Monday, 20 June 2011
Sunday, 29 May 2011
2011 ICS Inaugural Academic Conference on International Football: Ideology, Culture, Politics, the Media and Everyday Life.
Call for Papers Call for Papers Call for Papers
The University of the West Indies, the Institute of Caribbean Studies and the Department of Sport extends an invitation and welcome to all institutions, organizations, administrators, coaches, academics, individuals and others interested in the sport of football to participate in the INAUGURAL ACADEMIC CONFERENCE ON INTERNATIONAL FOOTBALL to be held at the University of the West Indies, Mona, St. Andrew, JAMAICA from November 23rd to 26th, 2011. The deadline for submission of proposal is 31st July 2011. Proposals should be no longer than 150 words and should be sent to: academicfootballconference@gmail.com or blaqnity@yahoo.com
Introduction
Football was introduced in the Caribbean towards the end of the 19th century by the British colonial settlers and soldiers who used games and sport as a 'tool' for recreation, relaxation and control. Jamaica played its first international match in 1925 against Haiti. In 1965 under the leadership of Brazilian coach Jorge Penna, Jamaica made its first attempt at World Cup qualification, in their bid to be a part of the 1966 World Cup Finals in England. It was the Captain Horace Burrell led Jamaica Football Federation, Brazilian technical director Rene Simoes and National coach Carl Brown, who steered the Jamaican team to success in Qualifying for the FIFA World Cup in 1998. In so doing, Jamaica became the first English speaking Caribbean country to qualify for the World Cup finals. The experience(s) of attempting to qualify national teams for the quadrennial FIFA World Cup competitions have exposed the country to many of the international issues concerning the role of football in the shaping of societies globally. To that end, research papers are welcomed on the following themes:
- The role of football in social history, culture, psycho-emotional philosophical, economic and political aspects of human development.
- Football at the intersections of power, race, color, class, gender, religion and the media.
- International Football (in Africa, Asia, Europe, South America, Central and North America, Oceania, the Caribbean)
- Elements that determine the ethos of amateur, semi-professional, professional and international play, games and sport
- Methodologies for football development at the individual, family, community, school, club, business, government, national and regional levels.
- Strategizing Jamaica World Cup 2022 and beyond.
Organizing Conference Chairman: Dr. Don Davis
Wednesday, 25 May 2011
Crisis In Sporting Identity: Who Am I ?
There is a profound identity crisis fueled by the critical uncertainty in identifying Self as Black, Negro, Colored folk, West Indian, Caribbean, African , hyphenated-African or descendant of African. This is exacerbated, for example,when the West Indies cricket team, in their quest for sporting supremacy ventures onto the sub-continent to play against India, a peculiar identity-issue is exposed.
How did a vast number of enslaved Africans taken mostly from the west coast of the African continent become trans formed into west ' Indian’ players while the non-African members of the same regional cricket team maintain their identities as [East] Indians. Can the East Indians be West Indians? Just who or what then is a “west” Indian? The Australian, Pakistani, Sri Lankan and English man for example, suffer from no such connundrum. What was the nature of these men and who were those players who refashioned a 'gentleman's game' into a 'tool' for resistance to an oppressive colonial and racial order?
Looking Beyond Africa
From a geographical view point on the island of Barbados, there is a section of the island that is lashed by the Atlantic Ocean and another side of the island that is lapped by the Caribbean Sea. This begs the question: ‘ WHO draws the lie (imaginary line)to separate or determine where the Atlantic Ocean begins and where does the Caribbean Sea begin??.Just what is the ANTILLES[now divided into two, Greater and Lesser]. from which comes AtlantI-an; and observe which group of People have been Carried-be-Yond... ..the consciousness of Them Selves.
The notion of the Caribbean and the West Indies is an obvious 'construction of convenience' to maintain control over land, sea, people, space and time .Before the coming of the Europeans into the southern Hemisphere, the Region was called the ANTILLES. Hayti was once dubbed 'the Pearl of the Antilles' for its tremendous power and wealth. Haiti remains the symbol of Black Independent Thought and Resistance.
The mountain top islands of Haiti and Jamaica in the Greater ANTILLES do re present the remnants of the "lost" Continent of ATLANTIS…..in the Southern Atlantic Ocean ... Pre -dating the Continent of Africa...Un Covered In the South ANTILLIAN Ocean...contesting Plato's view that ATLANTIS could be found at the Pillars of Hercules in the northern Atlantic Ocean. :. Who Am I?? More anon.
How did a vast number of enslaved Africans taken mostly from the west coast of the African continent become trans formed into west ' Indian’ players while the non-African members of the same regional cricket team maintain their identities as [East] Indians. Can the East Indians be West Indians? Just who or what then is a “west” Indian? The Australian, Pakistani, Sri Lankan and English man for example, suffer from no such connundrum. What was the nature of these men and who were those players who refashioned a 'gentleman's game' into a 'tool' for resistance to an oppressive colonial and racial order?
Looking Beyond Africa
From a geographical view point on the island of Barbados, there is a section of the island that is lashed by the Atlantic Ocean and another side of the island that is lapped by the Caribbean Sea. This begs the question: ‘ WHO draws the lie (imaginary line)to separate or determine where the Atlantic Ocean begins and where does the Caribbean Sea begin??.Just what is the ANTILLES[now divided into two, Greater and Lesser]. from which comes AtlantI-an; and observe which group of People have been Carried-be-Yond... ..the consciousness of Them Selves.
The notion of the Caribbean and the West Indies is an obvious 'construction of convenience' to maintain control over land, sea, people, space and time .Before the coming of the Europeans into the southern Hemisphere, the Region was called the ANTILLES. Hayti was once dubbed 'the Pearl of the Antilles' for its tremendous power and wealth. Haiti remains the symbol of Black Independent Thought and Resistance.
The mountain top islands of Haiti and Jamaica in the Greater ANTILLES do re present the remnants of the "lost" Continent of ATLANTIS…..in the Southern Atlantic Ocean ... Pre -dating the Continent of Africa...Un Covered In the South ANTILLIAN Ocean...contesting Plato's view that ATLANTIS could be found at the Pillars of Hercules in the northern Atlantic Ocean. :. Who Am I?? More anon.
