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Neighbours who saw him come and go found him to be gentle and friendly, a good conversationalist who had once written a book or two. Further afield, Ralph de Boissiere, who has died of kidney failure at home in North Balwyn, aged 100, was known as an outspoken opponent of racism, injustice, greed and corruption, a passionate humanist with a vision of a just society. He was a powerful voice for the masses. The identity by which Ralph recognised himself was that of a creative writer. As a young man in Trinidad, where he was born, he tuned in not only to the cadences and dialects of the people as he learned of their sufferings under colonialism, but to their intelligence, their aspirations and their amazing strength. In his teens, he had aspired to become a concert pianist but, discouraged by his family, he turned to his other passion, writing. In the 1920s, he joined the emerging Beacon Group of writers in Trinidad and is now acknowledged as having been one of the founders of the West Indian literary tradition. Ralph migrated to Australia in 1948 and worked at GMH in Melbourne and later, the Gas and Fuel Corporation. He sought out people of like mind and joined the Communist Party - from which he later resigned - and the Realist Writers group. It became his habit to get up at 4.30am and write; he became the first published author of the Australasian Book Society with his novel Crown Jewel. The ABS also published his Rum and Coca-Cola (1956) and No Saddles for Kangaroos (1964). As well, his musical play Calypso Isle enjoyed a successful season in Melbourne in 1955. In 1957, he was in a party of Australian writers who travelled to China and the Soviet Union, and the letters he wrote home during the visit gave a detailed and insightful account of those places at a time when they were largely closed to the West. His novels were translated into eight other languages, but were not published in Britain or even the Caribbean until 1981, when Crown Jewel was met with rave reviews from Salman Rushdie and the New York Review of Books. Ralph's Tolstoyan breadth of vision - he took a course in Russian at Melbourne University in order to read Tolstoy in the original - and his respect for the strengths of women in times of crisis are among the traits for which he became noted. He had left Trinidad because of the strict racial and social demarcations that governed society there and on arrival in Australia was stunned to find how different its practices were. Children at school still had to recite an oath of allegiance to Britain, but an astonishingly egalitarian climate prevailed. On his first day at work on the assembly line at GMH, he almost ducked for cover when one of the workers looked up at the boss passing by and called him by his first name. "G'day, Harry," replied the boss. "How're your wife and kids?" Ralph never lost the joy of finding that here, he was, after all, a man. This was the start of his becoming a genuine Australian, a pride he was describing again less than a week before he died.
Blizzard, who studied to be a veternarian in Scotland, practised in Trinidad before moving to Canada in 1958. where he practised for one year before entering the University of Western Ontario's medical school, and there joined the Air Force Reserve Officer Training Programme to subsidize his studies. "I spent my summers when I was off school on Bases" Blizzard told Jenn Gearey, a writer of Air Force Articles. "First I went to College Militaire in St Jean, Quebec, and then I was sent to Trenton, Ontario., My next position was at the National Defence Medical Centre (NDMC) in Ottawa, and was one of the first three students to work there." At that time, Blizzard was treading unchartered territory as a black man, both in medical school and in the Air Force, but didn't think about it much because he says, "I was so busy studying but I remember being the only black guy in my class and one time a classmate asked me, 'How do you feel being the only black guy in the school? I just laughed and said 'As good as any and better than most!' I can't say I really struggled with it." When Dr Blizzard graduated in 1963 and finished his medical internship at the Ottawa Civic Hospital, he went back to the NDMC and became the first resident in surgery there. He spent two years at the Rockcliffe base in Ottawa and then was sent to Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan, as Base Surgeon. Having already obtained a Canadian commercial pilot's licence, Dr Blizzard started flying training on jets, in addition to his full-time job as Base Surgeon and Flight Surgeon. It was the most difficult thing he had ever done in his life. "The medical staff was very proud of me but some instrcutors weren't too happy. Here was this doctor doing the flying training part time and still keeping pace. But I worked hard; I did ground school on my own and studied in my office from two in the morning." And ultimately, in 1968, all of Maj Blizzard's hard work paid off. "My Wings graduation day was the