Khan's Chronicles by Sharief Khan
Guyana Chronicle
May 20, 2001

GEORGETOWN - Andrew `Six Head' Lewis is too busy these days trying to remain world welterweight boxing champion to take up an ambassadorial posting.

His is the glory of being the country's first world boxing champion and he deserves all the praise he's getting now. He has fought long and hard for the title and the gold belt that goes with it, which he allowed me to hold and handle for a while, when he was at the Chronicle on Friday.

In the emotions of celebrations it's easy to forget the hard work, the grit, the determination, the long and lonely days of struggling, the frustrations, the agony, the pain it takes to get to the top.

But it's not easy - never easy in a world that's so full of cut throats and those who, like crabs in a barrel, want to pull you down and keep you down.

And it's even tougher when you get to the top because there are so many who envy you and would love to see nothing better than your fall back to the bottom of the barrel.

I've met Muhammad Ali and other world class sportsmen, royalty, Presidents, Prime Ministers, movie stars, models, singers and others who all know what it takes to make it to the top.

Some I have met have managed to retain their ordinariness amid the trappings of power and glory; others sometimes get so caught up in being what they had arrived at that they shun their roots and behave like different creatures, dropping that common touch like a dingy old coat.

I'd never met `Six' in person before Friday when he came by our office to be presented with a framed copy of the February 19, 2001 edition of the Guyana Chronicle in which his historic victory in Las Vegas was emblazoned on the front page.

But I had sensed before that he was really an ordinary person and not likely to let stardom make his head all dizzy and forget his roots.

I had managed to catch him on the phone not long after his Las Vegas victory and he was just an excited working class man who had just conquered the world.

"Oh God, man! That's good! That's wonderful!" he kept exclaiming when I told him that President Bharrat Jagdeo had declared Monday February 19 a national holiday in his honour.

"A national holiday for me?"

I spoke with Six as he and his manager Nelson Fernandez and entourage were in line to join a plane back to New York.

"They have made tomorrow a national holiday for me in Guyana", I heard him shouting to everyone around him.

"What are they calling the holiday?", he wondered.

I told him it was his day and it could be called whatever he wanted.

"Let them name it Andrew `Six Head' Lewis Day!" he exclaimed.

In a media statement just hours after watching the fight with Lewis' townsfolk in Albouystown, Georgetown, Mr Jagdeo declared, "He has done our country proud; his victory is a victory for all Guyanese."

President Jagdeo announced he had also instructed that the state provide the Guyanese hero with a house and land upon his return to Guyana.

"A house and land for me?" Lewis asked, trying to let it all settle in.

"Please tell them to set it up for me. I coming home soon", he said, sharing the good news again with his manager.

"Tell them I want a big sign around the house saying `Andrew `Six Head' Lewis house!"

It was hard to escape being caught up in the emotions of the moment, sharing in the joy of a Guyanese who at last has scaled heights none of his countrymen had done before him.

And his declaration, in his distinct Guyanese accent that had the HBO commentators saying he was talking too fast, that this was an honour for his country Guyana, warmed him even more to our hearts.

Warming him even more to our hearts was his finding the time to turn out to celebrate the Hindu festival of Phagwah with Guyanese and other Caribbean people in New York in March, showing how much of a Guyanese he is.

And when the violence and unrest broke out after the March 19 elections, he agonised over the distress being created in his homeland.

"I want the fighting and burning to stop! I do not want to (come) down there and get myself beaten up", he said in an interview while training for his first title defence last month.

Calling on his fellow Guyanese "to stop this stupid fighting, burning down of buildings and beating up of innocent people on the streets of Georgetown", his message to them was that such negative acts "would get us nowhere in this world".

"People are looking down on us. We are behaving as if we have no manners, no culture, no nothing", the concerned boxer stressed.

It took guts for Six to speak out his mind on an issue like that at a time like that, but then he's a world champ and you don't get to be a world champ by lacking guts and being afraid.

He's asking people here to stop the fussing and the fighting and he's showing that he cares enough by not being afraid to speak out.

He had noted in the interview, "Listen to this, there they are, living in the country, sharing the country's beauty and riches and want to destroy it as well".

"That is so wrong", he said.

And Six is so right and that's why I felt like I had already known him when I first spoke to him on the phone as he was catching that plane in Las Vegas.

"I know the Chronicle well...I used to sleep here...", he told me as he was being escorted into the Chronicle Editorial Department Friday.

He recalled that as a young boy he used to collect papers at the Chronicle offices for a vendor named Diana and said he many nights had to sleep there until the papers were printed.

That was about 20 years ago, he said, and being back there Friday brought a flood of memories.

Walking through the plant swarmed by happy employees sharing his glory probably reflected the long road he has travelled since.

The Chronicle was the place where once as a little boy he slept as he waited for the newspaper to be printed to get a `small piece' from helping a vendor and here he was Friday, now being escorted around the same place -- a world champion graciously come to receive a gift.

Some working class people have real class, especially when they don't forget their roots.

And that's why they are so hard to put down - they come tough.

And if and when he has the time, the government should consider making him a role model ambassador for young people. He's got a lot to teach, even to the adults.

Big up, Six!

And let the message flow.