2010 Reggae Boyz Post World Cup Eliminations Analysis
And so we prayed for evil to befall the Honduran team and for the Gods to listen to the Mexicans prayer for a victory over Honduras; But the Mexicans couldnt even help themselves and our prayers were defeated by the Gods of Honduras who forced an own goal againt the Mexican team and giving Honduras group honors. In short, Honduras preyed on Mexico for a 1-0 victory and guaranteed themselves a place in the Final Group of Six. Mexico with their 10 points were already half way home leading by a significantly greated goal difference over Jamaica. So despite the Reggae Boyz carving out an emphatic 3-0 victory over Canada...the die had already been cast; and the people left the National Stadium befuddled,bemused and subdued in their anger...wondering what could have been if only... as the Reggae Boyz won the game but lost the war. All because of two critical decisions made by the president of the Jamaica Football federation Captain Horace Burrell. Burrell in vindictive haste to clean out the Boxhill regime swept out the baby with the bath water. Burrell's decision to unceremoniously dump the 5 times World Cup coach and technical director Serbian-born Bora Milotinovic for what he termed 'non-performance' technically has proved to be the achillles heel in the Burrell led administration design. Bora's short stint had revealed the lack of World Cup player material that was present in the national local leagues and the obvious need to build the National team on the base of the experienced overseas based professional players. The results of the matches played by Bora's men has affirmed this reality. EVERYBODY in Jamaica knew that. All except professor Rene Simoes. The second critical error commited by the Burrell regime was that of bringing back Rene Simoes at the time that he did, at a time when the overseas-based professionals were duly available for national selection. The Burrell-Simoes regime severely ruptured the local talent search program initiated by Milotinovic and reversed the process to square one when Simoes rejected Jamaica's best overseas talent, developed in the [8] years of his absence, in favour of using young local untested players in the critical first round of matches. His refusal to employ the likes of Marlon King, Campbell-Ryce, etc. and subsequent attempt to reconstruct Jamaica's national team on the base of local players was directly contrary to the state of development local football had reached. Simoes insistence of trying to compress the four year methodology used during the 1998 Journey to France into a 8 month campaign was always fraught with much danger from the go. The dangers have been translated into failure and the responsibility for this absurd outcome must fall squarely on the shoulders of the Maximum Leader Captain Horace Burrell. Burrell's show of arrogance while dismissing Bora Milotinovic and Simoes wreckless endeavors with the nation's natural football resources is tantamount to treachery. The firing of Simoes and the hiring of John Barnes and in between there lies Theodore Tappa Whitmore, only serve to confuse and confound the often over critical but naive observers and lovers of the 'beautiful game'.
The decision to axe Bora and the re-hiring of Rene Simoes has proven to be the 'dagger in the heart' and the down fall of the Reggae Boyz 2010 South Africa World Cup campaign.
The decision to axe Bora and the re-hiring of Rene Simoes has proven to be the 'dagger in the heart' and the down fall of the Reggae Boyz 2010 South Africa World Cup campaign.
Tuesday, 24 May 2011
RASTAFARI HEAD CREATOR: From Chattel Slavery to the USA Presidency
On January 20 2009 Michelle and Barack OBAMA take up residency in the most powerful Office in the United States of A Merry Ka... In Africa/Ethiopia, on November 3 1930 Ras TafarI was Crowned Negus Negast, King of Kings, Lord of Lords, Conquering Lion of the Tribe of Judah, Light of the World...the 225th descendant in the Lineage of Solomonic Kings.
The abolition of slavery in the western world in the middle to late 19th century brought a formal close to the most brutal and inhumane period of world history. The destruction of Black civilizations and cultures led to the degeneration of the African World View and the assimilation of alien cultural practices that required the abandonment of African traditional family values, language, historical knowledge and religious orientations.
The arrival of the Mayflower.... Paul Revere and the Boston Tea Party......the establishment of the Freedman's Bureau...The New Deal...are significant political events/milestones in the journey of a people fleeing religious and political persecution at the hands of their cousins... the British. Landing in North America populated by the Indian Nations of Cherokees, Commanches, Apaches, etc. posed a problem for the new settlers. The domestication of the Indian population was critical to the organization and eventual colonization of the North American wilderness. The original 13 colonies of the US are represented in the national flag. This history of conquest is depicted in a Hollywood blockbuster movie titled 'How the West Was Won'.
The formation of a Political Union between the industrial North and the agricultural South, once bitterly divided over the critical and fundamental rights of a human being to be 'free' or remain 'enslaved' created A Merry Ka...a society based on dynamics of race-first... generated Black African American resistance fighters who challenged the impugnity and dastardness......of a supremacist philosophy that espoused "superiority of the aryan race" and the "inferiority" of the BlackAfrican Mind.
From Nat Turner, Harriet Tubman, Booker T Washington, W.E. duBois to Marcus Garvey...in the 1920s... advocates of social, economic and political justice/equality for Black African people in A Merry Ka...and the rest of the world ..succumbed to the wrath of an unjust Order...evidenced by Officialdom's response of harrassment,persecution, imprisonment and death.
The emergence of Ras TafarI as a spiritual, social and political Resistance Movement took root in the belly of urban Jamaica. Disenfranchised Africans on the I Land of Jah Mek Ya formed a Vanguard for Resistance against the incessant injustices meted out to the population in the post Emancipation period. Inspired by Leonard Howell and brethrens, the Movement of Ras TafarI became the 'spiritual cutting edge' in the African-Caribbean resistance and struggle against oppression in all forms. The Crowning of the Majesty was the first signal that the Consciousness of Divinity dwells in the African Persona and the 'teachings of Rome' would now be challenged on empirical grounds. That there would be Ones in the Body of Ras TafarI who "sight up" HIM...as the Root of Jesse... posed a serious challenge to the government of Jamaica, the Catholic Church and the Power of the Papacy. The visit of HIM to Jah Mek Ya over 40 years ago[ April 1966] concretized the Image, Personality and Reality of Ras TafarI and exploded the myth that Black African People were bereft of [lack] 'divinity' and were pre-destined to be "slaves to their brothers", according to the popular racist-tinged interpretation of the Flood Story of Noah as recorded in the KJV Book of Genesis. Spiritual and mental liberation preceeds the social, economic and politcal aspects of liberation. Ras TafarI set the spiritual foundation for Leadership in the BlackSelf and energized the liberation movement in the West...a process that is set to reach a climax in 2009.
This "essence of leadership" and "revolution" was embodied and expressed globally through the Nyahbinghi music form [drumming/chanting/]created by Count Ossie and the Mystic Revelation of Ras TafarI... to the political and socially biting lyrical hits of the triumvirate Peter Tosh Neville Livingstone and Robert Nestor Marley...the internationally recognised Wailers... and the Army of Jah RastafarI Singers and Players of Instruments that preceeded, their contemporaries, and those that are currently on the spiritual and musical battle field.
Ethiopia's struggle against the fascist Italian dicator Mussolini and Haile Selassie appeal to the League of Nations provided Ras Tafarians with a Model for Leadership and Statesmanship that contradicted the general 'teachment' that Blacks were only "hewers of wood and drawers of water". The formation and vision of the Organization of African Unity(OAU) headquarted in Addis Ababa served to reinforce the powers of leadership within the Majesty. (I strongly recommend examining the very instructive Speech on Leadership by HIM). The Speeches and Teachings of Haile Selassie became the theoretical foundation for the intellectual prowess needed to balance the spiritual consciousness for development and sustainance of this revolutionary and liberating Movement.
On the North American continent., the struggle for 'dignity and pride' through access to education became politically defined as one of 'human rights', as the former slaves fought for acceptance as a full fledged "human being" ...having to continuously struggle against the effects of a racist ideology that suggests that the Black Africans are not 'fully man' but "two-thirds" of a man....implying that the US Constitution's claim of "holding these truths self-evident that all men were created equal, and endowed by the Creator with certain inalienable rights"...and did not regard the Black African population in A Merry Ka.
The struggle for the "right to vote" .. ...and eventual "civil rights" implies that the BlackAfrican population were never given the political recognition as Citizens of A Merry Ka.The move from slave to citizen for the Black African was fraught with terror and brutal opposition from the Klu Klux Klan and the white power structure in A Merry Ka. The list of Black African resistance liberation fighters in A Merry Ka is long...but mention must be made of Medgar Evers, George Jackson, Angela Davis, Black Panthers, Elijah Muhammad, Muhammad Ali, Malcolm X, Martin Luther King...advocates of social and political liberation for Black African people in A Merry Ka..victims of State-sponsored harrassment, persecution, imprisonment and assassination.
