Left of Karl Marx: The Political Life of Black Communist Claudia Jones Critique - Book Report/Review Example

?Book Review: Carole Boyce Davis, Left of Karl Marx: The Political Life of Black Communist Claudia Jones (2007) The book Left of Karl Marx: The Political Life of Black Communist Claudia Jones written by Carole Boyce Davis does what it implies in the title: it tells the life story of black communist Claudia Cumberbatch Jones (1915-1964) with an emphasis on her political career. The subject matter entails also a much wider and deeper set of themes around colonialism and those who resisted it, nationalism and internationalism, feminism and the fundamental questions of race relations in the middle of the twentieth century. The facts of Claudia Jones’s life read like a textbook model of the oppressed individual who turns all the attempts to put her down into an opportunity to turn against the oppressor . The book narrates the life and times of a poor black child born in Trinidad, who emigrated at the age of eight to Harlem in New York. After a period in the young communist movement, her application to become an American citizen was turned down, and Jones suffered persecution as a communist in the McCarthy era in America. She was imprisoned in Ellis Island where she suffered poor health until she was and finally deported to Britain where she continued her political activism. Far from being a crushing blow, this move allowed Jones to promote her political ideas to a wider and much more receptive audience. In Britain she is remembered as a newspaper editor, since she founded the West Indian Gazette, using experience she had gathered earlier as an activist with the communist party in the United States. She was also the founder of the famous Notting Hill Carnival which celebrates Caribbean culture and has become focal point for diversity of all kinds, including race, class, gender and sexual orientation. The mention “left of Karl Marx” refers with deliberate ambiguity to the fact that her ashes are buried right next to the grave of Karl Marx in Highgate cemetery in London. The physical location symbolizes also Claudia Jones’ lifelong ideological commitment to what was in her lifetime time regarded as extreme communist points of view. From the start the book is clear about the specific agenda which the author has in choosing precisely this topic. The very first sentence makes a telling statement: “The only black woman among communists tried in the United States, sentenced for crimes against the state, incarcerated, and then deported, Claudia Jones seems to have simply disappeared from major consideration in a range of histories.” (Davies, 2007, p. 1) The principal aim of the book, then, is to correct this omission and explain the central role that Claudia Jones played in black and communist politics, both in the United States and in the United Kingdom. The book then proceeds to paint an engaging picture of a deep thinker and talented public speaker who overcame the limitations of her gender, class and race to communicate some vitally necessary ideas which were instrumental in opposing the discrimination and oppression that was suffered by black people under oppressive rule all over the world. Davis summarizes Jones’s political position as follows : “she was seemingly fearless in her ability to link decolonization struggles internally and externally, and to challenge U.S. racism, gender subordination, class exploitation, and imperialist aggression simultaneously. It appears then, that it is the synthesis of these different currents of thought that makes Claudia Jones such an important figure in the author’s view. Others had, of course, reflected on these points and argued for action by black people towards specific political aims. The timing of Claudia Jones’ emergence into adulthood coincided with the second world war and it was her mentor Du Bois who most clearly highlighted the parallels between fascist atrocities and the traditions of Western colonial powers with respect to the people they ruled from afar. “I knew that Hitler and Mussolini were fighting communism, and using race prejudice to make some white people rich and all colored people poor. But it was not until later that I realised that the colonialism of Great Britain and France had exactly the same object and methods as the fascists and the Nazis were trying clearly to use.” (Du Bois, quoted in Kelly: 2001, p. 20) In fact the second world war played a critical role in upsetting the comfort zone of colonial powers and forcing them to concentrate on the threats on their own doorstep rather than on developments in the colonized lands. Von Eschen notes that India was to provide an example and an inspiration for beleaguered American black citizens: “The refusal of Indian leaders to support the British in the war without an immediate guarantee of independence had a powerful influence on black American political consciousness.” (von Eschen: 1997, p. 28) Claudia Jones took these ideas an applied them in her early activism in Harlem, bringing herself instant notoriety with the white establishment which was deeply worried by increasing Soviet military power and the advance of communism across vast areas of the globe. As a writer, she showed a preference for sweeping international perspectives, and she could see no difficulty in piling up multiple oppressions into one, and tackling the huge result with vigor. One could think of some western white writers, like Simone de Beauvoir, who gave up her left wing political views because she was dissatisfied with