Long Live The Caribbean Court of Justice

THE SUICIDE OF JUSTICE

Dr. Lester Simon-Hazlewood


In an epiphany moment one day, many years after I had grown up, I was travelling on a road away from my village when a giant, incandescent light bulb appeared and revealed the rationale for the seemingly irrational behaviour I had witnessed as a child in some of the inhabitants of my village.

When the debate about the Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ) digs up irrational, societal behaviour, coupled with irrational responses, we should call in the social psychologists and forensic anthropologists; neither of which I am.

My vote is a yes for the CCJ becoming the final appellate court of Antigua and Barbuda and the region. My vote is a yes because I have regarded the eleven-year history of the CCJ and I have listened to the objections and I am convinced my decision is the correct and logical one, based solely on the legal evidence. Nothing else.

A stark irony of historic proportions is being played out by those who oppose the CCJ and by some who are for the CCJ. When the argument moves away from the sterling work of the CCJ over its relatively short history, we run into contradictions. Yes, the CCJ is not just about the CCJ itself but also about how we feel about ourselves as a Caribbean civilization. But no, the central and essential argument cannot and must not reside in the societal package that encloses the CCJ.

If the yea-voters make the argument that the CCJ is essential because the Privy Council does not understand our local and regional nuances, then the same yea-voters cannot be alarmed when local and regional judges understand our local and regional nuances diametrically differently from the way we understand them.

This differential was the basis of the Observer Group legal case. It revolved around the legal concept of the stark nakedness of the constitution, compared to the inhibiting, tight clothing and aloofness of the constitution. To be fair, the Observer Group went to the Privy Council because that was then the final court of appeal. I am convinced that any such group going to the CCJ will get the same judgement that was handed down by the Privy Council.

The legal profession has an intrinsic problem of alienation from the public. The medical profession had a similar issue until it was forced to come to terms with primary health care. The journey from the posh doctor’s office to squalid communities and to health clinics to practise social and preventative medicine was not an easy trek for many doctors, whether trained at the University of the West Indies or in Cuba.

The CCJ is on a blistering marketing campaign that is almost perfect. The Right Honourable Sir Dennis Byron, president of the CCJ, gets a 99 per cent rating for his presentation, “Restoring Public Confidence in the Independence of the Judiciary”. His 1 per cent shortfall is for not admitting that confidence must be stored first before it can be re-stored. Additionally, the abject failure of the rank and file members of the legal profession, singly or in associations, to court, inform, educate and champion societal issues is a blazing backfire that bellows a loud wake-up call.


But, as Dorbrene O’Marde wrote, it is not about the CCJ. The nay-voters may be saying that they are dissatisfied with the lower courts and they want them fixed first. More deeply, they may be saying they are dissatisfied with their lives, with the way they see not just justice but many aspects of Caribbean life in general and the legal profession in particular.

This entire matter brings to mind the suicide of Kirillov, a character in the novel, The Possessed, by the Russian novelist, Dostoevsky. The reference to this suicide and the intransigence of people is not uniquely mine. The following quote from Stanley Crouch is essential.

“Negro Americans are not predisposed to follow people. They aren't. That's why there is always a certain element of chaos in the negro world because I think from slavery we just didn't like [follow instructions]. So someone telling you over and over that you got to do this, you know....I'm not doing that, just because you said so. Yes, but it's right. I don't care if it's right, I'm not doing it anyway. Why I'm not doing it? For the same reason Dostoyevsky said I'm not going to do it. So that I can tell you that I exist. So I'm just gonna mess your stuff up.”

Interestingly, Stanley Crouch, a jazz critic, with whom I do not always agree, was writing about how Duke Ellington was able to keep his band of dueling personalities together,

Kirillov decides to commit suicide because to him it is the most important act of self-will. A blogger noted that it is his non-cooperation act against his maker and hence his ultimate expression of unbelief.

I believe the nay-voters are not shooting themselves in the foot. They are shooting themselves in the head in a sardonic plea for emancipation from injustice. If this is correct, and if the reference to this intransigence, this inertia, this nihilism and this non-cooperation is correct, (I will take away my ball and stop the game), then there is only one way out of this uniquely Caribbean, societal, suicidal conundrum of justice. It is that voting for the CCJ must be synonymous with and predicated on a vote for reparations.

