Politics and Sports Sports Comment

Stabroek News
March 5, 2003

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It was always felt that politics and sport should not go together. But it seems they do. Sports, especially boxing which sometimes result in death, has often been seen as a contest of skills as against war which is ultimately a conquest of lives.

On Sunday, American Deidra Chatman, a freshman playing for Virginia in the NCAA basketball championships turned her back on the American flag during the playing of the national anthem at a college basketball game. She said that was her way of protesting US foreign policy.

Chatman said her stand represented her personal feeling about the possibility of war and the taking of people’s lives. She has since said that she will not do so again. But she has made her point about having regard for the value of the human life.

Last Saturday, local police reportedly shot and killed University of Guyana student Yohance Douglas and wounded one other in an altercation in Campbellville.

Although universities over the world usually turn out students who are quite militant, Douglas to the best of knowledge, used sport and not politics to engage his free time. It was basketball fever which coursed through his blood eventually splattered in the car in which he and his companions were travelling and on Bonasika Street.

The party was reportedly travelling to the Cliff Anderson Sports Hall to play `ball’ when they were shot at.

No one knows the motive for the shooting and the identities of the policemen involved are at the moment a heavily guarded secret but one would hope that a proper investigation is carried out and that justice would be done.

And, as to the future, it is hoped that the stand of Chatman and the actions taken by the various local bodies which have made their voices heard in what will from now on be known as the `Yohance Douglas Affair’ will help the police force to have a greater regard and value for the human life.

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