The reality is that political leadership in A Merry Ka rests in the hands of elected officials from the ranks of Mayor, Congress man/woman, Senator, Governor, with the ultimate power resting in the hands of the President wjho is also Commander in Chief. In 1972 Jamaican born Shirley Chisholm became first Black African woman to make a symbolic 'bid' for the white House. Other 'attempts' have been made, most notably Jesse Jackson. Shockingly, nearly 40 years later[2009] the descendants of enslaved Black Africans brought into the West through the horrific Atlantic Middle Passage.. to endure the bitter winters of North America and suffer on the cotton and sugar plantations of both North America [and the Caribbean]...have pulled themselves up 'by their own bootstraps' to ascend to the Throne of Leadership in the world's most powerful military and technological democracy.
It is cryptic that the ascendancy of the Black African Family to the Seat of Political power in A Merry Ka is at a historical moment when the Globe is engulfed in the end - product of a WAR unilaterally declared by the US regime. A WAR against ALL who look "eastern"... plunging the World into a War... against real and imagined TERRORists...using the elusive and mystic bin Laden.. located in some tribal hills on the border of Pakistan and Afghanistan... yet still can not be found...and the fabrication of Weapons of Mass Destruction as a pretext for the illegal invasion of a sovereign State in Iraq ...creating a deep schizm in the global political framework...setting Christian vs Muslim ; the Axis of Evil vs the Axis of Bush and his Allies; orchestrating a polarized world ... driven by my way or no way; either with me or against. A merry con... population driven by yellow and orange levels of scares and fear[anthrax]... now morally and financially bankrupt.
The real tragedy in this all is that after the Black African people in A Merry Ka have with their blood, sweat and tears built up the Great Babylon...built on the back of the African Slave Trade and backed up by Jim Crow Laws and racial segregation and oppression...it is the Black African American who is to restore sanity to a "very sick" society facing dire economic collapse and social chaos....both pending and unavoidable.
President Elect Barack Obama is now being courted to use his leadership skills, spiritual strength, intellectual savvy and all the attributes that were previously not accredited to Black African People to set aright what the dominating white power structure has created... from the first Gulf War to the un-finished War in Afghanistan to the un-provoked War in Iraq... bringing the mighty A Merry Ka to its knees and into economic ruin... the Great Depression of 1929 is a tempest in a teapot when compared the present drama that is unfolding.
With the entire world begging for a 'change in direction', the choice of a war veteran to replace the "incumbent warrior" has proven to be quite unattractive...making way for a second-term senator from Illinois to emerge as the People's Choice for the Leader of that desired Change...African American Barack Obama...inheriting an economy on its debtbed... a lone super power that has lost much face in the international community...the impact of Katrina, Halliburton, Abu Gharib, Guantanomo,..sub prime market failure...Fanni Mae and Freddie Mac, AIG, Lehman Brothers, then one 70 year old man... Made-off with US$50 billion ..leaving global financial and humanitarian agencies in tatters...including suicides...key industries falling apart at the seams: banks, housing , travel, automotive...fast rising un-employment and shelterless-ness...as A Merry Ka approaches the "end game" of its reign as the world's Supreme Power. There was Egypt and Greece and Rome and Britain... there is a resurgent Russia, there is China and there is India. Kingdoms rise and kingdoms fall. Africa is on the horizon. The cycle of life is inevitable.
It is Barack Obama and his Family that InI celebrate in the representation of the BlackAfrican potential "to rise" above the boundaries and borders created by men and people. The resistance against inhumane treatment of man to man continues. Take a look at the stripping of GAza. It will require far more than a Black Family to "clean up" the "mess" and restore the image of A MerryKa...inside and outside...one that once represented equal rights and justice in the eyes of the ALMIGHTY. Aluta continua! Ras TafarI Lives!
(c)2009
Dr IMAN BLAK
The abolition of slavery in the western world in the middle to late 19th century brought a formal close to the most brutal and inhumane period of world history. The destruction of Black civilizations and cultures led to the degeneration of the African World View and the assimilation of alien cultural practices that required the abandonment of African traditional family values, language, historical knowledge and religious orientations.
The arrival of the Mayflower.... Paul Revere and the Boston Tea Party......the establishment of the Freedman's Bureau...The New Deal...are significant political events/milestones in the journey of a people fleeing religious and political persecution at the hands of their cousins... the British. Landing in North America populated by the Indian Nations of Cherokees, Commanches, Apaches, etc. posed a problem for the new settlers. The domestication of the Indian population was critical to the organization and eventual colonization of the North American wilderness. The original 13 colonies of the US are represented in the national flag. This history of conquest is depicted in a Hollywood blockbuster movie titled 'How the West Was Won'.
The formation of a Political Union between the industrial North and the agricultural South, once bitterly divided over the critical and fundamental rights of a human being to be 'free' or remain 'enslaved' created A Merry Ka...a society based on dynamics of race-first... generated Black African American resistance fighters who challenged the impugnity and dastardness......of a supremacist philosophy that espoused "superiority of the aryan race" and the "inferiority" of the BlackAfrican Mind.
From Nat Turner, Harriet Tubman, Booker T Washington, W.E. duBois to Marcus Garvey...in the 1920s... advocates of social, economic and political justice/equality for Black African people in A Merry Ka...and the rest of the world ..succumbed to the wrath of an unjust Order...evidenced by Officialdom's response of harrassment,persecution, imprisonment and death.
The emergence of Ras TafarI as a spiritual, social and political Resistance Movement took root in the belly of urban Jamaica. Disenfranchised Africans on the I Land of Jah Mek Ya formed a Vanguard for Resistance against the incessant injustices meted out to the population in the post Emancipation period. Inspired by Leonard Howell and brethrens, the Movement of Ras TafarI became the 'spiritual cutting edge' in the African-Caribbean resistance and struggle against oppression in all forms. The Crowning of the Majesty was the first signal that the Consciousness of Divinity dwells in the African Persona and the 'teachings of Rome' would now be challenged on empirical grounds. That there would be Ones in the Body of Ras TafarI who "sight up" HIM...as the Root of Jesse... posed a serious challenge to the government of Jamaica, the Catholic Church and the Power of the Papacy. The visit of HIM to Jah Mek Ya over 40 years ago[ April 1966] concretized the Image, Personality and Reality of Ras TafarI and exploded the myth that Black African People were bereft of [lack] 'divinity' and were pre-destined to be "slaves to their brothers", according to the popular racist-tinged interpretation of the Flood Story of Noah as recorded in the KJV Book of Genesis. Spiritual and mental liberation preceeds the social, economic and politcal aspects of liberation. Ras TafarI set the spiritual foundation for Leadership in the BlackSelf and energized the liberation movement in the West...a process that is set to reach a climax in 2009.
This "essence of leadership" and "revolution" was embodied and expressed globally through the Nyahbinghi music form [drumming/chanting/]created by Count Ossie and the Mystic Revelation of Ras TafarI... to the political and socially biting lyrical hits of the triumvirate Peter Tosh Neville Livingstone and Robert Nestor Marley...the internationally recognised Wailers... and the Army of Jah RastafarI Singers and Players of Instruments that preceeded, their contemporaries, and those that are currently on the spiritual and musical battle field.