The Ballad of Andy Narell

Pan Man War

Dr. Lester CN Simon-Hazlewood

Anyone who likes music and loves the steel pan should find time to go to www.whensteeltalks.com and read the comments by, and responses to Andy Narell following the 2014 Panorama in Trinidad and Tobago. It is highly recommended reading with implications for steelbands in Antigua and Barbuda. The thesis, arguments and responses are almost as fierce as a real, old-time steelband clash, with the irons in front and the steel behind.

When we remove the periphery of this very interesting discussion, the central points from Andy Narell are that "Winning Panorama and creating music have diverged"; the great, winning Panorama arrangers pushed the limits; year after year we hear the same chromatic runs and gimmicks; and "the discouragement of innovation has been going on for decades".

Andy Narell is saying what many musicians and pan lovers are afraid to say. He has made similar observations before. I share his central remarks on Panorama as I stay awake year after year, to the very end, straining my ears and my sleepy self to hear something more, something different; something I have not heard before.

We have to separate the core of Andy Narell's message from Andy Narell's response to his own criticism. I listened to a recording of the semifinal performance of his arrangement this year and I think it should not be in the finals, as the judges at the semifinal decided. I listened once because I did not want to listen a second and third time to be more analytical. Judges listen once. I understand the harmonic ideas he said he included in his arrangement. And I share his desire to want to hear this short of harmonic complexity in Panorama. I love the African 6/8 rhythm section in his arrangement this year. The arrangement reminded me of Coffee Street and I even rudely referred to it as Bush-Tea Street because of the similarity of concept.

Andy Narell is facing a very interesting problem to which there is an equally interesting solution. When an arranger sets out to arrange for steelband, the crucial, inescapable, musical fact is that despite the difference in pitch and range, the similarity of sound from all the different steel pan instruments is in stark and obvious contrast to the wide variety of the types of sounds from the instruments in a symphony orchestra. Hence" Carnival of the Animals" by Camille Saint-Saens will probably not work as well in a steelband adaptation.

Arrangers for steelband will probably be better served, initially, by regarding the string quartet than the entire symphony orchestra simply because the string quartet has a similar handicap in variation in sound qualities. Harmonic and rhythmic interplay must take charge when variation in sonority and timbre is narrow.

The difference between Panorama arrangement as it is now and what Andy Narell is clamouring for, is inclusion of more harmonic and rhythmic complexities and less of the banal, formulaic, predictable, chromatic runs and other gimmicks. You can even predict when some of the gimmicks will be played, and go to the bathroom or refrigerator, or catch a quick nap and get back up, losing nothing much.

Andy Narell said it was just a few ticks faster than Clive Bradley's arrangement of High Mass, but I was not moved much by his arrangement this year. I must confess that this is probably because I think his Coffee Street arrangement is of such a high class that it was not surpassed by this year's arrangement of We Kinda Music…then again, to be fair, I have listened to Coffee Street more than 100 times.

What Andy Narell may be saying or wishing is for the top, winning Panorama arrangers to do what, to my mind, he does not do very well. Take out some of the simple musical gimmicks and add more harmonic complexities and variation in rhythm. What Andy Narell may be saying is that he knows the top, winning arrangers can do precisely that but they have locked themselves into this winning formula and refused to push the boundaries. How annoying it must be for him that others refused to do what they can do, to my mind, better than he. Panorama deserves it.

A local musician, George Jonas, suggested that if Boogsie Sharpe had done precisely what Andy Narell did this year, the judges and pundits would have hailed it as the best slice of bread and sleight of hand to have happened to steelband arrangements for Panorama. My feeling on this is that as Boogsie Sharpe continues to stretch the boundaries of rhythm, the boundaries of harmony will remain dissatisfied, frustrated and unfulfilled without similar stretches. Time, the heartbeat of music, will tell.

What Andy Narell is saying to us, in the final, reasoned analysis of this wonderful argument and subsequent melee, is to be ourselves, to be West Indian, to be like the pan instrument itself: different, and innovative.

