Too late to heal?
by Tony Cozier
THE bottles have been hurled and the National Anthem sung. The appropriate apologies have been made by the highest in the land and the libel suit filed. The arguments have raged and a series of remarkable, stirring cricket has been virtually forgotten in the bitterness and the controversy that have followed the crowd violence at Kensington Oval last Sunday. The president of the West Indies Cricket Board (WICB) now finds himself worrying more about the impact the shocking images beamed across the world will have on his bid for the 2007 World Cup than about the team's chances in the immediate World Cup less than three weeks away. It was not the first time such disorder has marred international cricket matches in the Caribbean, nor at Kensington, and unless Pat Rousseau and his Board take positive measures to counter it, Sunday's scenes will be repeated in the future. The social factors of the moment that were part and parcel of Sunday's explosive mixture - and of those at every other cricket disturbance in the past - are obviously outside of their control. But Rousseau identified other, clear corrective actions, long since mentioned in this column and elsewhere but never acted on. The first, and most obvious, is the banning of bottles, as is done here at the National Stadium and the Sobers Gymnasium and at just about every other sporting stadium in the world. The one common denominator at every cricket riot in the West Indies, from the first at Bourda in 1954 to the latest, has been the hail of bottles onto the field. That they are still allowed into the stands is indicative of the complacency that has characterised so much of our administration. Rousseau also spoke of the need for modern all-seater facilities, including proper aisles and turnstiles, and strict monitoring to avoid overcrowding. When an Indian journalist made similar comments in relation to the inadequancy of Kensington two years ago, there was a huge outcry and demands for his deportation. When this column last year suggested a completely new cricket stadium, it was dismissed out of hand. Such circumstances are not new - and nor are the social factors. After an almost identical situation occured at Kensington 20 years ago, the late Sir Frank Walcott, one of our National Heroes, then president of the Caribbean Congress of Labour and himself a former first-class umpire, commented that it was "more than a sporting discontent to be identified with an unpopular decision by an umpire or the judgement of the administration of those who control sporting events". It was, he said, "a growing sign of social discontent in the area". In the same way, there was far more to the reaction to Sherwin Campbell's run out on Sunday than simply a cricket decision. To be sure, liquid alcohol, as much refined in Scotland and Russia as in Wildey and Four Square, had a hand. So too did the adrenilin pumped up by the ball-beating of Ridley Jacobs and Campbell and the accompanying beat of Mac Fingall on one side and the booming speakers on the other. It was also a reflection of the lawlessness that is apparent at all levels of society, a manifestation of the racial tension that simmers so contantly and menacingly near the surface and, in an odd but distinct way, the fervent nationalism awakened by the debate over Nelson and National Heroes and the call to rally round a resurgent West Indies team. Whether Brendon Julian "wilfully" obstructed Campbell or not, as the law states he must have done to be guilty of obstruction, is open to interpretation. The umpire in question, a West Indian and one of the International Cricket Council (ICC) panel, did not believe he did and, short of the Australian captain, Steve Waugh, withdrawing his appeal, could not change his decision simply because the crowd felt differently. That should have been the end of the matter but what the crowd saw was a Barbadian batsman, literally a small, black man and a new cricketing hero, on the ground, pleading with the umpire, after colliding with a big, white Australian representing a team some of whose members had been guilty of conduct unbecoming throughout the series. As so many of the comments in the press have revealed, it was felt an injustice had been done. What followed was the lack of self-control that is increasingly evident on our roads and as we go about our daily business and that we read about in the court reports in our newspapers. The singing of the National Anthem and the waving of the Barbados flags, even as the disorder prevailed, made it even more disturbing for its revealed a warped sense of what pride and industry are all about. As Bishop Rufus Broomes has noted, it was a complete contradiction of what our brave forefathers stood for. Just as distressing was the fact that bottles came from every direction. The one that would have maimed, possibly killed, Steve Waugh had it been a foot closer to his head came from the Sir Garfield Sobers Pavilion. The repercussions for Barbados had it found its target are too terrible to contemplate. It was a blight on the name of that great National Hero who had been honoured only a few hours earlier on the very spot where the offensive bottle landed. The missiles that were pelted at the police horses, helpless animals, rained down from cowards in the Three Ws. This was not a dub fete at which riotous youth were releasing pent-up energy and frustration or a brawl in the seedy part of town. This was Kensington Oval on a beautiful Sunday afternoon where our proud national sport had drawn the widest and most representative cross-section of Barbadian citizenship to be found anywhere. The Prime Minister put it succinctly in his apology to "the cricketing world". "It is not the type of example we would want our young people to emulate...not the kind of image I would like to see mature adults projecting of Barbados in this technological age," he said. I fear it may now be too late.
|