proudest moment of my life, it was December 13, 1968. I did my jet training on a Tutor and advanced jet training on a T-33. Shortly after, the T-33s were sent elsewhere and everybody got their Wings on the Tutor." He was then sent to the Royal Canadian Air Force Institute of Aviation Medicine in Toronto as deputy commander of the Central Aircrew Medical Board. It was time to come home to Trinidad to pioneer aviation medicine in his country. After six years, in 1975, Major Blizzard rejoined the Canadian Forces, beginning a whirlwind of postings to Borden, Ontario; Goose Bay, Labrador; and North Bay, Ontario. In 1978, he was the first doctor on site in 'Operation Magnet', the first airlift of Vietnamese refugees coming to Canada from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. "We brought 604 to Canada " he told Gearey. Then came a posting in Egypt where he earned a United Nations Peacekeeping Medal, followed by one in England where he completed post graduate work in Aviation Medicine in 1980. He returned to the Surgeon-General's office in Canada as the advisor in Aviation Medicine, and in 1981 was sent to Zimbabwe for three months as a Medical Advisor to the Zimbabwe Air Force. In 1983, Major Blizzard went back to emergency duties at NDMC and was deputy commander of the medical clinic at National Defence Headquarters in Ottawa., which was home to him. In retirement from the Forces, Major Blizzard worked in the Department of Civil Aviation Medicine for 12 years as a senior consultant in safety, and later became chief of the department. A highlight of his civil career was a trip to the Soviet Union in 1990 when he visited the city where cosmonauts, and now Western astronauts, train, and to another city where rockets are launched into space. Major Steve Blizzard has accomplished an invaluable amount of work for Canada's Aviation Medicine, and also internationally, in both military and civil capacity. His work on the effects of pilot fatigue, jet lag, and proper in-flight patient care is among the most celebrated.
"I met Clare when she was still a cabinet minister and I've always liked her," the novelist says. Then he pauses for a moment before adding: "I also like the idea of the vet coming into the waiting room and calling out 'Clare Short'." To quote Mair again, Dabydeen has a "well-developed sense of mischief". His sixth novel, Molly and the Muslim Stick, is published this week. "It's about a white woman who was abused by her father, goes a little mad and starts talking to a walking stick," he explains. "The stick talks back, claiming to have Muslim ancestry. I've set the story at the time of the Suez crisis, which enables me to look with some distance and perspective at issues that are still relevant today - religious fundamentalism, the suffering of the Palestinians and the fear of the Israelis for their own survival. It's a book that seeks to explore rather than condemn or criticise." Critical acclaim Critical acclaim and at least five awards have come his way since 1978 when, as an undergraduate, he won the first Cambridge English prize with a collection of Creole poems about cane-cutters in Guyana. This month he'll pick up the Anthony N Sabga award for literature, the Caribbean equivalent of the Nobel prize, along with a cheque for £40,000. "In my mind, I've already spent the money several times over," he admits. He has been assured that he could have another £1,000 if he sold on eBay the painting on which the cover for his new book is based. "I wouldn't dream of it," he says. After all, not everyone has the chance to adorn a wall with a Derek Walcott original. The acclaimed West Indian poet became a good friend after Dabydeen invited him to Warwick to give a reading and, afterwards, invited Walcott and the entire audience to go for a curry. As a result, the owner of an Indian restaurant in Earlsdon suddenly found himself with over 100 unexpected customers on an otherwise quiet weekday evening. At the time, Dabydeen was director of the university's Centre for Caribbean Studies. He has since handed on that role and is now one of two professors in the comparative cultural studies department. "Warwick has been very good to me in giving me time to write," he says. Which might help to explain why he has been there since 1984, when he took up a post as lecturer in Caribbean literature. "I'd read a lot of VS Naipaul but not many other West Indian writers at the time," he confesses. "That's when I started devouring the works of Walcott and others. My speciality up to then had been 18th-century art and literature." William Hogarth has been a particular favourite. "He hated the establishment and gave high art to ordinary people," he maintains. Hogarth was the subject of Dabydeen's PhD at University College London, and the inspiration for his novel A Harlot's Progress, which looks at the 1732 series of engravings from the point of view of the black slave boy pictured within them. Dabydeen's own progress is a story that would test the imagination of any artist or writer. He was born in a one-roomed house