Being creative and winning and pushing boundaries are the fundamental, unique and defining qualities in our cricket, music, language and style and fashion, and even our badness. Those Trinidadians and Tobagonians who are annoyed and are heaping buckets and gallons of scorn on Andy Narell are probably unknowingly upset that a white, foreign, pan player (who was introduced to pan by an Antiguan and Barbudan, my recently deceased cousin, Rupert Sterling) is reminding us, just reminding us, how to be West Indian.

Somebody Knocked Me

Knock Them Back

Dr. Lester CN Simon-Hazlewood


I was planning to end the year quietly; thanking God for my seeing out another year. But somebody knocked me. Somebody knocked me hard, hard. And I can’t knock them back. I can’t knock them back because it’s my fastness that caused them to upset me in the first place. Same thing my maternal grandmother used to say: I will read and read until one day I will drop off the edge of the page, like Christopher Columbus would have dropped off the edge of the flat earth. May I have some round paper, please?

And after I got myself in pickle with the knocking, I could not sleep. The only cure for vexation and sleeplessness is to write. Throw some good, hard words under the same criminal, son of a man, and pray, like a good Christian, the words seek him out, find him, and box him down flat.

This is how the story goes. Growing up and growing old on BBC, I should have fallen asleep that night, listening to the World Service, or to comedy or drama on BBC Radio 4 Extra. No. Too early to sleep, my fastness and me took to surfing all over BBC. Arsenal had drawn nil all with Chelsea and cricketing news was as annoying as the bothersome cricket insect chirping in the gully. The occasional, lone mosquito was glad for the occasion and circled above my busy strip.

It was so I came across the news that Andras Schiff, one of the world’s greatest pianists, played a hugely demanding programme of the Goldberg Variations by Bach, and Beethoven's Diabelli Variations, on his 60th birthday. The article, by Tim Franks, was captioned, “Andras Schiff: Why I won’t perform in Hungary”.

Franks wrote that Schiff had been described as the greatest musician Hungary had produced since the composers Bela Bartok and Zolton Kodaly, in the first half of the 20th Century. The article went on to outline the reasons for the rupture between Schiff and his homeland.

Schiff said he was opposed to the current political situation in Hungary. His criticism of the government was documented. The disturbing, expressed xenophobia and anti-Semitic stance of the “Movement for a Better Hungary” were recounted. The article reported that it was not just the government that disturbed Schiff. He was annoyed with some of the Hungarian people, who showed very little civilian courage, scared as they were to speak up. He delved into Hungary’s sordid past and referred to the deportation of half a million Jews to Nazi death camps. Schiff lamented that he had been threatened. Apparently if he returns to Hungary they will cut off both of his (piano) hands. He rightly noted that art and politics cannot be disentangled and that the audience matters to performers.

So what really knocked me and suspended my slumber? Franks said that Schiff could not understand how senior Nazis could commit terrible crimes, and in the next moment, listen to Beethoven’s string quartet and weep like children. What!?

I have to tell you that I took a long, tortuous journey from first dismissing and discarding European classical music to holding on to it with all the familiarity of a kaiso. I had to listen and read and play and listen again, until one day, in cold London, I found myself chipping to Dvorak’s cello concerto in a semibreve moment right after jigging to David Rudder. Classical music, including some of Andras Schiff’s recordings, comprises one third of the 19,000 plus songs on my iPod. Schiff can play and talk about Beethoven like the literal back of his hand.

So how is it that this great musician, this conveyor of emotions, this champion quencher of musical thirst, does not understand a simple, fundamental, musical fact? When the senior Nazis weep, they are not weeping for the terrible crimes they commit. Schiff knows that. The weeping like children is all about the collision and collusion of emotions that only music can release; that pure, naked, incandescent ecstasy that says the world is now what it should be; void of the evil and lesser ones. In the beginning was the word, and the glorious music after the inglorious deed takes them back to the script of primal, puerile purity.

It is all very disturbing to me because Schiff should know that the most maddening thing is to see and feel something that you know someone else sees and feels and yet they claim that the seeing, the feeling, these common human senses, are not all inclusive. They belong to them and to them alone, because they are the special, unique, chosen ones. Chosen by God even!

So we may have to talk until our throats parch and we become dehydrated. The other side will see our just argument and the financial proof, and still claim only they are entitled to make such arguments. They will claim that music and logic and right and reparative justice can change the world. But only they have the right and the authority so to do, if and when they feel to do so.

