Dear Editor,
The cricket duels at World Cup 2015 in Australia are consuming me and until the West Indies team made it to the knock-out stage all I did was watch cricket online and talk about the great moments in the great game. Two years ago I mentioned to Roger Harper at a history research conference that our cricket team’s name should be changed to ‘Caribbean Community’ from ‘West Indies’. He did not agree with me because, I suspect, it never entered his thoughts. I think West Indies cricket plummeted because we stopped identifying ourselves as West Indians since the end of colonialism.
When we travel the globe we identify ourselves as Guyanese or ‘from the Caribbean’. New institutions dominate our psyche, eg, BWIA/Bwee recently changed its name to Caribbean Airways. Sri Lanka is a more appropriate name for the land that the British (as colonizer) called Ceylon, and look at the achievements and combativeness of their cricket teams. What I didn’t mention to Roger was that I thought Clive Lloyd should have been employed by Caricom when he returned to live in the region, instead of by the Guyana government. His employ by the Guyana government ‘vexed’ many persons of power who blocked his bid to be President of the West Indies Cricket Board of Control.
Only now is Clive on the WI cricket administration ladder as chairman of the selectors. I like their pick as captain of the team and their position that if your spirit is not Caribbean then you can’t play for the Caribbean team.
The cricketers whose principal purpose is to play for money are not fit for West Indies selection. Clive went through that same phase when he went to Packer Cricket (money) and was dropped from the West Indies team.
This brings me to news I first read online about the murder of Courtney Crum-Ewing that Ruel Johnson posted. Crum-Ewing and Attorney General Anil Nandlall both went to Queen’s College at the same time and may have known each other at Queen’s and one may have hurt the other’s feelings. It is in the newspapers of October 2014 that Crum-Ewing called for the resignation of Nandlall because of the disgusting telephone conversation he had with Kaieteur News senior reporter Leonard Gildarie, who also attended Queen’s College. Crum-Ewing also picketed the Attorney General’s office every day for over one month. Crum-Ewing attended QC and was once an officer of the Guyana Defence Force, GDF – mental and physical fortitude. Because this infamous phone conversation took place in Guyana during the QC reunion many talked about it but did not act upon it.
I reread the online transcript since the murder and three phrases to Leonard Gildarie struck me. One, “come across and come work with we”. Two, “you don’t engage a Chatree in war”. Three, “Is Queen’s College people does run this country, you nah realize that?” Gildarie is of Indian descent and went to QC.
Let me dwell briefly on the mouthing of Chatree and war. I am not socialized by Indian heritage nor do I imagine Crum-Ewing was. I know the graves of my forefathers and so may Crum-Ewing. The senior of my two sisters made me put on the headstone of my parents’ grave the inscription “to live in hearts we leave behind is not to die”. On occasions I’ve been to their grave and tears well in my eyes – on one occasion I cried too much to explain. I’ve journeyed many times to the two burial grounds on the Corantyne where lie most of my foreparents and reflected on what they had done to get me where I am. So I know values handed down to me – my forefathers are not dead.
Many Guyanese of African descent have a Ga heritage. The Ga tribe of Ghana is a breakaway of the Edo tribe now at the Great Kingdom of Benin, Nigeria – like Ndebele of Bulawayo who are a breakaway of the warlike Zulu in South Africa.
Martin Carter of Queen’s College (1938 – 1947) was also a warrior and he wrote:
Death must not find us thinking that we die…
Courtney Crum-Ewing lives in hearts and will not die.
Yours faithfully,
Tom Dalgety
