A Tall-Tall Tree: Remembering Arnold Harrichand Itwaru
By Chris Ramsaroop, Kevin Edmonds, Mark Chatarpal, Lotoya Haynes-Francis, Terry Roswell, former students of Arnold Itwaru in the Caribbean Studies Program at the University of Toronto, Canada.
On September 16, the Caribbean Studies Program at the University of Toronto, and the wider community lost a generous scholar, poet, painter, community builder and public intellectual in Arnold Harrichand Itwaru.
For those of us who are coming together in this column to share our tributes and memories, we knew him as an educator with the booming but thoughtful, slow paced delivery, as a generous mentor who was deeply invested in challenging us as students and encouraging us to be critical thinkers about the wider world and our place within it.
There would be no Caribbean Studies Program at the University of Toronto without Prof. Itwaru, as he would be called by his students. Prof. Itwaru commenced teaching at the University of Toronto in 1995, inspiring thousands of students for over 25 years. It is fitting that Itwaru developed and became the first head of the Caribbean Studies program.
The program emerged out of a period of campus resistance. In 1990 activists were demanding that the University of Toronto divest from the racist apartheid regime in South Africa, and calling attention to the glaring absence of academic studies of Africa and the Caribbean on campuses. After a successful campaign, the foundation was laid for the development of a Caribbean program at New College, University of Toronto. It was an amazing period where students and faculty organized to pressure both New College and the Faculty of Arts and Science to develop courses that reflected our diverse communities. Students found an ally in New College Principal Professor Fred Case, a noted Guyanese-born scholar of French, who hired Prof. Itwaru to build the fledgling program. Under Itwaru, the program expanded from a minor to a major degree, expanding the course offerings and the numbers of students enrolled in the program. Caribbean Studies faculty member Alissa Trotz notes that the Specialist degree in the program was eventually approved after a determined effort by Prof. Itwaru and his students to demonstrate its importance to a reluctant senior administration.
For many first and second-generation students, Dr. Itwaru’s courses were an important bridge between their experiences growing up in the diaspora and the rich and vibrant regional traditions that continue to inspire students and activists the world over. For some of us, coming out of high school or other paths, the University of Toronto was a cold, intimidating, isolating and often dehumanizing place. Sitting in classes where our histories were erased, our cultures and traditions ridiculed, and our thinkers and poets deliberately cast aside and devalued, discovering Prof. Itwaru’s classes provided an anchor where we could ground with each other, speaking and learning about ourselves.
At a time when the validity of Caribbean scholarship was questioned in academic spaces, Itwaru’s classes were integral to our emerging consciousness. He redirected our respective worldviews to regard the Caribbean region as an important space for knowledge production.
In his classes we could discover and think deeply about Frantz Fanon, CLR James, Walter Rodney, Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o, Martin Carter, Samuel Selvon, Wilson Harris, Fred Case and many others. However, Prof. Itwaru’s classes weren’t places in which we were coddled. Students had to be prepared for Prof. Itwaru to challenge their ideas, but he always did so from the position that steel sharpens steel, and we strengthened our analyses accordingly in preparation for the next week’s session.
Reflecting on Prof. Itwaru’s unique approach to teaching, former student Lotoya Haynes-Francis stated that: “It was a privilege to be a part of the Caribbean Studies Program taught by Prof Itwaru. One of the most impactful moments is when Prof Itwaru opened our eyes through his teachings, the reason why so many of us Caribbean students choose a particular educational trajectory. He taught us to move away from pursuing education because we want to have a particular career path. We should choose to educate ourselves because we want to learn. That statement has impacted the way I look at education/school/life on a whole.”
Given his unorthodox, but deeply appreciated approach to education, it wouldn’t be uncommon for you to make an office hour appointment with Prof. Itwaru, knock on his office door and find half a dozen students in there already talking about current events, campus politics, class material, or all of it at once. These conversations would spill out of his office, into the hallway, onto the Toronto transit system and even to his home. Prof. Itwaru did not see himself as being separate from his students, and opened his home to students both hungry for a plate of food and radical ideas. This was all part of a deliberate effort to cultivate a community in which not just Caribbean students, but students of all backgrounds who were critical thinkers, could connect around intellectual endeavours on campus and find encouragement to make practical interventions in our communities.
The ability of Prof. Itwaru to reach students of all backgrounds can also be attributed to his politics and ethics of radical internationalism. Prof. Itwaru was a scholar of the Caribbean, but he also closely followed global politics, and could have in depth conversations about Iraq, Afghanistan, Rwanda, Venezuela, China, Vietnam, Cuba, Sri Lanka, Libya, South Africa, Palestine as well as the United States and Canada. Coming from Guyana, which was deeply divided along racial lines, Prof. Itwaru never bought into the division, and remained hopeful about the potential of cross-racial alliances. This sentiment was echoed by Itah Sadu and Miguel San Vicente, owners of Toronto’s A Different Booklist, a Black- and Caribbean-focused bookstore. Sadu and San Vicente remarked that “We had great respect for Prof Itwaru and his contribution in the field of anti-racism and anti-imperialism. We carried his books for his courses at the bookstore and he always made sure we were invited to his annual conference on Racism and National Consciousness. Truly, a trailblazer for the Black and Caribbean Community.”
Prof. Itwaru also shared his passion for poetry, taking many of us to Sunday poetry sessions, then hosted by the late human rights activist Charles Roach. It opened the door to a whole new community which blended radical politics, poetry, conversation and laughter. He also carried himself with a great sense of humility, never once mentioning that he was the recipient of two Guyanese National Poetry Awards, and often participated in student poetry groups on campus and across the city. Mark Chatarpal, another of Itwaru’s students recalled the lengthy conversations they shared about the political trajectory of Guyana, “I remember Prof. Itwaru sharing with me conversations he had with his colleague and fellow poet, Martin Carter. Every time he spoke about Carter and the state of Guyana, Prof. Itwaru’s eyes overflowed with tears. His pain encapsulated the day-to-day tensions that diaspora scholars experience in academia.”
Another of Prof. Itwaru’s former students, Janet Naidu recalled how his conferences occurred during a “time when there was a great silence on the subject of anti-racism.” A look back at some of the speakers at his Racism and National Consciousness conferences over the years also showed that Prof. Itwaru was not interested in providing a platform to “big names” and lengthy resumes. He deliberately used the platform to give opportunities to local grassroots activists, some of whom were in their teens at the time, but he recognized the importance of their voice and their work. This was one of the many ways that he tore down barriers between the university and the community, and there has not been a comparable event or initiative on campus since. For many of us, we would not be students, graduates or faculty without the direct interventions of Prof. Itwaru, who found creative (often mischievous, but always well intentioned) ways to support those with whom he shared common ground, going above and beyond for us, even if we lacked the confidence ourselves at the time. We thank him for looking out for us during various stages of our lives, but also for so much more.
To honour his long-lasting legacy, we will continue expanding the Caribbean Studies program as a space of both radical thought and critical resistance, providing the space to mentor and build burgeoning scholars similar to what Dr. Itwaru did for us. The best tribute to his memory is to ensure that the Caribbean Studies program continues to prosper for generations to come. The space that he built by bringing activists and scholars together with the annual conference is a necessity that should continue. One of the first scholars to introduce many of us to anti-imperialist and anti-colonialist thought, today this analysis is critical to understanding the current struggles of Caribbean peoples and how the diaspora can continue to build solidarity rather than mimic empire.
“...Men, like the forest grow in different lengths different shades
(This is one of a series of weekly columns from Guyanese in the diaspora and others with an interest in issues related to Guyana and the Caribbean)