And so, this business of reparations, and it is a business, is really long, arduous work. But we have to do it because somebody knocked me and my people. And we are not going to take last lick.

No Steelband Holds A Terror

Dr. Lester CN Simon-Hazlewood


If the best way to honor your parents is never to refer to them in the past tense then I must go to the graveside of my father to tell him I now understand what he says about Hell’s Gate: Whenever North Star and other steelbands compete, the supporters of Hell’s Gate say, (in “beautiful arrogance”), that Hell’s Gate have to win; even if they don’t compete.

After a few years of skirting around a single tenor pan, I made a second, successful attempt to play in panorama this carnival, in addition to playing in the All-Star Band for the calypso semifinals and finals. If music is the food of love, Shakespeare warned that excess of it can sicken the appetite. In fact, my appetite for pan music has increased immensely.

Almost everyone knows that Hell’s Gate is the “oldest, continuously operating steelband in the world”. Relatively few people have had the opportunity to witness or take part in the continuous evolution of this profound and essential institution. I am truly grateful and immensely thankful for the honor and privilege of being accommodated by the band.

A panyard is a social and cultural unit that brings together a cavalcading mass of people. Like seemingly disparate musical notes, this gathering can combine to produce the most remarkable treasure of communal bonding. The sharing function of music must not be confined to the stage and audience interplay. Indeed, as most artistes will confess, what happens on stage is sometimes a mere pittance of emotion compared to the richness and entanglement of rehearsals.

The late Jamaican saxophonist, Cedric “Im” Brooks, introduced me to this wonder of music in the making of the community, one Saturday afternoon in the 1970’s in Patrick City, Jamaica. There were woodwinds and brasses and double bass, drums and percussions all over the yard with women cooking, washing and plaiting hair and children running about. If music is the food of love it must be shared to avoid the consequences of excess.

Learning the flat tune, the original melody, and the complex arrangement was a challenge. Here I was among players, some just one year older than my eight-year-old granddaughter, who absorbed the music called out note for note and phrase by phrase by the arranger, Maestro Khan. After about the fifth phrase, I had forgotten the first phrase and so I had to rely on getting the music sheet to learn from the score what they readily grasped by rote like new, eager sponges.

This learning by rote was most remarkable in the extent to which an entire evening’s lesson was learnt and recalled the next day. What did these children posses that I didn’t, apart from their youthfulness and the color of their hair? There were older players too, including adults. But the children’s ability to harness the dictated music astounded and inspired me.

On one memorable occasion, Maestro Khan called out a set of notes that covered all 12 notes of the musical alphabet. My fascination was congested by the sheer musicality of the arrangement and the nimble control of this musical gem by the children. In equivalent music theory terms, it was as if Maestro had taken the three primary colors and weaved all the possible colors from this trichromatic chord to arrive at a kaleidoscopic rainbow of sound. The children, and some of the adults, did not recognize the music theory of the phrase, but certainly they must have had understood this musical nugget in ways more than those provided by the sheer geometry and geography of the pan. Certainly they knew the physical layout of the pans very well but there must have been something else, some sort of musical, sonic logic that complemented the pan structure and made sense to them in similar ways to how music theory informed others and me.

This learning by rote that in recent years has being taken by Maestro Khan far beyond the confines of simple musical patterns, speaks volumes about the way children learn music and warrants a scholarly dissertation. It also translates into the way children learn in general, freed from the restrictions of early, excessive theoretical explanations and undue machinations.

Not only can these children learn, they can teach. They taught me a thing or two. I was informed, very respectfully, by my nine-year-old pan teacher that when I was rolling the notes, my entire body was shaking, and that only my wrists should move! I told her I knew but I needed more practice. She kindly suggested I keep practicing. The fact that she was always stationed in front of me suggested that other players reported my Parkinsonian musical tremor to her.

Regarding my initial difficulty using my wrists for rolling and other technical maneuvers on the pan, my older musician, non-pannists, friends, suggested an exercise that cannot be mentioned here in detail. Suffice to say it gave new meaning to the suggestion an adult female might offer a rejected male by reciting to him King Obstinate’s line, “Wet you hand and wait for me”.