on a sugar plantation in 1955, and won a scholarship to Queen's College, Georgetown, at the age of 10. "We had a solid colonial education modelled on the public-school system over here," he recalls. "That included Latin and strict discipline. We even had a tuckshop." So it must have come as quite a shock when he followed in his father's footsteps and arrived in south London in 1969. Dabydeen senior, an indentured labourer who had become a village schoolteacher, had gone before him in pursuit of more qualifications. "He finished up with a third-class honours degree in law," his son remembers. "But then he had to do it part-time while working in a cake factory." Racist times Those were particularly tough times for black and Asian immigrants to the UK. Enoch Powell's 1968 Rivers of Blood speech had stirred up already rampant racism. "When Powell died, 30 years later, I remember feeling quite sad," Dabydeen says mischievously. "Were it not for him, I wouldn't have had the drive to achieve academically. I watched him wipe the floor with opponents in television studios. There was no Paul Boateng or Trevor Phillips at the time to match Powell's erudition and eloquence. I remember thinking 'I'd better get to Oxford or Cambridge'." The fact that he made it to both was something of a miracle, considering that he was placed in care at 15. Not that he stayed too long. "I found myself a room in a house in Clapham, owned by a Pakistani," he recalls. "The social workers weren't too bothered." But his inspirational English teacher was. "He gave up his lunchtimes to teach me Chaucer so that I could get into Cambridge." He likens the culture shock of moving to Selwyn College from the Ernest Bevin comprehensive, Balham, to being "catapulted into privilege". And he disliked it intensely, apart from the library. "I used to have the odd surreptitious cigarette in there," he admits. "You couldn't do it now and I shouldn't have done it then. I could have burnt the place down." He shakes his head in admonishment. By now he has lit up the first fag of the lunchtime. To avoid polluting any room likely to be occupied by his 16-month-old son, Moses, he is standing at the open kitchen door, half in and half out of the house. It seems an appropriate metaphor for someone who has successfully straddled two worlds - the Caribbean and the UK, the poverty of predominantly black areas of south London and the privilege of overwhelmingly white Cambridge. "As a black person, you either surrender to the privilege and be owned by it or you try, very subtly, to make minute changes," he says. "I dropped out in the second year and went back to Guyana for six months to loosen my tongue. When I came back to Cambridge, I felt more confident." Confident enough, indeed, to submit those Creole poems for the English prize, and to win it. All the same, University College London suited him better. "Having the British Library on your doorstep," he says. "Now that really was a privilege." Yet after completing his PhD, he dropped out of academia altogether and went to Wolverhampton as a community worker. "It was Powell's old constituency and I couldn't resist it," he says. "Put it down to youthful idealism. It was 1982. My office overlooked a very lengthy dole queue. Eventually, I concluded that power didn't lie at local level. I needed to get back to where I had a voice." He duly took up research fellowships at Oxford and Yale before moving to Coventry. Since 1993, Dabydeen has been Guyana's ambassador at Unesco, the cultural and intellectual arm of the United Nations. "I get to go to Paris twice a year," he says. Not as much fun as it used to be, since the French also introduced a smoking ban. "I used to like those cafes where you could sit writing with a cigarette and a glass of wine," he reminisces as Clare Short finally leaps on to the table and pads purposefully towards what's left of the sandwiches. Curriculum vitae Age 52 Job Professor in the Centre for Translation and Comparative Cultural Studies at Warwick University. Also novelist, poet and Guyana's ambassador to Unesco Before that Director of Warwick's Centre for Caribbean Studies Likes Derek Walcott, Jimi Hendrix Dislikes religious fundamentalism; smoking bans Married with one child
A very unusual guru, he's a cross between Mahatma Gandhi and Bob Marley. It's obvious you're in the presence of a holy man as the fifty or so casually dressed people, mostly well-off whites, who'v gathered in a meeting room in New York City hush themselves in respect as the revered figure, who positively glows with good vibes, appears in their midst. Mooji, who was born Tony Moo Young in Port Antonio, Jamaica in 1954 but who's lived for many years in London where he once earned his living as a street portrait artist, smiles broadly as he takes his seat. On a stool next to him are two tins of a favourite ginger ale which he'll need to keep himself refreshed for the lengthy spiritual session ahead. Mooji offers a general welcome and it is time to begin what's called satsang, a five hour spiritual question and answer