Proud To Be A Guyanese
by Dale A. Bisnauth
I was at the function to mark the formal opening of the Rohan Kanhai pavilion (stand); that was the afternoon before the fifth One-Day International cricket match between the West Indies and Australia. Rohan Kanhai, in the course of his brief response to the many tributes that had been paid to him, declared: "I am a Guyanese; and I am proud to be a Guyanese." The "official" audience in the vicinity of the pavilion applauded warmly; so, too, did those people who had assembled on the cricket ground the other side of the fence. Rohan Kanhai spoke with feeling; the rest of us, I imagine, resonated to that feeling. "I am proud to be a Guyanese!" It was a good feeling. Next day, Bourda happened. I was not there. I was in Trinidad attending an Education seminar on: "Improving Learning Outcomes in the Caribbean: Lessons and Challenges." I left Guyana early that Wednesday morning in driving rain and thought to myself in relation to the rain and the cricket match: "Here we go again!" On Wednesday evening, Trinidad and Tobago Television carried a shortened version of the fifth one-dayer; so one had more than an idea about what happened. I tell you, the camera-focus on the mounted policemen nonchalantly looking away from the crowd that invaded the field, did not help the image of the security forces much. That night CNN Sports News carried an item on the match. (It must have been the first time Guyana hit the CNN Sports News). The report was that the crowd ran on to the field to prevent Australia from winning. Now you and I know differently. The first interruption, to my mind, might have had that effect, but that was not its intention. The day after the match, Thursday, the Trinidadian dailies, the Trinidad Guardian and the Daily Express roasted us. The Guardian’s editorial commented on "Bourda’s bad boys" and ended with the question: "... will the WICB take a stand and save us from this embarrassment visited upon our cricket by the frightening mob in Guyana?" A cartoon depicted a helmeted Australian batsman tearing off the Bourda Oval with a crowd behind him. The caption read: "Whew! Dat’s the closest I came to be trampled by a HORDE OF HUMANITY!" Keith Smith, editor-at-large, commented in the Express on the episode under the caption: "Madness in the Mudland." He expressed his first thought on seeing the invasion of the pitch: "I couldn’t understand how Guyanese Indians and Africans couldn’t live in unity since here (that is, in the pitch invasion) they were demonstrating how they all stupid together." The two cartoons in the Commentary and Analysis section dealt with the issue. In one, a fellow at a Bus Stop asks another person: "What was the final result in the cricket?" The response: "Guyana lost!" In the other, as Steve Waugh is escorted to the pavilion by the police a man says to him, pointing in the direction of the pavilion: "Yuh see over dey is de pig pen." Mercifully, the editorial spared us. It commented on the riots in Jamaica under the heading "Street politics: a dangerous game." An allusion was made to "the repeated attempts of the PNC leader, Desmond Hoyte, to exploit the post-election riots in Guyana to the advantage of his party." Mercifully, too, in a left-handed sort of way, some people may say Kensington Oval happened during the final one-dayer. As the editorial of the Nation put it: "In 15 ugly minutes of missile-throwing, the Barbados mob robbed Guyana of the ignominy of the title "Champions of Caribbean Cricket Rowdyism." Some people (including the Australian captain) have declared that in all this, cricket is the loser. I believe, and I think that Steve Waugh believes too, that the game will survive, thank you, and that its fortunes will be as mixed in the future as it has been up to this point in time. Some have seen in the behaviour of the "mob" at Bourda a cause for shame and loss of national pride. Isn’t this taking things more than a bit too far? Others berate the critics of the Bourda behaviour as being one-sided and oblivious of crowd rowdyism else-where, including the countries of the critics. I think that rowdyism is bad anywhere, including my country and I am not prepared to exonerate my country simply because the thing happens in England or India or Barbados. I must confess that while I feel that the whole thing - at Bourda and Kensington Oval - is to be regretted and guarded against in the future, as much as I like cricket, I cannot go over-board on the issue. Cricket is great, but it is a game. It has had sociological and political implications for Caribbean peoples, true, but it is still a game. You win some, you lose some. In the nature of things how can it be otherwise? Some years ago, I sat with a friend in one of the better stands at Sabina Park to watch the West Indies and England play. He was a suave, sophisticated gentleman, a senior Inspector of Schools, all dressed up in jacket and tie. No quashee that, Mr Jones. John Snow was bowling. I thought that he was terrific. He got Kanhai and Sobers with consecutive deliveries. My friend got up and abruptly declared, "I can’t take it, I can’t take it. I’m leaving." He did, jacket and tie and all, this educated, sophisticated Jamaican gentleman. Next day, when Basil Butcher was given out caught behind as he surely was, the crowd in the bleachers, heated-up by the sun and by Red Stripe beer, rioted. I suppose they couldn’t take it either. Don’t forget: This is a region where even Heads of States discuss cricket, and serious university types write about the thing, that almost everyone tells us that it is more than a game. And we are all of us exhorted to rally around our team. So what’s wrong if the sophisticated and the educated rally in a style befitting their class and others of us rally in a way befitting ours? Maybe all this talk about shame and all this breast-beating are simply reminders that cricket is, after all, a class thing, and our reactions to incidents connected with the game only reflect our class prejudices. Maybe. I am of the opinion that shame and pride, personal and racial and national, like morale and its opposite, have to do more with the bases of my own inner self-esteem than what happens "out there" in the world of cricket or work or whatever. Self-esteem is what I have had to work on through a disciplined process of reflection and self-scrutiny. The environment matters, but not half as much as what happens inside of me. I believe that I have my good side just as I have my bad side. I am an ordinary kind of joe-bloke, with nothing special about me. And I am mostly happy with me; sometimes I do get a bit impatient with my stupidity and sloth, but on balance I get on with myself. And I live in a country that is somewhat like me. It has its good points and it has got its bad points. I like it because I was born here, I imagine; but, moreso, because it is so much like me and people like me: part great, part not-so-great, part warm and exciting, part exasperating. This is the basis of my pride. I exult in its glory, and I am prepared to share in its shame. That is how pride works. Peace! 
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