns expressed in
the perceived gaps in the ‘Education for Life’ chapter of the Report
are contained in an inclusive history of Britain entitled Reimaging
Britain: 500 Years of Black and Asian History. I conveyed this to
the Commissioner responsible for writing the ‘Education’ section,
essentially because, to my great surprise, this person was yet another
example of a ‘professional’ who was charged with formulating and
thus determining educational policy, but knew nothing about the
above-named, well-known book. Furthermore, I stated that as
“the only history book of its kind, I have seen no reference (in the
Draft of the Report) to this text (Reimaging Britain) … which
may well be an understandable oversight, but I feel bound to
raise the matter because WE on the Commission, should guard
against the charge We make of “deracination” and the fact that
British publishers are not publishing our “hidden” histories, when
We ourselves (as Heritage Commissioners) may omit fundamental
resources that do exist. ’
Taken together, in spite of much talk about Empire, race, history,
culture and diversity (after 40 years of relentless research and writing)
I still found myself arguing for due consideration to be given to
books that I deemed to be key and timely texts; vital resources
for British schools and universities. Eventually the Commission
agreed to include ‘overlooked’ educational texts. In its published
Report: Delivering A Shared Heritage, the Commission stated that
Ron Ramdin’s Reimaging Britain ‘detailed an inclusive history of
Britain and should be compulsory reading for all Teacher Training
Agency (TTA) Staff and those in teacher Training institutions, the
Department for Education and Skills (DfES), QCA and Ofsted). ’

***
At this time of intense networking, soon after meeting Ms Mitricia,
Director of the Romanian Cultural Centre at the Exhibiting
Diversity Conference, she wrote to me in the hope that in the not
too distant future we would be able to talk about the Romanian
contribution to Cultural Diversity in Britain and, of course, in
Europe. ’ Her reference to ‘Europe’ immediately reminded me
of my pioneering efforts way back in 1991 when I’d travelled to

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Spain: first to the University of Seville, then in 1998 to give a
Public Lecture in Murcia, prior to which I had presented a Paper
at the University of the Sorbonne in Paris. Taken together, the
ripple effect of the small pebble that I’d thrown into the pond
of multinational, multicultural Talks and Lectures, had echoes
elsewhere: Indeed it seemed that among a variety of practitioners
in recent years, diversity was spreading and gaining momentum.
This Romanian Cultural connection (coming so soon after the
British Library’s Conference) was a significant reference point in
relation to diversity in Britain and Europe. Furthermore, Ms
Mitricia’s had expressed her interest in knowing more about the
British Library’s programmes and projects and invited me to
attend cultural events at the RCC in London. She also requested
that I ‘include her in the British Library’s emailing/mailing data
base. ‘I am sending you some info about one of our major events
starting this Friday,’ she added, and concluded: ‘We would be very
happy to have you join us at any or all of the film presentations.
’ Thus the ‘ripple,’ coinciding with a tidal wave of world events,
continued to spread.

So from the Caribbean and Britain, then through my public
appearances in Spain and France, now with a new Romanian
connection and the steady influx of thousands of European migrants
into Britain, Ms Mitricia’s interest and kind Invitation added to
the enriching mix, in particular, her attitude and positive approach
of reaching out was a good example of my core engagement with
‘respect for difference’ and its relevance to my ever-expanding
vision; an evident and insistent concern which I now attempted
to incorporate in my long-gestating first work of fiction: Rama’s
Voyage.
How could the ideas that so concerned me be incorporated in the
novel? After years of gestation, following the publication of Rama’s
Voyage, it was significant that the key themes of self-discovery, as
well as home and belonging were recognised in a perceptive Book
Review from Jawaharlal Nehru University in India. The Reviewer,
Dr Priti Singh of the University’s School of international Studies,
wrote: ‘Rama’s voyage is more than a voyage. It is a quest for
identity and self-definition, a search for individuality. Denied
to the peoples around whom the story is woven – the indentured
labourers from India on their way to Chinidad (Trinidad) as they

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knew it. While there are many others on the voyage who stand
out, the journey is centred around Rama, a simple yet powerful
name in Indian mythology. It is this simplicity and strength of
character that is brought out in the portrait of Rama.’
So far so good, I thought. With increasing interest, I read further:

