Everyone is taking great care to practise diplomacy and join in extending accolades of their own to the Champion.  Very few summon the willingness to call things as they are, and to do so pointedly.  The time has come to do so here and now.

Champions are a special breed.  Lesser men hesitate to tangle with them, to caution them, or to exhort them towards a different direction.  But the real ones welcome challenge; they listen and adapt.

They do what is right – not selfishly for themselves only or their inner circle of untouchables – but for those who depend on them.  But from every indication, Mr President, this championship celebration has become an exaggeration in many respects.  Just take a look for yourself.

In one corner, the celebrations have centred on a returning hero, on splashy billboards, on forty thousand reasons for national pride and spontaneous delirium.  Grown men rhapsodize and fall over each other; the ladies swoon; the children are suitably well behaved and solemn.  Truly, the people of Guyana rub shoulders with more than a champion; the man could be a god.

In other places, multitudes of little people think they are in the middle of a blown-up cartoon.  They grimace at the reincarnated ‘Kabaka’ that graces the billboards planted everywhere; the endless self-promotion.  There he is: the Climate Commander, Defender of the Rainforests, and Admiral of the Atmosphere.

They wonder when he will find the time to set his own derelict and decaying country house in order; to navigate past the craters of the lowlands and the roadways used as walkways, to smell the sewage.  They wonder when the counting and adulation will cease, when the thinking will begin.
Forty thousand pieces of green delivered, and millions more to be collected sound like a kingly haul worth a champion’s sweat.  But slow down and reflect a little.  Here is some help in your ruminations.  There was a man called Esau who starred in the story of a pot of stew; the dissipation of a birthright.  In one word – betrayal or sellout, take your pick.  In many other words, this barter for Guyana is uneven: a gamble to get out of the red by doubling down on green chips; and then whitewashing the whole affair as this fabulous bargain.  Another history lesson, if you please, Mister Champion.

Remember Abd-al-Aziz of Saudi Arabia from under a hundred years ago.  He was rewarded with $175,000 in gold in 1933 for access to the black blood of the earth, and one of his princes almost got adopted in Texas.  Something similar happened with Shah Muzaffar al-Din in Persia and Faisal in Mesopotamia.  And in 1928 there were exchanges of the equivalent of beads and trinkets for the riches right next door, thanks to the championing of a man named Gomez.

Oh, there were Red Line and Blue Line Agreements and self-denying clauses.  But all those nations ended up being robbed and on the wrong side of sharp bargains. And this was done with the help of leaders, hailed as champions of progress and democracy.

Given these precedents, why would this South American camel stop of ours be any different?  Who is driver here, and who is being carried for a ride?  Remember there is no free lunch.

Remember, too, that the Babylonians had a champion; he was named Nebuchadnezzar.  Oh! He was a proud peacock who hardened his heart and heard only the music of his own thunder.  He ended up eating grass next to the beasts of the field; indeed, a literal champion of going green.  But enough with the history lessons, it is time to look at real champions, and the standards to which they adhere.

Political champions – the really outstanding ones  – level with their people; take one for the team, when necessary.  They go to great lengths to avoid subterfuges and prevarications, or the appearance of engaging in them.  They are gracious, whether in full flow or when cornered on the ropes.  It is why questions are raised when the forerunning efforts of Desmond Hoyte and Iwokrama are casually ignored, if not discredited; and why there is disbelief at the petulant descent into slurs involving cake shops.  This is not the way of champions.

Champions find and make a way when there is no way, and inspire those around them to believe and persevere.  Champions of the earth connect with the salt of the earth; they gather strength from them, hold them close, and give them courage to go on when all appears lost.  True champions are faithful to the truth: Let the word go forth… there will be no brush with semantics, no withdrawal into ambiguity.

There will be no ducking and sliding and hiding and feinting.  Champions understand that the rules apply to them; they welcome and follow those rules.  They are honourable men who welcome hard questions, and who are harder on holy bulls that transgress.

Further, champions make those around them better (Jordan); share the pain (Roosevelt); change the world (Gorbachev); give fully (Assisi); are indestructible (Churchill).  Guyanese are of the belief that you have made their lot worse; that you do not care for their pain; that you have changed the world of only those close to your ear and the nation’s purse strings; that you have never given fully to the suffering; and that you have harboured the seeds of destruction in the corruption that overwhelms.

Yes, there are some champions who focus just on prizes and the spotlight of highlights; they ignore the doping and cheating and fixing; they need a Palace Guard of public relations professionals to enhance image and deodorize body language.

But when the applause of the faithful dies, and the crowd is gone, these are the undeniable odours that assault the senses.  This is the seamier side of this championship story; it is not befitting a champion of anything anywhere.