session during which devotees can ask their guru how best to find the spiritual contentment money and material positions have not brought them. A satsang, which in Sanskrit means an assembly of the highest truth, can take place indoors or outdoors. Spiritual healing? At a Mooji satsang in India recently, hundreds of people squeezed into a tent to be in his presence and later pursued the taxi he left in. Giving the people what they want? "I have just experienced what the disciples felt around Jesus" said a visitor to the satsang. Mooji had a similar effect on those attending the New York satsang, one of many such events he hosted recently while in the US on the first leg of a nine-month world tour which will take him to India, Brazil, Italy, Ireland and to Spain. Why, a devotee asked the guru, had she not succeeded in getting in touch with her inner self despite having given up her job and living a very simple life? Because, Mooji said, in essence, you're trying too hard. Why, a devotee complained, was he not sleeping as contentedly as he once had? Mooji laughed and, like a standup comic, told the devotee not to worry because he knew a man in London who hadn't slept for seven years, and this man, Mooji said, introduced him to another man who hadn't slept for more than eleven years and was, somehow, still alive. The satsang rumbled with laughter. The point, artfully made, was something to the effect of 'don't worry, be happy' or the Jamaican equivalent, 'no problem.' Advaita, the popular Hindu philosophy practiced by Mooji, says, in essence, that a person's inner self is the only real and conscious part of them and that recognising this will bring one closer to the true state. Mooji's version of Advaita does not seem to make great demands on adherents. The lazy man's way to enlightenment? To belong, it's not, at all, necessary to abstain from worldly pleasures. Mooji, for example, enjoys a nice plate of chicken or duck and is a big fan of the British TV talent show, The X Factor. Mooji has called his approach, the lazy man's way to enlightenment. "This is a kind of religion without religion, without doctrine," Mooji, his accent somewhere between Calcutta and Kingston, explains after his New York satsang. It's this easy path to enlightenment his devotees line up after satsangs to receive a big hug from him like children waiting to see Santa that've made Mooji such a popular guru. "Mooji gives his devotees what they lack most of all not enlightenment, but love," said a visitor to a satsang. Perhaps Mooji is so good at giving people what they want, and need, because he's been in need often in his own life. His father died when he was very young. He was separated from his mother, who migrated to Britain in the 1950s, for many years. His eldest child died of pneumonia and his sister, Cherry, was accidentally shot and paralysed by police in London, sparking the Brixton riots of 1985. "I simply help put people who come to me," Mooji says, "back in touch with themselves." To 'get in touch with himself', Mooji gave up his home and a job as an art teacher in London and set off for India in 1993. Mooji stayed in India for several years to 'get in touch with himself' He had no idea he would stay there, on and off, for several years, become a disciple of an Indian guru known as 'Papaji', and return to London where, after a time selling incense and Chai tea on the streets, would himself become a guru in 1999 after a group of spiritual seekers who'd begun to congregate at Mooji's home convinced him to begin offering satsangs in London and abroad. Mooji's disciples, which include an Italian filmmaker and a former French philosophy professor, now manage his website, record and film his satsangs for sale on CD and DVD, and are planning to make a documentary about him and publish a book of his teachings, Before I Am, in 2008. "I've been adopted by people in this role, I guess," Mooji says. "I don't like labels, but I don't mean to avoid the labels, either." It all started in Jamaica Though Mooji might seem an unlikely guru to some, those who've known him the longest say he's always had his followers. He was the most popular boy at his high school in Jamaica, Titchfield, in Port Antonio, where he was respected by the boys because he was a star athlete and loved by the girls because he was a good singer. His brother, Peter Moo Young, 45, one of Jamaica's top table tennis players, says he doesn't understand his brother's transformation, but is not surprised people follow him wherever he goes. "I have no understanding, whatsoever, of what it is he has become, but I tell you something about Tony, his personality always drew people to him in whatever he was doing." Still, though he's always been something of a Pied Piper, is Mooji, at all, surprised at what he's become? "I don't know if I can say I'm surprised, really, because I wasn't into looking ahead and forecasting what my future would be," he says smiling but obviously perplexed by the question. "That Tony Moo Young is now known as 'Mooji'? What can I say, except that's life."