The panyard generates order, discipline, respect and reverence. Refreshments give the hands a break from the pan sticks and quiet the stomachs. From the caring of the pans to the pushing and guiding of the trolleys through the streets of the city to the Big Yard at the Recreation Grounds for the pan man war (with weapons of sticks and pans only), absolute dedication and the overwhelming feeling of being part of history surround you and take you in.

Hell’s Gate is an institution that must be nurtured with respect for history and with clear, present and future planning. The stage is set for a wonderful journey far into the future from the start in the 1940’s. With Maestro Kahn as arranger and an eager cadre of young players blending with mature pannists, and a supporting cast of good management and sponsorship, panorama is simply one of the many things Hell’s Gate does well and wins. Indeed, much more than winning panorama is expected of the “oldest, continuously operating steelband in the world”.

As an institution nurturing a community ranging from children to grandparents, musicians and others, and going beyond the confines of panorama criteria, I now understand what my father says the supporters say: Hell’s Gate have to win, even if they don’t compete.

Benna

THAT ANTIGUAN CALYPSO SOUND

Dr. Lester CN Simon


The question is on the table: Does Antiguan calypso music have a unique sound compared to Trinidadian calypso? If so, what is it? Many persons contend that there is a difference. The very same, many people find it difficult to outline the said uniqueness of the Antiguan calypso sound. I am in this group that finds it difficult to clearly lay bare the differences. I thought it might be useful to open up further, the discussion started by Cleveroy Thomas, the host of a Friday night program on calypso music on Observer Radio.

Let us begin by lauding the contribution George Jonas made by calling in to the recent Friday night program on Observer Radio. He underscored the role of the musician, the more rhythmic aspect of the Antiguan sound and, as we discussed off air, the role of dance and radio.

Our examination of the Antiguan sound should survive and surpass the harrowing application of universal parameters that can be used to examine any form of music, be it calypso, classical music or jazz. There are at least four such parameters. These are the role of music in society, the functions of music societies, the quality of musicianship, and the commercial underpinnings that tie those in the music business to the music.

It is probably fair to start by saying that music and dance were born at or around the same time, twin members of the arts, one might say. To the extent that a society advances from a more physical to a more aural and cerebral desire for music, so too would the music in that society become kinder and gentler to the dancing feet. Music societies are often the custodians of the status quo. They would put on concerts in which the dancing member of the twins (of dance and music) would take second place, if any place at all, to the music used in ceremonies and rituals, including church services.

The presence of radio is crucial because with or without the hosting of concerts by music societies, radio allowed for the broadcasting of music to large audiences. Indeed, whilst such broadcast involved dance music, it allowed for music that was aptly described as “for your listening pleasure”. It would seem that the emerging polar positions of dance music and listening music might lead to a hybrid popular music that was somewhere between these two poles. Clearly, those societies that maintained some semblance of dance in their ceremonies and rituals, including, in particular, church services, might develop different hybrid music forms from those in the societies that did not. Look at the mammoth wave that followed Superblue after he won his first carnival Road March singing Soca Baptist.

The quality of the musicians seems so fundamental, it is almost not worth mentioning. What is worthy of mention is that origin and nurturing of the quality of the musicians and the calypsonians. It has been said that although musicianship can be improved by playing at hotels, hotel music in a country whose lifeblood is tourism, diverts the musicians from their role in the development of local music. This means that rather than a regular diet of local music for the demanding and thirsty locals, all we get is a jam-packed primal offering for a few weeks around carnival time.

Unless there is proper marketing and sponsorship, or music societies assist in the financial and other management areas of national orchestras, the commercial aspects of music can determine the success or failure of top ranking musicians and artistes, The advent of music piracy has challenged the way we get money from exposing our music to listeners (and dancers) but the internet is pointing us in a direction to help head off some of the piracy. More importantly, the financial future of live music in dances or fetes or shows is assured.


So now we have looked at the four parameters, what are the developmental differences between Antiguan and Trinidadian calypsos? Do not entertain the thought that simply because Trinidad is the homeland of calypso, that Trinidadian calypso is superior. There are many examples (I hate to mention West Indian Cricket, these days) in which the master has been surpassed by the student. Indeed, some say that is how it should be. If at all Trinidadian calypso is superior, our analysis must prove this, although the concept of superiority in music might reside only in the biased ears of the listener.