‘Rama an orphaned child, personifies many traits – courage,
valour, humanity, love, forgiveness, but also personalized by a lack
of identity. He has no name and no home. He is a child yet to
discover himself; a wanderer lured by a “silver tongue” Recruiter
onto the ship because like most of the others on the voyage he
wants to move forward to a better future. He feels a general
uneasiness about his life and is one of those who are “in the middle
of nowhere, but going somewhere” in search of truth and a sense of
belonging. Unlike others who consciously seek the truth, to Rama,
the TRUTH is, “in an extraordinary way, revealed.”
Was India not home for the indentured labourers? Yes, it was but
they carried a part of India with them wherever they were, even in
the middle of nowhere on the ship. Eventually, the voyage brought
the Indians closer together because it was together that they could
help each other to survive. “Mother India” was for them “so far
away and yet so near.” ’

This separation from the Homeland was a telling juncture; a
pivotal aspect of the novel. The Reviewer continues:

Interestingly, it was in the final lap of the voyage that Rama
discovers his identity. Not only is his past and parentage unfolded
to him, he is also assured a part of his future. About his past,
he discovers he is the son of a King and one of his mistresses –
both of noble birth and as untouchable. At the same time, he is
bethrothed to Indeeya so that they can start their new life together
in Chinidad. Just as he is reaching Chinidad he is no longer alone.
All his life, whomever Rama forms an attachment with, he loses.
Yet, he survives. He discovers himself. And that is what the journey
is all about – discovering one’s strength in the struggle for survival
in spite of being “captives cocooned in the bowels of the Trinity
Hills, a capsule of sea-sickness, melancholia, disease and death.”
The adverse circumstances eventually drew the Indians together
like “moths to the flame of their common humanity,” irrespective

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of their class and caste, survival, not social rank or caste was of vital
importance on the voyage. While some of the higher caste still
looked down upon the lower castes, to Rama it made no difference.
“This was a matter which he little understood…It did not bother
him. For him there was no going back. It was as simple as that.”
The experience of the Indians brought them together creating
the “Jahaji Bhai” spirit, the “Brotherhood of the ship.” It was a
new beginning. A new life in a new country that would demand
great love and courage. The message was clear: “Truth is one, the
sages call it by different names.” Therefore, wherever you go, it is
ultimately the “self ” that matters and one’s ability to rise above the
self. To meet the challenges, life brings one’s own way and to find
the truth. It is a voyage into oneself to discover the truth and to
cross the dark waters (kala pani) of the once-in-a-lifetime voyage
and to make a future out of it. To meet one’s destiny and to end
one’s homelessness, the sense of “Un”belonging or lack of identity
in the “new land of the Virgin West.” This is the “other place”
where “homelessness would end.” Rama is greeted in this new land
by majestic mountains which remind him of the Himalayas and
high above the mountains a brilliant rainbow appears. Rama then
feels that “there was something extraordinary about being there.”
For the orphaned Rama the voyage had been an odyssey towards
hope, in search of the truth and a home. This then was HOME.’
In the Trinidad Sunday Guardian, another Reviewer wrote: ‘…the
novel opens up like a painting where each character reveals a story
in its own right yet each is used to cement a powerful story.’ And
here the Reviewer highlights the integral relationship between the
individual and the group in the novel: ‘It is like a tapestry where
all the threads are woven only to finally form the finished product.
For example, in the beginning through Rama we saw the man with
the “box” and to the very end the same man plays the harmonium
to celebrate their arrival. The characters are so well-coordinated
that it is like an orchestra using all its players to perform a piece of
great music…The shouts, the drums, the intense heat of the tropics
were images that grew and diminished, like the rising and falling
of the ship. Here again we see the author’s fondness of allegories –
the work is filled with a bitter-sweetness and melancholy, and yet
so realistic.’
Both the Trinidad Sunday Guardian’s fine In-depth Review and

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JNU’s Dr Singh’s Indian perspective on this fictional work pleased
me for they not only marked a significant milestone in my literary
career, but also recognition of the central character, the boy Rama
and his compatriots’ hopeful quest on their journey not only of
self-discovery, but also for home and belonging.

***
Among my ever-accumulating papers was an Essay entitled: ‘The
Role of the Individual in Society’ which I promised myself I would
read one day when I had more time: Just past mid-December 2005,
I felt that time had come. As I read, I thought of the Marxists and
Socialists (many of them well-educated Middle and Upper Class
people) that I’d known who hated the idea of the ‘individual.’
They thought that one was a greater person for surrendering to the
totalising effect of the social whole. ‘A great man is great not because
his personal qualities give individual features to great historical
events, but because he possesses qualities which made him most
capable of serving the great social needs of his time.’ I pondered
these words in my quiet moments. Thereafter, my reading took
a more deliberate, emphatic turn towards matters beyond cause
and effect to include philosophy: Greek-Roman, Indian, French
and German. And while the individual and society, the particular
and the general, concerned me as much as ever, my writings thus
far regarding particular, as well as the ever-increasing number of
groupings led me irrevocably in a certain direction: not simply
to recognise race and racism or sex and sexism and so on, but to
something deeper, more elemental and fundamental to human
social formations. Not only did I see difference as the ‘DNA of
Social relations,’ I also coined the phrase: what is common to us
is our difference. The application of these philosophical insights,
arising from experience, study and observation as expressed in my
literary work would, I hope, continue to evolve and hopefully
become even clearer.

