IN A WEEK THAT has marked the passing of Caribbean revolutionary hero Fidel Castro, my own proximity to the illness and death of the former Chief Town Planner of Barbados, and Caribbean intellectual in his own right, Leonard St Hill, on the weekend of November 11 to 13, has compelled today’s tribute to Lenny, and a deferment of Fidel’s.
The Italian Marxist thinker Antonio Gramsci has championed the concept of the organic intellectual, for whom work is not a nine-to-five undertaking an organic connection as the producer of ideas for a chosen class.
St Hill was an example of the organic intellectual, for whom there was no retirement.
His letters to the editor were phenomenal, addressing: from proposals to modernising the game of cricket to urban planning issues, to his fulminations against the underutilisation of the “elderly”, who he complained were placed, like aged native North American Indians, on a canoe and sent down-river to die.
He continued to write on issues pertaining to urban planning in Barbados up to the year of his death. The current Chief Town Planner, Mark Cummins, has confessed that St Hill kept his department “on its toes”. Cummins may take comfort in the fact that St Hill also kept several academic departments at the University of the West Indies on their toes, for there was always a viewpoint to oppose, a recommendation to be made. Newspaper editors will also share this sentiment.
Almost every year St Hill would compile a new booklet, covering various public issues. Among my favourites are his recommendations for a five-person Cabinet and his collection of letters to newspapers.
I viewed him as a friend to the Cave Hill campus. I kept in constant touch, often inviting him to address students, since much of my own education has come from constant dialogue with the progressive and insightful minds of the oldest living persons whose perspectives can clarify present-day concerns.
After suffering a stroke in the middle of one of his usual erudite contributions to a discussion at our annual Patrick Emmanuel Memorial Lecture,he continued to probe the lecturer, ignoring alladvice to pause. Later, on his hospital bed, he showed no signs of being concerned about his impending death, and chose instead to discuss Brexit, Caribbean democracy and the need for people to supersedethe Parliament.
Up to when I left him, his mind was sharp, and his thinking clear. In between he joked about dying, asked whether the MRI was indeed the “light”, claimed that our bedside debate might have caused a second stroke, and refused to fall asleep in case he “did not wake back up”.
He is now in the deep sleep, but he has done enough to serve several generations into the future. He will be sorely missed. My condolences to his surviving relatives and friends. Forward Ever.
•Tennyson Joseph is a political scientist at the University of the West Indies, Cave Hill Campus, specialising in regional affairs. Email: tjoe2008@live.com