It is said so often by so many persons I respect, I am beginning to think it might be true. They claim that calypso music gets faster, starting on a musical meridian from Trinidad (slower) to Tortola (faster). It begs the question about the entry and penetration of radio into Trinidad, compared to Antigua. I recall listening to calypsos on radio in the sixties. Some were quick and jumpy but most of them were more for listening compared to what I saw (hiding under the counter) in local dancehalls. Indeed, I vividly recall the wild big-people dances, in which, on one occasion, a kind gentleman man handed back a woman her blouse, which she had allegedly danced off onto the dance floor, all by herself.

Worse, I luridly recall the even more physical dances I would see at carnival time; dances that poor little, tiny me, in short pants, had to put up with. Imagine big people who would otherwise chastise you at church or at or after school, now singing and demonstrating and remonstrating about some part of the male anatomy standing up for what it wanted. That sort of public, primal wildness would make a good parson drink off all the wine, and send out the server to buy some more.

With the migration of Antiguans and people from other neighboring islands to the Virgin Islands, these islanders would want to maintain their musical roots. They would probably end up playing faster calypso than the calypso back home, if their local, calypso music was only for annual celebrations such as carnival, and they were starved of a regular diet of local, dancing calypso in concert and in competition with calypso played just for listening pleasure.

As a society moves towards calypso for listening pleasure, the skills of the writers of calypso stand out. I have to report that, whilst it might not be a uniqueness of Antiguan calypso, many of our calypsos seem to be recitations or poems written as such, and then an attempt made to put them to calypso music; or is it put calypso music to them?. Such inorganic and aplastic calypso becomes almost as angular, and in and out as the geographical shape of Antigua itself. This is probably why, with the resurrection of the jumpy, up-tempo music of the Burning Flames, Antiguans once again took part in that long lost ritual of following home your band at carnival time; in this case, walking and dancing all the way from town to Potters.

Hardly surprising then that the Soca Monarch show is upstaging the Calypso Monarch show. The role of radio in stifling debate, in general, during a dark period of our history, probably had some bearing on the paucity of well written calypsos with acute and biting social commentary, except for the token allowance grudgingly granted at carnival time.

The question is still on the table, or is it now on the dance floor? What is this unique Antiguan calypso sound? Whatever the original, authentic, Antiguan calypso sound is, we have to examine it more to identify it. Its identification is not just nostalgic because we are now into a pepperpot culture of music. It is precisely because of this merging of cultures, that we must always be able to identify our own, just as a good chef, can identify salt, pepper and sugar, so as to make it a little sweeter and a little hotter. And then you can ( in typical Antiguan twang), drink some ice water. Or, if the burning flames get too hot, you can obey the command to take part in the calypso baptismal order, and again in Antiguan lexicon, take a jump and “bathe you skin” in Country Pond water.

Ducks! Ducks! Ducks Man!

NOUGHT INTO NOUGHT

Dr. Lester CN Simon

Sometimes, when you are overwhelmed, as one of my maternal aunts (King Obstinate’s mother) was wont to become, your only recourse is to stand akimbo and shout, “I will lift up my eyes onto the hills”. But when you live on a relatively flat island like Antigua or Barbuda, you cannot look to an exhaustible number of hills forever. Sooner or later, you have to look elsewhere to find a rational explanation for what on earth is going on in West Indies Cricket.

Having made the bold assertion, in newsprint “to rahtid”, that there was a divine and rational explanation for the conjoining of the Cricket World Cup and the bicentenary of the legal end of the British Empire Atlantic Slave Trade (BEAST), I feel compelled to find a divine and rational explanation for the dismal performance of our cricket team.

Divine and rational explanations demand a careful study of mathematics. After all, it was Euclid, the Greek mathematician, who said, “The laws of nature are but the mathematical thoughts of God.”

Imagine if you can, 242 runs divided equally amongst 11 West Indian cricketers. Each player makes an average of 22 runs. More realistically for the West Indies Cricket Team, divide zero runs by 11 players. The obvious answer is an average of zero runs per player. Division is all about sharing or distribution. When there is little or nothing to share or distribute, there is little or nothing to get. We West Indians know this very well. Sharing a little or sharing a lot is predicated on good management, realistic expectations and cooperation between management and workers. Some of us West Indians do not know this at all.