Ethiopia's struggle against the fascist Italian dicator Mussolini and Haile Selassie appeal to the League of Nations provided Ras Tafarians with a Model for Leadership and Statesmanship that contradicted the general 'teachment' that Blacks were only "hewers of wood and drawers of water". The formation and vision of the Organization of African Unity(OAU) headquarted in Addis Ababa served to reinforce the powers of leadership within the Majesty. (I strongly recommend examining the very instructive Speech on Leadership by HIM). The Speeches and Teachings of Haile Selassie became the theoretical foundation for the intellectual prowess needed to balance the spiritual consciousness for development and sustainance of this revolutionary and liberating Movement.
On the North American continent., the struggle for 'dignity and pride' through access to education became politically defined as one of 'human rights', as the former slaves fought for acceptance as a full fledged "human being" ...having to continuously struggle against the effects of a racist ideology that suggests that the Black Africans are not 'fully man' but "two-thirds" of a man....implying that the US Constitution's claim of "holding these truths self-evident that all men were created equal, and endowed by the Creator with certain inalienable rights"...and did not regard the Black African population in A Merry Ka.
The struggle for the "right to vote" .. ...and eventual "civil rights" implies that the BlackAfrican population were never given the political recognition as Citizens of A Merry Ka.The move from slave to citizen for the Black African was fraught with terror and brutal opposition from the Klu Klux Klan and the white power structure in A Merry Ka. The list of Black African resistance liberation fighters in A Merry Ka is long...but mention must be made of Medgar Evers, George Jackson, Angela Davis, Black Panthers, Elijah Muhammad, Muhammad Ali, Malcolm X, Martin Luther King...advocates of social and political liberation for Black African people in A Merry Ka..victims of State-sponsored harrassment, persecution, imprisonment and assassination.
The reality is that political leadership in A Merry Ka rests in the hands of elected officials from the ranks of Mayor, Congress man/woman, Senator, Governor, with the ultimate power resting in the hands of the President wjho is also Commander in Chief. In 1972 Jamaican born Shirley Chisholm became first Black African woman to make a symbolic 'bid' for the white House. Other 'attempts' have been made, most notably Jesse Jackson. Shockingly, nearly 40 years later[2009] the descendants of enslaved Black Africans brought into the West through the horrific Atlantic Middle Passage.. to endure the bitter winters of North America and suffer on the cotton and sugar plantations of both North America [and the Caribbean]...have pulled themselves up 'by their own bootstraps' to ascend to the Throne of Leadership in the world's most powerful military and technological democracy.
It is cryptic that the ascendancy of the Black African Family to the Seat of Political power in A Merry Ka is at a historical moment when the Globe is engulfed in the end - product of a WAR unilaterally declared by the US regime. A WAR against ALL who look "eastern"... plunging the World into a War... against real and imagined TERRORists...using the elusive and mystic bin Laden.. located in some tribal hills on the border of Pakistan and Afghanistan... yet still can not be found...and the fabrication of Weapons of Mass Destruction as a pretext for the illegal invasion of a sovereign State in Iraq ...creating a deep schizm in the global political framework...setting Christian vs Muslim ; the Axis of Evil vs the Axis of Bush and his Allies; orchestrating a polarized world ... driven by my way or no way; either with me or against. A merry con... population driven by yellow and orange levels of scares and fear[anthrax]... now morally and financially bankrupt.
The real tragedy in this all is that after the Black African people in A Merry Ka have with their blood, sweat and tears built up the Great Babylon...built on the back of the African Slave Trade and backed up by Jim Crow Laws and racial segregation and oppression...it is the Black African American who is to restore sanity to a "very sick" society facing dire economic collapse and social chaos....both pending and unavoidable.
President Elect Barack Obama is now being courted to use his leadership skills, spiritual strength, intellectual savvy and all the attributes that were previously not accredited to Black African People to set aright what the dominating white power structure has created... from the first Gulf War to the un-finished War in Afghanistan to the un-provoked War in Iraq... bringing the mighty A Merry Ka to its knees and into economic ruin... the Great Depression of 1929 is a tempest in a teapot when compared the present drama that is unfolding.
With the entire world begging for a 'change in direction', the choice of a war veteran to replace the "incumbent warrior" has proven to be quite unattractive...making way for a second-term senator from Illinois to emerge as the People's Choice for the Leader of that desired Change...African American Barack Obama...inheriting an economy on its debtbed... a lone super power that has lost much face in the international community...the impact of Katrina, Halliburton, Abu Gharib, Guantanomo,..sub prime market failure...Fanni Mae and Freddie Mac, AIG, Lehman Brothers, then one 70 year old man... Made-off with US$50 billion ..leaving global financial and humanitarian agencies in tatters...including suicides...key industries falling apart at the seams: banks, housing , travel, automotive...fast rising un-employment and shelterless-ness...as A Merry Ka approaches the "end game" of its reign as the world's Supreme Power. There was Egypt and Greece and Rome and Britain... there is a resurgent Russia, there is China and there is India. Kingdoms rise and kingdoms fall. Africa is on the horizon. The cycle of life is inevitable.
It is Barack Obama and his Family that InI celebrate in the representation of the BlackAfrican potential "to rise" above the boundaries and borders created by men and people. The resistance against inhumane treatment of man to man continues. Take a look at the stripping of GAza. It will require far more than a Black Family to "clean up" the "mess" and restore the image of A MerryKa...inside and outside...one that once represented equal rights and justice in the eyes of the ALMIGHTY. Aluta continua! Ras TafarI Lives!
(c)2009
Dr IMAN BLAK
BLACK NESS: A Country, a People, a Color or a Condition???
BLACK NESS: A Country, a People, a Color or a Condition???
The psycho-historical, socio-political, economic and cultural 'connotations' attached to the word-sound BLACK …has posed deep problems for the People of AFRICA, and their Descendants since the signing of the Treaty of Tordesillas , the arrival of the first Europeans [Portuguese] in the 15th century, the beginning of the European Atlantic Slave Trade in AFRICAN People and the Berlin Conference of 1884 which partitioned the “Dark Continent” of AFRICA among European states, with the Ethiopian Empire being the only African State to success- fully resist the European colonization and desecration of the entire continent. The western constructed notion of “black” has had an historically negative set of connotations attached, which must be de constructed and reconstructed in the process of InI spiritual psychological emotional intellectual social political and economic liberation. Of course, as the Laws of English permit, there are exceptions to every rule. Thus, there is black Gold, black Diamond, black Madonna, black Holes and being Tall, Dark and Handsome.
Does BLACK refer to or suggest a Country, a People, a Color or a Condition??