the entrenched sexism of white male communists in France, and concentrated on feminist ideas instead. Davies does not seem to consider the possibility that one reason for the relative invisibility of Claudia Jones in the history books, may be that she tried to cover too many bases and failed to engage completely with any single group. Certainly there is evidence in the book of a tendency to overrate Claudia Jones’ literary talents when Davies likens the 15 items of prison poetry that she produced to the classic work of Ma Rainey, Bessie Smith and Billie Holliday (Davies: 2007, pp. 101-112) Davies tries to present Jones as a black feminist heroine, and an intellectual, setting her up as a role model for black women in all countries, citing speeches and poems to back up this persona. On the matter of international black resistance to oppression, Davis depicts Claudia Jones as a champion of the diaspora and as someone who has learned from the mistakes that others before her had made in pursuing the interests of black working class people across the world. Her commitment to communism distances her from the idealistic but paradoxically hierarchical and suspiciously paternalistic ventures backed by earlier activists such as Marcus Garvey and Cyril V. Briggs. For Claudia Jones the struggle was not for a physical promised land that would displace the current inhabitants, whether these be in located in the American West or in some impoverished African backwater. Such ventures would only create a new black ruling elite, which would repeat the very crimes that had caused them to rise up in the first place. Claudia Jones envisaged a for a fairer future that ordinary working class black men and women could enjoy in the places where they lived, on equal terms with all other cultural groups who inhabited this space. This is no romantic idealism which envisages “redemption” of a lost black population. It is much more like a realistic struggle with the hardships of poverty and oppression in the contemporary world. Since women are, by definition, excluded from notions of “black brotherhood” their role in furthering the aims of the civil rights movement is to underline the irrelevance of arbitrary distinctions between human beings such as gender, race and class, and stressing the ultimate of all human beings to be treated with equal dignity and respect. Jones takes communism to its logical conclusion, and sees it as part of the solution to the evils of colonialism. In this respect her ideas run exactly counter to the cold war thinking of American and to a lesser extent also European political mainstream thinking. Davies depicts a certain specialized destiny of Claudia Jones, which ensured that she would be to be forcibly transplanted from the Caribbean, to the United States, and then to Europe so that she could develop a truly international perspective. Seen from this perspective, Jones was never a fully integrated citizen of any particular state, and so this made her all the more suitable as a supporter of the internationalist position, which represents all men and women as equal citizens of the globe, blind to the petty distinctions of geography and history that only divide people needlessly and create tensions. Davies idealizes the personality of Claudia Jones, perhaps in order to engender interest and enthusiasm in a modern generation which has probably heard very little about her, but she does not idealize the political theories that lie behind Jones’s achievements in the first place. The sacrificial cost of true communism in a largely capitalist and racist society is presented in all its grim detail and the unfashionable emphasis on universal sisterhood rather than selfish consumerism is quite clear. When reflecting on this book it is quite difficult to pin down why Claudia Jones emerges as such a conflicted character. Her achievements are astounding and they speak for themselves, testifying to her intellect, ability and strength of character. One reason for the relative obscurity that surrounds her may be that her ideas were simply several decades before their time. The world was not ready for a woman who took radical political ideals to their logical conclusion, and applied them in a way that was truly blind to gender, race and class. Her single-mindedness and clarity of purpose makes all other contributions appear half-hearted and at least to some extent a betrayal of black consciousness. As the title of the book suggests, her stance was too extreme even for the communist parties that she supported and at times helped to lead. This has meant that her legacy is downplayed and history books prefer to dwell on the more conventional followers of political dogma rather than this truly radical interpreter of deeper political thought. It is perhaps time for Claudia Jones’s contribution to political thought to be reappraised. Davies’s eulogy is too partisan to provide such a re-appraisal but at least it makes a good case for the work to begin in earnest. References Davies, C.B. (2007) Left of Karl Marx: the Political Life of Black Communist Claudia Jones. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Kelley, R.D.G. (2001) A Poetics of Anticolonialism, in Cesaire, Aime, Discourse on Colonialism. New York: Monthly Review Press, pp. 7-28. Padmore, G. (1971) Pan Africanism or Communism. London: Doubleday. Sherwood, M., (1999) Claudia Jones: A Life In Exile. London: Lawrence and Wishart. Von Eschen, P. (1997) Race Against Empire: Black Americans and Anticolonialism 1937-1957. Ithaca: Cornell University Press. Read More