26 April 2001, 814 words
Sports writing in Trinidad and Tobago suffers from the same defects as religious writing. Both kinds of writing rest on assumptions that have no basis in fact or logic; both expect their heroes to have superior virtue; both treat the trivial as important; and both are often ungrammatical.
The recent "debate" on Ato Boldon's apartment provides an accurate snapshot of this kind of mentality. One letter-writer decided to defend Boldon by attacking Finance Minister Gerald Yetming, asking, "Can Yetming make a half-lap around the Savannah? Has this man ever visited a panyard or even witnessed a goat race in Tobago?...What has Yetming done to put Trinidad and Tobago on the map?"
It is the height of irony that this letter-writer, who lives in Canada, should sign himself "Proud Trini". Not because he lives in Canada, but because his letter reflects a colonial mentality that sees merit only in accomplishments that are acknowledged on the public and international stage, because he defines Trini-ness through trivialities, and because he isn't brave enough to use his real name.
The people who support Ato getting an expensive apartment all argue from the principle that we need to acknowledge our sporting heroes. And the politicians pander to that call, but not because they are adhering to said principle, but because they will supposedly gain popularity and votes by so doing. (That is why heroes in other arenas, such as mas or literature or art, can fall by the wayside and why the same Ato supporters would never raise a nib to ask for a house for, say, Minshall: never mind that successful athletes earn far, far more than artists.)
Now I don't know if, in this ethnic-voting place, the politicians gain the electoral benefits they think they do. But I do think it unlikely that all this adulation of sporting heroes brings the psychic benefits that most commentators unquestioningly assume is the case. (It certainly doesn't bring any significant practical benefits, like tourist or investment dollars.)
National pride can be a crucial component to a society's success. But that pride has to be translated into action, and I doubt that our top athletes drive persons outside athletics to general standards of excellence, hard work and aspiration. Indeed, even within athletics, while the achievements of Ato or Lara or Yorke may certainly inspire some youths to become international champions, far greater will be the number of youths who aspire to such heights but who will fail.
Sport, however, has the status of a religion in our society. So nobody questions the assumptions that lie behind its worship. As a result, much of the commentary on sports like cricket or football, when it wanders outside technical matters, is purely pseudo-intellectual. Take, as the best example, the widely-held assumption that the performance of the West Indies cricket team reflects the state of our society.
This is the thesis of CLR James's Beyond a Boundary (in my opinion, one of only four great books to come out of the Anglophone Caribbean). "Cricket is an art, not a bastard or a poor relation, but a full member of that community," wrote James. But that statement is true only in context, because art can have an impact only within specific social circumstances. So one could readily argue that the decline of West Indies cricket may actually be a positive reflection of societies that now have better methods of self-expression than batting and bowling.
After all, Beyond a Boundary was published in 1963 and much of it deals with Trinidadian society of the 1920s and 1930s. In those days, the island's cricket clubs were segregated by colour and class: the Queen's Park Cricket Club was white-skinned and wealthy; Shamrock was white and Catholic; Maple was brown-skinned and middle-class; Shannon was black and lower-middle-class; Stingo was black and plebeian.
"The Old Shannon Club is a foundation pillar of this book," writes James. "They played as if they knew their club represented the great mass of black people in the island...As clearly as if it was written across the sky, their play said: Here, on the cricket field if nowhere else, all men in the island are equal, and we are the best men in the island."
It seems to have escaped the notice of everybody who uses cricket as metaphor that the society James wrote about no longer exists. James's thesis was accurate when he wrote it because cricket had a political role to play. That is no longer true in today's world, partly because Britain is no longer an empire, partly because cricket is not as popular as it once was, but mostly because the 21st century requires a people to assert their identity in more tangible ways than through sport: a fact we still haven't learned.
Copyright ©2002 Kevin Baldeosingh