One of the Ancient names for EGYPT was KEMET [kmt], taken from kem, meaning 'black' and was derived from the fertile 'black soils' deposited by the seasonal Floods of the River Nile; distinct from the deshret, or “red land” [dsrt], of the Desert. The name is also realized as kima in the Coptic stage of the Egyptian language, and appeared in early Greek as Xnuia (khemia).
the Role of the PINEAL GLAND
The People of KMT were described as BLACK PEOPLE...due not only to the Nature of the Land on which they built their Civilization but also because of the physiological function and operation of the PINEAL GLAND that produces the hormone MELATONIN that which is responsible for the production of the most perfect molecule in Nature..MELANIN...found in the Skin, Brain,,Eyes, Ears,etc. In higher vertebrates [the AFRICAN MAN] , the PINEAL Gland withdrew into the interior of the Brain, retained its connection to Sunlight and Darkness but instead of producing Visual Images, it now releases hormonal signals that unlock internal Memory Banks of Visual and other Sensory Images, i.e. Dreams and higher States of Consciousness (King, 1979; Quay, 1974)
The definition of the term COLOR relates to the Frequency of Vibrations of Light...of which there is visible and invisible forms of light. COLOR is determined by the visible 'wave-length' of Light otherwise referred to as HUES. Hues can be identified by passing Light through a PRISM.- isolating the HUES of violet, indigo, blue, green, yellow, orange and red. The making of a Rainbow.
The absence of Light is Darkness. Thus it can be reasoned that Darkness is the compliment to Light[not opposite]. In the reality of consciousness, BLACK is Not a HUE[color] of LIGHT ...Furthermore, there is no “vibration” emanating from Light that can manifest / project BLACKNESS. In total, BLACKNESS is Not the opposite of White Ness. [see article ON White Ness]
LAN GUAGE
Confounding the Mind with rules and exception-to-the-rule, synonyms and homonyms, prefixes and suffixes, metaphors and similes; ENGLISH, the Language and its Vocabulary are Tools of the Colonizer who force-feed this 'alien' way of visualizing/ thinking/imagining'.........thinking and talking as the 'civilized' means of communicating all thoughts, ideas feelings etc. ...in a political process called 'educating' the consciousness of the enslaved Africans.
Webster's Encyclopedia of Dictionaries defines lowercase ' b' lack' as: ominous, mourning, Destitute of light, of the darkest color , a Negro. Webster's then outlines a slew of suffixes that creates a 'condition' characterized by terms such as : black art, black ball, black flag, black list, black mail, black magic, black mark, black market, black out, black sheep.
The Laws of English Language identifies Meaning and gives Power to the symbols and signs as they are codified and presented via the Letters of the ALPHABET.
The Laws of English Language state on one hand, that when WORDS are written in Lower Case and or “common letters” are placed at the beginning of the WORD..then this Word or Thought denotes or symbolizes “a physical Object or Thing...” On the other hand, WORDS beginning with Capitalized Letters are Words that denote Persons/People and important Places; SUBJECTS instead of Objects.
It is considered an “affront to the human Persona” and social dignity to speak of or address a NATION or PEOPLE [in the written English Language] with Lower Case letters. For example, the people of China would not be represented in English Language spelt as 'chinese' ...nor would china be spelt with a SMALL c...likewise the People of India would not be presented/symbolized in written English as 'indians'. ...in Lower Case. Yet the People of this Planet who are recognized and called AFRICANS
Ath home and abroad are represented and symbolized in English Language as 'b' lack people....written in Lower Case.
So when does lower-case 'black' refer to a PEOPLE or NATION or does lowercase 'black' refer to a CONDITION [state] of perpetual social economic and political degradation and oppression?
Here there seems to be a sudden great disconnect and level of inconsistency in the Use of English. It is clear therefore that whenever intellectuals, educators, writers, journalists and users of the English Language generally, write AND identify AFRICAN People in Lower Case 'black', it does not connote a Person or People as implied by the Law of English, but instead symbolizes the “dire spiritual, psychological, socio economic and political conditions” in which the African Population world wide find themselves.
What then is the Conscious REALITY of BlackNess?
BLACKNESS beyond the 'realm of colors' is a Perfect State of NATURE …..the “total absorption” of Radiant Energy as evidenced by BLACK Holes , BLACK Bodies and the BLACKNESS of the Element CARBON. Like the liquid state of H2O [WATER], which is 'color-less', the State of BLACK ness is also NATURAL and lacking in Hue/Color-less. When BLACK as a term is applied to the People of MELANIN, then the Word must begin in the Upper Case to address the Identity in Reality of Black PERSONS instead of black Objects or things. Word Sound Is POWER. Self-Identity is the First Step Towards the Awakening of RACIAL CONSCIOUSNESS.
© Dr. Don Davis 2009
March
Does BLACK refer to or suggest a Country, a People, a Color or a Condition??
One of the Ancient names for EGYPT was KEMET [kmt], taken from kem, meaning 'black' and was derived from the fertile 'black soils' deposited by the seasonal Floods of the River Nile; distinct from the deshret, or “red land” [dsrt], of the Desert. The name is also realized as kima in the Coptic stage of the Egyptian language, and appeared in early Greek as Xnuia (khemia).
the Role of the PINEAL GLAND
The People of KMT were described as BLACK PEOPLE...due not only to the Nature of the Land on which they built their Civilization but also because of the physiological function and operation of the PINEAL GLAND that produces the hormone MELATONIN that which is responsible for the production of the most perfect molecule in Nature..MELANIN...found in the Skin, Brain,,Eyes, Ears,etc. In higher vertebrates [the AFRICAN MAN] , the PINEAL Gland withdrew into the interior of the Brain, retained its connection to Sunlight and Darkness but instead of producing Visual Images, it now releases hormonal signals that unlock internal Memory Banks of Visual and other Sensory Images, i.e. Dreams and higher States of Consciousness (King, 1979; Quay, 1974)
The definition of the term COLOR relates to the Frequency of Vibrations of Light...of which there is visible and invisible forms of light. COLOR is determined by the visible 'wave-length' of Light otherwise referred to as HUES. Hues can be identified by passing Light through a PRISM.- isolating the HUES of violet, indigo, blue, green, yellow, orange and red. The making of a Rainbow.
The absence of Light is Darkness. Thus it can be reasoned that Darkness is the compliment to Light[not opposite]. In the reality of consciousness, BLACK is Not a HUE[color] of LIGHT ...Furthermore, there is no “vibration” emanating from Light that can manifest / project BLACKNESS. In total, BLACKNESS is Not the opposite of White Ness. [see article ON White Ness]
LAN GUAGE
Confounding the Mind with rules and exception-to-the-rule, synonyms and homonyms, prefixes and suffixes, metaphors and similes; ENGLISH, the Language and its Vocabulary are Tools of the Colonizer who force-feed this 'alien' way of visualizing/ thinking/imagining'.........thinking and talking as the 'civilized' means of communicating all thoughts, ideas feelings etc. ...in a political process called 'educating' the consciousness of the enslaved Africans.
Webster's Encyclopedia of Dictionaries defines lowercase ' b' lack' as: ominous, mourning, Destitute of light, of the darkest color , a Negro. Webster's then outlines a slew of suffixes that creates a 'condition' characterized by terms such as : black art, black ball, black flag, black list, black mail, black magic, black mark, black market, black out, black sheep.
The Laws of English Language identifies Meaning and gives Power to the symbols and signs as they are codified and presented via the Letters of the ALPHABET.
The Laws of English Language state on one hand, that when WORDS are written in Lower Case and or “common letters” are placed at the beginning of the WORD..then this Word or Thought denotes or symbolizes “a physical Object or Thing...” On the other hand, WORDS beginning with Capitalized Letters are Words that denote Persons/People and important Places; SUBJECTS instead of Objects.