***
A few days after my second novel The Griot’s Tale was launched
at the National Library of Trinidad and Tobago in Port of Spain
(capital of one of the most cosmopolitan places in the world)
another Launch took place at the Carnegie Library in San Fernando.
In advance several copies of The Griot’s Tale were distributed to

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members of the Library Book Club so that they would be fully
prepared to ask me questions. After my Presentation, a Question
and Answer session followed during which a member of the
audience, an Indian doctor, perplexed about my choice of the
main character in the novel, asked: ‘Why did you choose to write
about an African?’ I answered: ‘The novel is not about the Griot’s
Race. It is about his humanity!’ At this juncture, given that the
love story at the heart of the novel was a marriage between two
people from different backgrounds, a young woman Film-maker
of mixed Indian and African parents said: ‘Ron Ramdin should
be congratulated for his courage in writing this book about the
African hero.’ The plain-speaking woman had touched on the
very essence of my novel which was about identity, love, crossing
boundaries and especially respect for difference. In this novel I’d
been uncompromising because it was the very absence of respect
for difference that historically had led so often to racial subjugation
and consequently to the institution and justification of human
bondage.
Overall The Griot’s Tale was well-received by the Carnegie Library
Book Club Members. But just before the end of the Launch, a
man at the back of the room stood up. ‘I do not want to spoil
the evening,’ he said. ‘But it should be said that there is a group
of people in Trinidad who do not like Indians writing about
Africans.’ ‘Well,’ I responded readily, ‘such people should be
reminded that Trinidad has long been a multicultural country and
certain basic freedoms and human rights, hard won by people of all
backgrounds, should be observed. The idea that only Africans and
their descendants should write about Africans is a notion that must
be swept aside in today’s diverse communities. This quest for racial
purity is therefore not only a sad commentary on multicultural
Trinidad, it is also a redundant one!’

Such an alarming attitude among many Afro- and Indo-
Trinidadians towards each other may have inhibited the greater
success that I’d hoped for The Griot’s Tale in Trinidad. And now
decades on, I reflected: many things had changed, but some had
not. Respect for difference, remained a seemingly distant goal.
But, as ever, I continued to hope that attitudes would indeed
change for the better.

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This Trinidad experience was perhaps the best example, as good a
test as any, as I continued my relentless championing of respect for
difference in society. A further test was not long in coming. Soon
after publication of The Griot’s Tale in the Spring of 2009, I was
invited to give the London ‘Heritage and Legacy Lecture’ at the
Museum of London in Docklands, Canary Wharf. I accepted the
Invitation to deliver the Lecture which I titled: ‘London: Home
and Belonging.’ In essence, it seemed, my life and the experience
of migrants’ generally had been underscored not only by where and
what is ‘Home?’ but also by the quest for ‘Home and Belonging.’
In one form or another, these were persistent, enduring themes.
Twelve years before, when I gave the Cardiff-Whitbread Lecture
which I’d aptly titled: Homelessness and the Novel in the Welsh
multicultural city of Cardiff, I’d said: ‘If expatriate novelists feel
compelled to write self-consciously it should not surprise us if the
need to transform reality into a corrective artform becomes less
urgent.’ For me, the artform is essential and, as I’ve said elsewhere,
art is a symbolization of the experience of being and having lived in
the period during which the new novel that I am writing The Fields
of Lilac is set, through the imagination, the genesis and evolution
of this fictive story will necessarily come into being as a work of
invention and inventiveness. It should therefore come as no surprise
that this third novel is connected with human displacement and
something that I’d said towards the end of the Lecture:
‘It is now thirty five years since I stood looking out at the shimmering
bay for the last time as I waited to depart. Since then…I have
engaged in the fictive process, most recently in creating Rama’s
Voyage (the story of a homeless waif from the streets of Calcutta
in search of a home oceans away It is now thirty-five years since
I stood looking out at the shimmering bay for the last time as I
waited in the new and hostile world of the Caribbean plantations)
an historical dimension of my own imaginary homeland.’

