Review
by Ben Soton
Billy Strachan
by David Horsley. Caribbean Labour Solidarity, £2. Copies of this booklet are
available from David Horsley: ukdavid.d@gmail.com
What
images come to mind on hearing the word anti-imperialism? Maybe Latin American
guerrillas, beautiful Palestinian hijackers, an African carrying a rocket
launcher, or maybe a fighter in the jungles of South east Asia or the mountains
of Nepal.
Often forgotten are the peoples of the
Caribbean who originated from Africa. Victims of the Trans-Atlantic Slave
Trade, taken from West Africa from the 17th century onwards to work in the
plantations of the Caribbean and Southern US states.
The Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade, itself a
crime against humanity, kick-started the industrial revolution in Europe. When
some of their descendants arrived in Britain after the Second World War racists
claimed they were “taking our jobs”. Had it not been for the suffering of their
descendants these jobs would not have existed! One of these people was Billy
Strachan.
Billy Strachan was born in Jamaica on 16
April 1921. After serving in the RAF as a navigator during the war, he settled
in Britain in 1947. A life-long communist, anti-racist and anti-imperialist,
Strachan was a founding member of the Caribbean Labour Congress (CLC). The CLC was founded during the Second World
War with the aim of representing the interests of Caribbean workers in Britain,
campaigning for the independence of Caribbean nations and orienting them
towards socialism.
The CLC, through its publication Caribbean News, was in the forefront of
anti-racist campaigns in Britain and Solidarity with the Caribbean people
against imperialism.
In 1953 the CLC was in the forefront of
opposition to the illegal overthrown of the left-wing government of Guyana by
British imperialism. It also showed solidarity with the people of Kenya and
against Apartheid in South Africa. The CLC, along with Caribbean News, collapsed in 1956 however, due to disagreements
over the direction of the organisation.
Despite this setback Strachan continued
with his political activism. He was a life-long communist and supporter of
socialist Cuba as well as numerous progressive campaigns. In 1959 he qualified
as a barrister and wrote a number of legal books, including The Drink Driver and The Law (1973). He also wrote the
influential pamphlet Sugar, The Story of
a Colony published by Caribbean
News in 1955.
The author argues that Strachan, despite
his great contribution to anti-racism and anti-imperialism, has so-far been
written out of history. He cites a number of publications, including Peter
Fryer’s Staying Power – A History of
Black People in Britain, which
make no mention of Strachan. In the introduction he suggests that Strachan’s
communist politics resulted in him being ignored by historians. It is for this
reason that a publication celebrating his life is long overdue.