It is considered an “affront to the human Persona” and social dignity to speak of or address a NATION or PEOPLE [in the written English Language] with Lower Case letters. For example, the people of China would not be represented in English Language spelt as 'chinese' ...nor would china be spelt with a SMALL c...likewise the People of India would not be presented/symbolized in written English as 'indians'. ...in Lower Case. Yet the People of this Planet who are recognized and called AFRICANS
Ath home and abroad are represented and symbolized in English Language as 'b' lack people....written in Lower Case.
So when does lower-case 'black' refer to a PEOPLE or NATION or does lowercase 'black' refer to a CONDITION [state] of perpetual social economic and political degradation and oppression?
Here there seems to be a sudden great disconnect and level of inconsistency in the Use of English. It is clear therefore that whenever intellectuals, educators, writers, journalists and users of the English Language generally, write AND identify AFRICAN People in Lower Case 'black', it does not connote a Person or People as implied by the Law of English, but instead symbolizes the “dire spiritual, psychological, socio economic and political conditions” in which the African Population world wide find themselves.
What then is the Conscious REALITY of BlackNess?
BLACKNESS beyond the 'realm of colors' is a Perfect State of NATURE …..the “total absorption” of Radiant Energy as evidenced by BLACK Holes , BLACK Bodies and the BLACKNESS of the Element CARBON. Like the liquid state of H2O [WATER], which is 'color-less', the State of BLACK ness is also NATURAL and lacking in Hue/Color-less. When BLACK as a term is applied to the People of MELANIN, then the Word must begin in the Upper Case to address the Identity in Reality of Black PERSONS instead of black Objects or things. Word Sound Is POWER. Self-Identity is the First Step Towards the Awakening of RACIAL CONSCIOUSNESS.
© Dr. Don Davis 2009
March
TITCHFIELD High School: the 1982 DA COSTA CUP FINAL
THE 1982 D Cup FINAL MATCH pit first time Finalist Titchfield School vs. many times champions Cornwall College
The Don Davis –coached Titchfield School would meet the Steve Bucknor-coached Cornwall College playing on home-ground and seeking their first lien on the Cup in 16 years. The entire Montego Bay was in a frenzy as the exploits of Kingsley Chin rest heavily on the minds of the spectators and supporters of Cornwall College.
For the Da Costa Cup Final, the Titchfield team overnighted at the Sea Wind Hotel in Montego Bay. The Hotel staff asked me why I bothered to bring the team to Montego Bay. It was already a done deal. The club Disco Inferno was booked in advance for the post-victory celebration by Cornwall College. Titchfield team was feted at the Golden Grotto Cave Night club on the eve of the big match and against my wishes, the players were told that they could enjoy the pool in the morning. There were now several ‘technical directors’ of the Titchfield team. Bunghi Chin however remained in his ‘hands-off’ mode. Resources suddenly started to pour in to a team that lacked proper equipment or nutritional support with the local politician HP declaring that Titchfield should “take their own water”.
At the Final the chairman of the school board, who I met for the first time when taken on the Port Antonio ‘social circuit’, was present and insisted that he give the team a final changing room “pep-talk”. I refused to have the players bombarded with ‘more talk’ from persons neither they nor I had never ever seen at a match. The players asked that I facilitate the chair. I duly obliged.
With a full house at Jarrett Park and eyes and ears of the Nation tuned in to the D Cup FINAL, the game began with a heavily marked Kingsley Chin starting the game as a withdrawn striker. The Cornwall college players went looking for Chin who lined up behind our target-man Penny head Nelson. In the 10th minute and against the run of play, a ball was handled by a Cornwall attacker in the Titchfield goal area bringing all players to a stand-still. But on not hearing the referee’s whistle, the nearest Cornwall striker smashed the handled ball into the net. Before the referee could re-act , a tremendous roar of GOAALL!!! was bellowed out from the crowd and the referee dared not revoke the dubious goal. Cornwall players raced up and down the field while Titchfield players stood in shock and awe at the blatant misjudgment of the referee. This exact cruel scenario would be replayed in the 2011 Final with Ruseas and Lennon.
It was reported that Radio commentator Ed Barnes was verbally and physically abused for reporting the handled ball and openly disputed the goal. The Titchfield attacks were stymied by the linemen and their persistent ‘offside’ flags. Fowlie was dived on and fouled in his every possession of the ball with the referee on rare occasions reprimanding the Cornwall players for their fouling tactics. I recall Fowlie coming to the sidelines to ask: What should I do now coach?...In retrospect, I probably should have just said, “Just stay the left wing which would perhaps have given Penny-head a bit more room to work from the middle”. Cornwall went on to win by that ‘disputed goal’ and denied Eastern Jamaica its first hold on the Da Costa Cup. There were much tears shed in the Titchfield dressing room after the match. The spectators knew and the players felt as though they were ‘ROBBED’.
With all the furor caused by Titchfield’s historic match played at Jarrett Park, the decision to permanently fix the Final at Jarrett Park never went down well within my ‘sense of justice’. The attitude of the governing body (ISSA) up to the time of this writing, to this systemic base of ‘injustice’ along with the interference from “vocal” sectors of Port Antonio compounded by the frustration of Mr. Chin’s ideas which were often expressed and ultimately interpreted as ‘promises’ led to my absolute disgruntlement with the affairs at the school. I was asked by all and sundry “if I could get the team to the Final again??
No one really seemed interested in how to win ‘the whole damn thing’. It was as if there was some underlying ‘fear’ about what complete success at da Costa Cup would mean for the school and town respectively. That there were/are many who simply “parasite” off the school for personal ego-driven motives, without ever hoping for Titchfield’s sports to enjoy national success but instead more concerned with any gains/loss of their economic, political and/or personal ‘hold’ on the school.
I decided that after three seasons at Titchfield school and having to fight against ‘home town spectators’, which was becoming over whelming, I decided to relieve myself of the distress and hand the team over to the administration. Leaving Jamaica at a relatively early age, I never really experienced or knew much about ‘bad-mind’ growing up in Brooklyn, USA…till I get to the small-town of Port Antonio.
I wrote my letter of resignation and handed it to a somewhat surprised but somber Bunghi Chin. From all indications the letter was not recorded at the Ministry of Education while Area boy and GC Foster graduate Leon Frazier was recruited as the ‘town’s coach’ to bring the da Costa Cup to Titchfield.
1983-1984: The Leon Frazier Years.
I returned to my community of HARBOUR VIEW with three years experience in the daCosta Cup competition and eyed the possibility of coaching at another school…perhaps in the Manning cup. My first three years back in Jamaica were well spent in Portland. The lush vegetation and clean fresh environment stimulated much creative thought that manifested under the Conscious Movement Publication banner of my first local self published volume of Black Poetry to compliment Black Philosophy and Poetry and Black Poetry Volume 1, which were published while living in USA. This break from football was an opportunity to explore my writing and traveling to experience the other sides and places of Jamaica.
Frazier inherited an experienced and rounded squad of players from the Final led by young veterans ‘Bougie’ Newman, Anthony Nelson, et al. There were enough quality replacements to sustain Titchfield’s drive to the top of schoolboy foot ball. The 1983 team failed dismally to reach the heights set by the 1981 and 1982 teams. The following season 1984 turned out the first ‘low point’ of football at Titchfield when the team was humiliated and destroyed 6-0 by the “new boys” on the western ‘bloc’ , Ruseas Comprehensive high from Hanover.
At the end of disastrous ’84 season, the players led a campaign I think spearheaded by Nelson insisting to the Principal that Don D be brought back into the school to re-establish the respect, discipline and order that the school’s success had come to know.