Now that you are versed in the practice of divisional mathematics, imagine that the legacy of West Indies cricket and the expectations of West Indian people are represented by a very large number. If, after watching the West Indies Cricket Team, you cannot imagine a very large number, consider the same 242 runs you imagined before. The prize-winning question becomes what is the result of dividing our legacy and expectations, or the number 242, or any number greater than zero, by zero itself? The quotient or answer is not zero. You cannot share or distribute something amongst nothing. It is a mathematical and absolute absurdity. This is what the West Indies Cricket Team has become. But wait; there is more; so rally round, according to Lara, the “Rest Indies”. By the bye, if the allegation is true that our cricketers perform better at night, in relative darkness, why can’t they bat? Do you think they are smart enough to get that?

The natural destination of our mathematical journey is the enigma of dividing the zero West Indies Cricket Team by the nothingness or zero of the West Indies Cricket Board, or vice versa. In mathematical terms, this idea is said to go beyond absolute absurdity and to become indefinable. If it is an absolute absurdity to divide a positive integer, like our legacy and expectations, amongst nothing, which is personified by either the West Indies Cricket Team or the West Indies Cricket Board, then to divide or share or distribute the zero Board amongst the zero cricketers, or vice versa, must be an indefinable, alienable thought.

To redefine ourselves in sports, as in life, 200 years after we have wrestled legal freedom from the BEAST, the two zeros in our sporting life, which mirrors our entire West Indian life, must be disbanded. We must continue to question the competence of those so called successful business managers who perform so poorly when they are removed from the trappings of hereditary, social and political connections.

Yet these are the very same business gorgons who are barefaced enough to talk about ordinary West Indian people being afraid to take risks in business ventures. The little sugar cake and lollipop vendor at the side of the road takes more risk relatively, every single, blessed day and would have done infinitely better. Incarcerate the kings! Incinerate the keys! And may the good Lord have mercy on your torrid soul if you confuse these instructions.

Nought into nought not only just cannot compute; it is mathematical heresy. Try it on a calculator. The better ones will give “error” for an answer. It is not just that you cannot divide zero by zero. It is that the very thought of it is truly the quintessential, incomprehensible and indefinable absurdity of West Indian life. My beloved aunt taught me this fundamental mathematical fact, probably because she knew that even Christopher Columbus, bearing maiden gifts of shiny things, can-cups and all, understood precisely that.

Knock Them Dowm

THE EYES OF MARCH

Dr. Lester CN Simon

One of a rare breed of black professionals, an astrophysicist, Dr. Neil deGrasse Tyson, has written a very intriguing essay called The Perimeter of Ignorance. He writes about how easily we call on God when we reach the boundaries of our understanding and forsake Him when we feel certain about our explanations. I am not one to argue with the brilliant and ebullient Dr. Tyson. However, I stand within the boundaries of my understanding, far from my perimeter of ignorance and I do feel absolutely certain and rational about one thing right now. There is a divine explanation for the hosting of the Cricket World Cup in the West Indies whilst we are regarding 200 years since the passing of the act, on 25 March 1807, to abolish the British Empire Atlantic Slave Trade (B.E.A.S.T).

C.L.R James observed that cricket is first and foremost a dramatic spectacle. If drama reflects life and history, the next time you witness an exquisite cricket stroke and someone says, “Not a man move”, spare a thought for our ancestors crossing the Atlantic. According to Hilary Beckles, this game we love and play so well….. “Was introduced into English West Indian society and promoted as part of the ideological armour of an aggressive English cultural imperialism”. Like all epic battles, weapons can be forfeited and used to destroy the original holder. Been there. Done that.

All sporting activities have a central, common value. If you are true to the game and to yourself, in addition to finding out how great a sport you are involved in, the game actually discovers you. It draws you out and shows you what life is all about. C.L.R. James also told us that cricket belongs with the theatre, ballet, opera and the dance. In short, cricket is pure music, a universal language.