One such person is Marcus P. Gardner, president of Jamaica Africa Development Association. Founded in 2005 in Jamaica, JADA is "committed to help" children of Jamaica and Africa by giving them the tools they need to fight against poverty, disease and ignorance, hence promote youth development through education. I recently caught up with Marcus at Port Royal Jamaican Restaurant in Queens , to discuss his goals for JADA, some of the challenges he faces and where he hopes to see his organization in the future. In our conversation, I saw a man touched by humility, embraced with generosity and inspired by the words of his mentor, the honorable Marcus Mosiah Garvey. Born on November 1, 1975 in the parish of Saint Ann , Jamaica , coincidently home of Garvey and also the legendary musician Bob Marley, Marcus says he is on a mission. "I want to walk in the same footsteps of Marcus Garvey and his Imperial Majesty Haile Selassie to inspire and give millions of black youths a sense of pride and purpose." The Jamaica Africa Development Association is based on similar principles of Garvey's United Negro Improvement Association. "That is, to uplift black people through education, self-determination and pride," said Gardner. "Marcus Garvey was the first man, on a mass scale and level, to give millions of black people a sense of dignity and destiny, and make the Negro feel that he was somebody." Today, JADA operates in Steer Town , Saint Ann in Jamaica , but is working to establish a chapter in the New York , this year with hopes of raising JADA's profile through increasing membership, fund-raising and campaigning for generous donations from individuals, foundations and corporations. Earlier this month, JADA received a significant donation of brand new school supplies and computers for Steer Town Primary and Junior High School from Foundations, Inc., one of the nation's largest educational non-profit organization based in New Jersey, that works with schools, school districts, community organizations, and after school networks to help children and youth nationwide to succeed in school and beyond. Emilio R. Matticoli, chief of staff at Foundation Inc. said in a brief interview with me, "it is the first time Foundations is donating to a charity overseas and is proud to contribute to JADA's mission of supporting childhood education and youth development in Jamaica , as we are here in the U.S. " Marcus hopes to build youth training centers and form a leadership academy through JADA. He asserts youths today lack a positive role model. "They want someone to look up to, but when they look around, all they see is guns, greed, poverty and corruption. I want to change that by offering them hope, opportunity and empowerment through the Jamaica Africa Development Association," said Marcus. "Charity begins at home. I want to offer youths opportunity and instill pride in them to go out and become productive and outstanding citizens in this world," said Gardner. "But first, everyone has an obligation to feed the hungry, educate the ignorant, and nurture the youths." Then afterwards, "when people have recovered from their bad conditions, their gratitude becomes the pillar on which we all rest," said Gardner, quoting Marcus Garvey. Today, it behooves many African- Americans and observers to understand Black History Month is not just about paying homage to leaders of our past, but about how we can take and translate their struggles and contributions into improving the lives of those less fortunate today, and providing a brighter future for them tomorrow. This Black History Month, I acknowledge Marcus P.Gardner for his efforts and commitment to helping black youths, inspired by the great political thinker and activist, Marcus Garvey.| You can find more information about Jamaica Africa Development Association (JADA) by visiting www.helpjada.com, or send an e-mail to helpjada@gmail.com. Editor's Note: Falana Fray is a freelance writer and publicist. Her work has appeared in Caribbean National Weekly News (FL), The Voice (UK), and Itz Caribbean (UK).