By March 1985 negotiations were re-opened with principal and the Bunghi Chin / Don D regime would continue its relentless march towards the Da Costa Cup and by April 1985 I was moving my furniture in a north easterly direction, this time returning to Titchfield with soon-to-be wife, singer Joy Whyte and step-daughter Naz.
FOOTBALL in JAH Mek Ya : From EMANCIPATION To The REGGAE BOYZ
CONSCIOUS MOVEMENT presents
A Sneak Preview / Excerpt from the soon-to-be-released book titled: Liberation Football in JAH Mek Ya : FROM EMANCIPATION To The REGGAE BOYZ
Consider an Island 11,424 square kilometers in size with a population just fewer than 3 million people...located 90 miles south of Cuba and 100 miles west of Haiti. Consider further an Island with-out a professional football(soccer)league system, whose secondary(high)school competitions generate more excitement / enthusiasm and attracts more media and spectator attention and support than the Island's club leagues or national team.
This serves as a backkground to the "culture team" of the 1998 World Cup Final- JAMAICA REGGAE BOYZ -the first English-speaking Caribbean Nation state to Qualify for the world's biggest sporting spectacle- the FIFA WORLD CUP.
The construction of JAMAICA as a Nation is steeped in a maelstrom of imperialistic power relations. From as early as 1517, Africans had been brought to the Caribbean as household slaves to tend to the personal needs of their Spanish masters. By the late 17th century, the English began importing large number of enslaved Africans for sale to the planters.For the next 150 years, JAMAICA was a Slave Plantation Society(SPS), specializing in the production of sugar cane for export to England. Slave society lasted until 1838, the year of formal but substantially in-complete emancipation.
Consider an Island 11,424 square kilometers in size with a population just fewer than 3 million people...located 90 miles south of Cuba and 100 miles west of Haiti. Consider further an Island with-out a professional football(soccer)league system, whose secondary(high)school competitions generate more excitement / enthusiasm and attracts more media and spectator attention and support than the Island's club leagues or national team.
This serves as a backkground to the "culture team" of the 1998 World Cup Final- JAMAICA REGGAE BOYZ -the first English-speaking Caribbean Nation state to Qualify for the world's biggest sporting spectacle- the FIFA WORLD CUP.
The construction of JAMAICA as a Nation is steeped in a maelstrom of imperialistic power relations. From as early as 1517, Africans had been brought to the Caribbean as household slaves to tend to the personal needs of their Spanish masters. By the late 17th century, the English began importing large number of enslaved Africans for sale to the planters.For the next 150 years, JAMAICA was a Slave Plantation Society(SPS), specializing in the production of sugar cane for export to England. Slave society lasted until 1838, the year of formal but substantially in-complete emancipation.
In essence, Emancipation meant that the white planters could no longer own African People as their slaves. Europeans however still owned the Land and therefore held the key to survival of the former slaves as free (thinkers) and independent producers. Access to education, housing, medical benefits, etc. remained the “preserve of the Ruling/Planter class” while the mass of the population experienced high levels of illiteracy, unemployment and homelessness, as a general features of their daily existence.
Despite the rigours and severity of slavery, despite the all-embracing nature of the exploitation by the European of the African, the latter nonetheless, was never completely subdued. In one form or another, the enslaved African expressed resentment to his lot, sometimes in covert, direct and relatively mild manner, at other times in direct revolt against the object of his oppression. The slave system offered few outlets for such feelings. One of the few exceptions was their 're-creation'. These recreations offered well-needed outlets for pent-up aggressions and hostilities. The aggression of the enslaved African population found expression in their Dancing, Drumming and Playing.
The Black community had been encouraged from the slavery period to use their ‘free-time’ in full indulgence in the sort of cultural activity that did not in any way appear to whites as informed by a spirit of resistance. Any cultural expression that whites feared or considered rebellious was outlawed. Notwithstanding the fact that the domain of politics, economics, education and technology remained in the hands of white educated elites, the “avenue” opened for Black/Afri-centric expression” found favor in the relatively ‘safe spheres/spaces’ of Religion Entertainment and Sport.
Historically, the entry of Black males into the social institution of sport was conditional with formal segregation, particularly in the US, often imposed. When Black African males did compete directly and publicly with Europeans, such competition was organized on the premise that the 'whiteman' would eventually win, thereby maintaining the racial order, and where this could not be guaranteed, the prohibition of Blacks was quickly instated.
(c) Dr. Don Davis 2009
Conscious Movement Publications
(c) Dr. Don Davis 2009
Conscious Movement Publications
Articulating Diasporan Notions of Celebrity in Sport
AFRICAN-CARIBBEAN RESISTANCE THROUGH SPORT: FROM HEADLEY TO RICHARDS TO LARA
At the turn of the twentieth century, sport in the Caribbean, particularly
cricket and football, was transposed into this geopolitical space by British
colonists who took their games wherever they conquered. The games of
golf, tennis, cricket, and football were popular among the colonialist and
elite groups of Caribbean society, and provided the ground for socialization
and recreation. However, for the oppressed population, the games of
tennis and golf were out of reach leaving cricket as the game of the
masses. Cricket provided the arena for contestation and competition
between the races within a “theoretically level” framework or field of
play. More significant, cricket provided an arena for expressing anticolonial
resistance feelings in a socially acceptable manner.
EARLY WEST INDIAN CELEBRITIES (HEROES)
In the Caribbean, sport as a “site” of contestation and resistance to the
dominant ideology of white racism took root on the (playfield) cricket
grounds of the territories of the British West Indies (BWI). Sport has
been a “ platform” for the internationalizing of political views held by
small nations (e.g., Cuba).
Cricket, as C. L. R. James wrote, was more than a struggle between
bat and ball. It was a representation of those who led and those
who were led, between colonizer and the colonized. Cricket pits the
races against each other in intense rivalry. The clash of race and class
in cricket had a stimulating and unifying effect when it is played by the
West Indies, and allows for all sorts of vicarious resolutions in the
mind, in victory or defeat. Chris Searle, an English intellectual wrote:
There is no doubt that for some English and Australian cricket experts,
sunk into the conservative traditions of the sport, the prospect of an exceptionally
fast Caribbean man with a cricket ball carries the same threat
as a rebellious, anti-imperial black man with a gun. They want him suppressed,
disarmed—he fits nowhere into their rules and ways of the
game [since often they have no counterpunch] and only challenges them.
They hate to be challenged especially in their own creation—
cricket
The first generation of sporting/cricket heroes include L. W. Constantine,
George “Atlas” Headley, and Frank Worrell. George Headley’s double
century at Lords and Frank Worrell’s rise to become the first black
captain (leader) of a West Indies team shattered the myth constructed
by Victorian England that blacks can neither “lead” nor “bat.” West Indians
challenged the colonialists at “their game” as sport/cricket became
a tool of defiance/resistance. Undoubtedly, cricket became an instrument
of power, political ideology, and social transformation.
Hillary Beckles (Beckles and Stoddart 1995, 242) in Liberation Cricket
notes: “It was inevitable that the politicization of West Indian cricket
should spill over into the realms of nationalism, ideology, party politics,
and international relations.”
