Williams, Eric Eustace

ENCAENIA, MAY, 1965
ERIC EUSTACE WILLIAMS
to be Doctor of Laws

I am indebted for the body of this citation to a specialist in Caribbean politics, who has left me no task but to abridge, I hope without mangling, the wording of this pithy summation. My only contribution, as must be obvious, is the closing paragraph.

Eric Williams is in many ways the most remarkable political leader in the West Indies. Where all others have built their movements on trade unionism, Williams has built his People's National Movement around his own person.

Following his return to Trinidad from the Caribbean Commission he set himself the gigantic task of educating the masses in his native island to a positive political awareness. He began in fact as a sort of political schoolteacher as, through his "University in Woodford Square" and other channels, he communicated his ideas to a largely naive and indifferent population. There is no doubt of the charismatic qualities of his leadership, although the political base from which he operates is strongly intellectual. It is therefore to his electorate's credit as much as to his own that he has been so signally successful: he persuaded Trinidad to support him and he took the Island into independence.

He is equally concerned with the cultural aspect of Trinidad life, of which he encourages every manifestation -- calypso, carnival, steel bands and folk dancing. He has persuaded native specialists to return home and at public expense to undertake critical studies of the Trinidad milieu. He realizes that the future will depend upon the
reconciliation of negroes and East Indians. His Government has expended great efforts to improve racial relationships (he has some bright Hindus among his civil servants) and to develop village centres. He is optimistic of Canadian reciprocity.

The capacity of Dr. Williams for hard work is astonishing. In an eighteen-hour day, and despite the preoccupations of office, he still finds time for an occasional return to scholarship -- his major political works being classics with far-spread acclaim.

He regards himself, not unplausibly, as a Caribbean Man of Destiny and as such is the target of all-round criticism. Some West Indians accuse him of being a racist, some negroes of being anti-white, the American press of being anti-American, his political opponents of being impatient of opposition; and there are local Jeremiahs who detect the elements of a one-party system in Trinidad. But his deeds speak for him. He recently recommended a white man for a knighthood, appointed Sir Hugh Wooding, remarkable for his independence of mind, to be Chief justice and renamed St. Augustine College "The John F. Kennedy College of Arts and Science".

As for the aforesaid prophets of gloom, I should myself inform this audience that the Prime Minister of Trinidad and Tobago has in a dramatic way confounded these critics by sanctioning more than one "non-governmental newspaper" and, I gather, "a reasonably independent television service", and that he has, sitting close to him on this platform, the very "entrepreneur" of these two democratic instruments.

From:
Cattley, Robert E.D. Honoris causa: the effervescences of a university orator. Fredericton: UNB Associated Alumnae, 1968.