Dear Editor,
The Paris 2024 Olympics is here. I flashed back 56 years, and it is Mexico City, and the Olympics of October 1968. How those intervening years took wings! On their crests, the names of Tommie Smith and John Carlos are written in the annals of immortality. Four years later, there was the Munich Olympics, and both are reminders of the forms and methods that the struggle for justice can take. From a peaceful folded, upraised fist, to the fire of a volley loaded with fistfuls of bullets. Americans Tommie Smith and John Carlos got roundly booed for their quiet, stoic expression against injustice at home on the world’s biggest stage. The boy in me remembers reading about the boos; the man learning of the revilements and the rare honours that have since been given to those two young, then aging Americans. Sometimes it is a black gloved fist belonging to a Black man that is raised in defiance against discrimination. On other occasions, it could be a pen driven by a mind that is troubled by the same wrongs, a voice that seeks to give expression on behalf of the voiceless. The boos and blasts of disapproval still come. It could be America, it is Guyana.
In a time of grand sporting events and spectacular feats, there is no better time in, no broader platform on, no bigger audience to, which the eternal cry and quest for equity, for the fullest respectful recognition of our own humanity. It must be fought for, not too infrequently die for, once dignity and integrity are so cherished. Once promising NFL quarterback, Colin Kaepernick, has his story that attests to the sacrifices he was forced to make, but of which there should have been none. Sports can serve as the world’s biggest arena from which to send a peaceful, stirring message. Shake up the world. Sear it and scar it and shame it with the truth that it wished to be suppressed, not ventilated before the daylight. Like a former US Congressman John Lewis once said, sometimes everything has just got to be laid on the line to send the profoundest message about what one believes in, and from what there will be no retreating.
Messages are not to make a statement, or a splash. They are about what should be. The way man must be to his fellow man. But has not. There is a struggle going on for the identity of Guyana, for the discovery of the true soul of Guyana. Does it still have one? Is it worth fighting over to determine if there is one and of what substance is it? The forces against are formidable, but more formidable forces in other places at other times have been overcome. Those struggles have never ended. Ours may not have even begun in the truest sense of the word; yet already it is a fratricidal, foul, and fearsome one. Ready, get set, go! The venues change, the competitors are mostly different. Some struggles are longer than time, older than man. Fairness, justice, equity, respect, dignity, and so much more are all part of that fight. It has been a brawl to date. It is shaping up as a battle royal in the cards. Every generation, every location, somehow seems always to succeed in finding another Tommie Smith, one more John Carlos. Their Olympics are universal, they’re also eternal. Justice must come, will prevail.
Sincerely,
GHK Lall