In the last month I have enjoyed watching the Olympics from majestic opening to colourful and tumultuous closing and between those spectacular bookends have seen an endless display of compelling competitive excellence. And all this was followed very closely by a Caribbean Festival of all the arts which turned out to be the region’s most inspiring cultural celebration since the birth of Caricom. What good luck to be blessed by two unique lifetime experiences so quickly succeeding each other.
The Olympics and Carifesta were graced by extraordinary champions and cultural icons. We applauded their feats and admired their dazzling accomplishments. They provided highlights in the mundane run of ordinary lives. Remarkable men and women, performing to the limit of their God-given abilities, genius displaying its work, add wonder and joy and enduring satisfaction to habit and routine. Who will ever forget Usain Bolt high-striding with such fluent, nonchalant, breath-stopping ease to victory in the 100 metres final – and bursting far ahead of lesser mortals to win the 200 metres in world record time? Who can ever forget being in the presence of Derek Walcott reading his poetry, Keith Waithe playing his flute sweeter than bird song, Winslow Craig’s sculpture and Phillip Moore’s unique paintings, Rex Nettleford expressing the wisdom of his multitudinously gifted imagination?
But for every hero there are many thousand undramatic and ordinary souls. For every champion there are countless also-rans. Every great performance depends on how well the supporting cast contributes. Nothing glorious in the limelight is achieved without the efforts of thousands in the shadows.
Usain Bolt of Jamaica lit up all our lives at the Olympics. But let us spare a thought also for Kareem Valentine of Antigua. He was his country’s entry in the Olympic 50 metre freestyle swimming event.
His time in a preliminary heat ranked him 96th out of 97 swimmers and he was eliminated – but it was his personal best time by 3 seconds and he felt proud. He had done his training not in a pool but in the sea off Fort James in Antigua, often in the middle of a floating cloud of jellyfish. He qualified for the Olympics by winning his national swimming championship, a race from one end of Fort James beach to the other and back, two miles. He admires Michael Phelps but he is not particularly envious. He has his own achievement to remember. “I’m very happy,” Kareem Valentine says with emphasis, “to be an Olympian.”
And at Carifesta, in addition to all the memorable performances and brilliant images of the creative imagination, I recall one ordinary workman I saw one morning at the very beginning of the festival. He was painting a colourful advertisement of UNICEF sponsoring Carifesta with the symbol of the linked children and he was singing, very well I thought, and doing a good job. And it made me think of the literally thousands of people doing their jobs and doing their best behind the scenes to bring about a great success. “In the realm of heroes what place will they be given?”
Unsung heroes are the soil of the earth, the salt of the sea, the air of the sky. So after all great events, when we have finished celebrating the champions, when we have done praising the performance of the stars, when we have extolled the laureates’ remarkable feats, let us pause a moment and then let us all together recite Bertolt Brecht’s ode to the obscure and the forgotten:
Questions From a Worker Who Reads.
Who built Thebes of the seven gates?
In the books you will find the names of kings.
Did the kings haul up the lumps of rock?
And Babylon, many times demolished
Who raised it up so many times? In what houses
of gold-glittering Lima did the builders live?
Where, the evening that the Wall of China was finished
Did the masons go? Great Rome
Is full of triumphal arches. Who erected them? Over whom
Did the Caesars triumph? Had Byzantium, much praised
in song
Only palaces for its inhabitants? Even in fabled Atlantis
The night the ocean engulfed it
The drowning still bawled for their slaves.
The young Alexander conquered India.
Was he alone?
Caesar beat the Gauls.
Did he not have even a cook with him?
Philip of Spain wept when his armada
Went down. Was he the only one to weep?
Frederick the Second won the Seven Year’s War. Who
Else won it?
Every page a victory.
Who cooked the feast for the victors?
Every ten years a great man.
Who paid the bill?
So many reports.
So many questions.