Even today, though, he has fond memories of Demerara, Berbice and all the other Guyanese places to which his father's job took him" Moving around was fun and an adventure. At an early age, I enjoyed meeting new friends and on reflection, it was a practice which served me well in later life. Being fairly conservative in personality, this was an experience and exposure which got rid of any shyness at the time' Some memories are stronger than others .'I remember going to the Regatta at Bartica and having lots of fun and I intend to revisit that experience on my current trip.' He says excitedly' At age 9, I once travelled on my own from Wineperu to Bartica and felt quite grown up, I wonder how many people will allow their children to make such a trip alone, in current times! After those adventures, Kris' higher education took place in Britain He studied at University of London, Surrey and Wales. Today, he is a consultant psychotherapist operating clinics in not just the 'Rehab to the stars'-the Priory- but another in an equally prestigious London location-Knightsbridge. He has in the past been a senior lecturer at both Surrey and at Charles University in Prague. He has had close links with the latter and the Czech Republic since an initial visit in 1991 which eventually resulted in him setting up their training programme for their own psycho therapists in 1997. Today, he is a regular academic and social visitor to the post communist Czech Republic. He is not unsympathetic to the ruling ideology that guided their lives for half a century' 'Too often people think of communism in the one-dimensional way of totalitarianism, but there are other dimensions to the application of Marxism.' he tells me 'This does not mean that I am a Marxist, merely that i believe there are some good aspects to the philosophhy' It would be fair to say he is a sports nut;a trait acquired at young age on the playing fields of of the Guyana coastal plain. Even today, in middle age, he is very sportif 'I have played cricket in the Surrey championships since 1973 at division one level and I still do for Epsom Cricket Club Playing in the championship has enabled me to play alongside some quality international players from around the world.' is his assessment. And cricket is not all. There are more strings to the Nauth sporting bow'" I play Table tennis at league level in Surrey and the Czech republic. Uitvlugt community centre is where I first developed my love for Table tennis and my desire to play is just as strong now as then '. The granting of the CWC to his homeland proved manna from heaven for Mr Nauth and just the excuse for the trip of a lifetime which he had long been promising himself" 'It fulfilled a desire that I've had for the last twenty years.Travelling requires effort and sacrifices. The trade off over the last twenty years was not particularly attractive, when one considered the difficulties in visiting Guyana.I am really hoping that issues such as crime, sanitation,utilities etc, will be better now'. That hope for a better Guyana springs eternal "I am aware of the high crime rate and also a high incidence of emotional disorders." He says offering his professional view 'If needed, I would like to contribute my expertise but it has to be done in an organised way.' His diagnosis of the state of health of the country and its' future is equally upbeat 'I expect to see People striving to improve and keep up with technological developments.I will expect that Guyana as a nation, will be aiming to be the leading country in the Caribbean and Central America. Luckily he is part of an organized tour on this trip.Like so many others in the various diaspora , the family roots in Guyana have been ripped up. "I know very few people in Guyana. my immediate family have all migrated to North America and England. I stand a greater chance of meeting someone familiar in Toronto, New York, Florida and London than I do in Guyana 'He says '"I am particularly looking forward, though, to meeting my relatives, who, unfortunately, I do not really know!" Coming home for World Cup may well be his swan song in El Dorado; a closure as his fellow psychotherapists might say "This may be my last trip to Guyana. Remigration is not a consideration' is his firm view 'I am settled in England and it is my adopted home. I have a very comfortable lifestyle and my future plans are to travel further over the next five years. The world is still a beautiful place and there are many places still to see'. |