It is in this context of what cricket is and that it embodies the concepts of fair play and gamesmanship, that the quest for reparations for the B.E.A.S.T and its consequence and legacy must be pitched. In addition, we must understand that the empire does not strike back unless we strike it. Hence, we must know that capitalism begot slavery in that the reasons for slavery were not moral but economical circumstances. Hence Eric Williams’ book is called Capitalism and Slavery, not Slavery and Capitalism. Eric Williams also recorded that “Slavery was not born of racism: rather, racism was the consequence of slavery”. The battle started on the economic front and it will end there as well, with a moiety of morality thrown in for good measure to help those who ‘fraid shame and whose conscience needs a cushion to rest on.

Reparations demands that we be true to our ancestors, ourselves and our children. This was part of the golden text of the sermon at the ecumenical service on Sunday evening past. The reverent banished all those who see reparations as payment of monies to individuals. Such idle and red-herring-type chatter must disappear when we contemplate and devise community-building reparation programs. In this context, the misbehavior of school children pictures on mobile phone of them having sexual intercourse and being involved in other lewd actions must sicken the memories of our ancestors.

Alfred L. Brophy defines reparation to include, “Truth commissions that document the history of racial crimes and the current liabilities for those crimes, apologies that acknowledge liability, any payment to settle those accounts.” Cleary, the act of reparation is a self discovering act. It is a process that Europe and America must undertake. They must say yes to the fact that the transatlantic slave trade created the bedrock of the modern capitalist system. We West Indians can proclaim in many parts of Europe and America: We built this city. On dock, block and sold.

When you have committed wrong or you have gained from the commission of wrongdoing, the act of recognizing the truth, offering valid apologies and payment is a constitutive part of the English game of cricket. In cricket, or any other sport, repairing damages can help you discover who you really are. Sir Vivian Richards did that after the debacle in the Antigua Recreations Grounds when we was a young, effervescent and arrogant cricketer. What do Europe and America fear? Themselves? Self-discovery is an integral part of life and nation building. We West Indians know this because Christopher Columbus did not discover the West Indies, the West Indies discovered Christopher Columbus.

Sir Vivian

BRING ON THE KNIGHTS

Sir Vivian may not be the best man for the job of coaching. There are many examples of great men who are incapable of coaching lesser mortals. This basic fact applies to sports, medicine, music, and I dare say, to all vocations. A few years ago, I asked the best pan man in the world to explain why he chose a particular set of notes on top of a specific progression of chords. His response was: it was the most natural thing to play. A similar response came from a neurosurgeon in a successful, difficult operation in which he made a seemingly unorthodox incision. Great men seem to have a multidimensional view in which space and time converge. They may not understand that lesser mortals are still struggling with basic two-dimensional length and breadth.

Why then was Sir Vivian such a great captain? I have heard it said, by those who should know, that Lloyd was a good captain because he had a great team. I have not heard similar words about Sir Vivian’s captaincy. But is it not true that Sir Vivian’s men were, at best, men who could respond to his demands? Such a response would require basic skills that seem to be lacking in too many cricketers today.

There are many examples of men of lesser rank being called upon to put a team through the ropes while the great man fulfills a different role. We see this in a drill sergeant, a first violinist or a leading pan man who rehearses the orchestra until the conductor takes over, a junior doctor preparing medical student for the consultant, etc. This begs the question: what is the role of Sir Vivian or the other Knights of West Indies Cricket?

I have approached this issue from the perspective that there was no intention whatsoever to humiliate Sir Vivian. Therefore, I have to conclude that the WICB is thoroughly and constitutively confused. I agree with the statement about not letting out information on certain matters of the WICB and that one would not expect similar a disclosure from a private company. But therein lies the paradox: The WICB is not a private business even though it may have to deploy some private business practices. And the WICB is not a public, government organization either. How is the WICD constituted? If it is derived from the regional cricket associations and boards then we the West Indian people must play a more meaningful part in our local (village, parish) and national cricket teams, associations and boards.

The whole structure, constitution, and management style and fashion of the WICB must be reviewed. There must be a way to bring the Knights of cricket to the WICB round table. Are the WICB members afraid of the King and the Knight? The time has come for us to make a meaningful input into our cricket.

In short, all of us must “get some thing and bat”.