REBEL AND REVOLUTIONARIES
West Indies cricket had been a champion in the struggle against
apartheid. When other countries were championing the cause of “constructive
engagement” with apartheid in cricket, the West Indies stood
firm by the sporting ban. Within this context, it is worthy to mention
the career of one of the finest batsmen to emerge in West Indies
cricket.
Lawrence George “Yagga” Rowe was born on January 8, 1949, in
Kingston, Jamaica. Rowe was an elegant right-handed batsman described
by his teammate, Michael Holding, as “the best batsman I ever
saw.” Rowe made his debut for Jamaica in 1968–1969. In 1972, he made
history on his Test debut v. New Zealand (in Kingston) scoring 214 and
100 not out, the first time that a cricketer had scored a double and single
century on Test debut. It also gave him a batting average of 314 after
his first Test match. Rowe played thirty Test matches scoring a total of
2,047 runs at an average of 43. He was known to whistle whilst he batted
though he seemed to be injury prone; he suffered problems with his
eyesight and was allergic to grass.
Undoubtedly,Yagga Rowe was a West Indies batting hero (in the days
before Vivian Richards) emerging from the graasroots of Jamaica to
became infamous in 1982–1983 when he led a rebel tour to
South Africa (during the era of apartheid) when they were isolated
from world sport. When agents of South African cricket came calling in
December 1982, he volunteered to lead a rebel West Indian team there.
Rowe suffered the indignity of being labeled “honorary white” and aggravated
a political stance articulated by African-Caribbean people
throughout the diaspora (see Wikipedia).
The West Indian public were outraged by the tour and Rowe himself
was ostracised in Jamaica. I argue that the spirit of African resistance was
breached by a group of cricketers who failed to comprehend to terrain of
sport and its relation to the stuggle for liberation, equal rights. and justice.
Issac Vivian Alexander Richards was born on March 7, 1952, at St.
John’s, Antigua. Richards made his Test debut at Bangalore against
India in 1974–1975, and his one-day international debut against Sri
Lanka in the World Cup of 1975. His last Test was against England at
the Oval in 1991 and his last ODI was at Lord’s in the same series.
For more than fifteen years, Richards dominated cricket—the traditional
as well as the instant version. The very sight of him walking in
with his famous swagger, chewing gum, his huge shoulders loosening
up for action, sent shivers down the spines of international bowlers. He
could play all the shots in the game.
Apart from his exciting style of play, Richards is held in great esteem
for his personal principles in refusing a “blank cheque” offer to play for
a rebel West Indian squad in racist South Africa during the apartheid
era in 1983, and again in 1984. According to Richards in the foreword
to Beckles and Stoddard’s Liberation Cricket: “I carried my bat for the
liberation of Africa and other oppressed people everywhere. The principle
of fair play so deeply rooted within cricket values must be fought
for and defended at all times” (1995).
Richards, when asked who he’d like to be reborn as, mentioned Bob
Marley and Ethiopian Emperor Haile Selassie, JAH Rastafari. Of note,
fast bowler Anderson Montgomery Roberts of Antigua was the first
West Indies cricketer to refuse a handsome monetary offer to play
cricket in apartheid South Africa.
GLOBALIZATION/POSTAPARTHEID ERA
The demise of the Union of Socialist Soviet Republics ushered in a
“new” geopolitical, socioeconomic, and military “order” termed global-
ization. Within this new paradigm, sport in the Caribbean, in this instance,
West Indies cricket, faced new challenges, among them the
quantum increase in media attention, sponsorship, and individual financial
remunerations as well as the increase usage of video technology.
Brian Charles Lara made his international debut during the West Indies
tour of Pakistan in 1990–1991. Brian Lara is one of the most gifted
batsmen in the history of cricket. He is in the line of greatness that produced
Headley, the three Ws, Sobers, and Richards [AU5:](King and
Laurie, 2004, 126). He previously held the highest Test score, 375, and
currently holds the highest first-class score, 501.
The emergence of Brian Charles Lara parallels the introduction of
the millionaire culture–Hollywood system of celebrity to sport in the
Caribbean, challenging the dynamics of work and play, the basis for
celebrity and heroism, resistance and accommodation, including the
new/old social responsibilities of star/celebrated player. Lara became
the first millionaire West Indian cricketer with endorsements, advertising,
and promotional contracts following in the manner that runs
flowed from his bat. Many observers have speculated that this new orientation
created new attitudes and feelings of “alienation” between elements
of the cricket fraternity including fans, administrators, Lara,
and a few teammates.
The release of longtime South African political prisoner Nelson Mandela
diffused much of the tension/resistance between the black populations
in particular and the international community in general against
the apartheid South African government. This act can be seen as the
forerunner to the reentry of South Africa to the international sporting
community.
CONCLUSION
Sport has been a vehicle for the social and economic movement of the
poor and working class, the oppressed and dispossessed peoples of the
diaspora. By extension, the sport heroes that emerge from these said
classes represent living symbols of resistance that become transformed
into celebrity status.
I conclude that the neoliberal-globalization paradigm has replaced
the oppressor/oppressed, domination/resistance framework, obfuscating
the ideological connections of defiance and resistance to the field
of play; shifting identities with diminishing sociopolitical agendas;
moving from resistance to accommodation to assimilation.
The resistance ethos of Caribbean cricket has undergone a revolutionary
downward spiral with losing becoming a norm nurtured by
mediocrity, carelessness, and individualism.
I argue that playing for love of the game has been replaced with playing
for the love of money. I further argue that there is not much credence
given to the concept of “loyalty to nation,” as many people do not
feel obliged to commit themselves to country.
In this regard, Benn and Hall (2000, 94) in Globalisation: A Calculus
of Inequality observe:
Old certainties and hierarchies of identity are called into question in a
world of dissolving boundaries and disrupted continuities. Thus, in a
country that is now a container of African and Asian cultures, can the
meaning of what it is to be British (West Indian/Caribbean) ever again
have the old confidence and surety it might once have had?” . . . Is it at
all possible, in global times, to sustain a coherent and unified sense of
identity? Continuity and historicity of identity are challenged by the immediacy
and intensity of global cultural confrontation (2000, 198)[AU6:]
One could argue that the racial pride, ruthlessness and efficiency of
the Jack Johnson to George Headley to Vivian Richards era has been
replaced by materialism, laziness, and individual drive for “superstardom.”
Cricket, for example, as the national pastime of the West Indies,
is no longer an arena to demonstrate resistance against an oppressive
order. It would appear that the motive for competing has shifted from
“race pride and respect” to money, bling,3 and more money (implication
of basketball).
Within the context of globalization, are we witnessing the destruction
of the underpinnings of African-Caribbean resistance culture? Are
we witnessing the metamorphosis of African resistance culture to the
celebrity culture of Hollywood?
It is evident that once West Indian players decide to put personal
gain over regional interests, Caribbean people will witness the continued
“softening” of the regional team, playing without the cultural-re-
sistance spearhead developed and exhibited during the era of Jack
Johnson through George Headley to Vivian Richards.
I argue that the diaspora requires sport celebrities to be more conscious
of the historical and cultural context in which sport operates,
and their psychological, social, economic, and political responsibilities
to the people of the region. I wish to concur with Brian Stoddart’s
(Beckles and Stoddart 1995, 395) observation: “The contours of the
modern game as played and conveyed by Caribbean people are still essentially
about struggle in one form or another, and therein lies the ultimate
message.”
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