While composing the London ‘Heritage and Legacy’ Lecture,
a sense of place was uppermost in mind as I drew together the
strands of history, immigration, cultures and identities. As tens of
thousands of migrants continued to arrive, in an increasingly more
complex multicultural Britain, my focus on Home and Belonging
in London was timely: Having been my home and sanctuary for
over three decades, no place on earth could be compared with

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London for its commingling of diverse peoples: an incredible,
bewildering place. No wonder, at this time, London was seen as
the world in a city; the global city.

Hitherto, I had read a great deal about London’s social history.
In his book London: The Biography, commenting on the ‘City
as Body,’ Peter Ackroyd wrote: ‘London is…half of stone and
half of flesh,’ and he adds it is ‘in a continual state of change and
expansion.’ Given this continuity, the idea and experience of
human habitation, of being at home in London had, over time,
assumed different meanings.

Geographically and culturally this great city had been ever-
expanding from ‘Inner London’ to the Greater Metropolitan
‘Outer London’ areas; and while all who live within its borders
are ‘Londoners,’ could London be said to be a ‘state of mind?’ If
London defies easy classification, it would, however, be correct
to describe it as an international city. Among others, it has been
home to William Blake; and if the whole world of nations and
races could be found there, it has been (and is) fundamentally a
city of ‘misery and suffering,’ so much so that ‘The bowels of God
had opened and rained down shit upon London.’ It is a city of
Contrasts, where poverty and wealth coexist; and where, as Blake
put it, ‘Without Contraries, there is no progression.’ Within
this diverse whole, it is the atomic spring and inventiveness of
difference that has generated and generates the ferment of endless
creativity. For the millions of people who inhabit the city, there
may be, as one writer has argued, as many different cities. In fact, it
is well-known that Londoners born and bred, who visit other parts
of the city, experience ‘fear and alarm.’ Why? In part, because
they fear difference. It is nonetheless this juxtaposition of totality
and variety of life in London that matters. As James Boswell had
written: ‘When a person is tired of London, he is tired of life…’
So London as the city of possibilities and vision is a reflection of the
interconnected world. Here, among the noblest and best human
thoughts had been expressed in literature: poetry, drama and the
novel through the works of Chaucer, Fielding, Blake, Jonson,
Smollett and Dickens, among others.

London artists, also engaged with innovation and change, have
expressed their vision. Ackroyd captures the relentless flow of

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creativity when he wrote: ‘Some of the great stories of London
concern those who have taken on new identities and new
personalities to begin again, to renew oneself is one of the great
advantages of the city. It is part of the endlessly dramatic life.’
Apart from Ackroyd’s work, another, different account, A Peoples’
History of London, laments the ‘forgotten history’ of the city
as the ‘world capital of revolution,’ and added that ‘in the eyes
of Britain’s heritage industry, London is the traditional home of
the Empire, Monarchy and power; an urban wonderland for the
privileged where the vast majority of Londoners feature only to
applaud in the background. Yet for nearly 2000 years, the city has
been a breeding ground for radical ideas, home to thinkers, heretics
and rebels from John Wycliffe to Karl Marx. It has been the site
of sometimes violent clashes that changed the course of history: the
Levellers doomed struggle for liberty in the aftermath of the Civil
War, the Silk Weavers, Match Girls and Dockers who crusaded for
Workers’ Rights; and the Battle of Cable Street, where East Enders
took on Oswald Mosley’s Black shirts…a city of pamphleteers,
agitators, exiles and revolutionaries, where millions of people have
struggled in obscurity to secure a better future.’
I have indeed borne witness as a player in London’s ‘People’s
History’ for like my predecessors from Wycliffe to Marx and the
Silk Weavers, Match Girls and Dockers, I too, in my half century
of activities (both as Writer and during my long-standing role as
a working class leader and thereafter) have struggled to make a
Home in the great city and secure a better life. Thus as a ‘sacred
city,’ we should also be mindful of London’s stark contradictions
and continuity.

‘If London were a living thing,’ as Ackroyd has argued,’ we could
say that all of its optimism and confidence have returned. It has
again become the “Capital of capitals” in every cultural and social
sense…The levels of the centuries are all compact revealing the
historical density of London. Yet the ancient city and the modern
city literally lie beside each other; one cannot be imagined without
the other. That is one of the secrets of the city’s power.

These relics of the past now exist as part of the present. It is in
the nature of the city to encompass everything. So when it is asked
how London came to be a triumphant city, when it has so many

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