I viewed the documentary film “Fire in Babylon”. The fire is so far in Babylon, the fire is Babylon. It’s usually easier for me to be critical than to dispense praise. I plan to stick to form here, but only because of Colin Croft’s appearance in the film and his words which if left unchallenged can leave a bitter lie for generations to taste. In the film, an unapologetic, former West Indies cricketer, fast bowler, Colin Everton Hunte Croft stated, in relation to his ‘rebel’ tour to South Africa during apartheid, “I guess money is everybody’s god’.
If money, capital, can be a ‘god’, It’s an unforgiving god to a people who were themselves money. Croft needs to understand we are the victims of capital: of money and apartheid. Croft and others during that tour in apartheid South Africa were asked to leave trains, bars and restaurants on account of color. Being honorary White did not change their reality.
Croft demonstrates and simplifies how he came to the decision to tour South Africa: money. He seems so smug in his assessment as to say this was and is a valid reason to do all things. He isn’t alone. Many share his view. Some prominent public officers are quick to point out that slavery was legal. They mean there was no, man’s, law preventing it. By extension, I gather, so was apartheid. That was the law. From these practices would flow the wealth and the money, only they, needed to feed their families. From that would flow Croft’s justification.
Let’s get this straight because if we do not get this, we get nothing. Slavery is a crime against all things; humanity is only one of those things. No law could make it legal. So too is its progeny, apartheid.
We want to forgive Croftie, because we understand the idea of apartheid was not his. Even those Africans who participated in slavery were part of a larger scheme hatched in Europe. Much like those of us in the cocaine trade today, we are part of a larger construct where larger responsibility lies elsewhere. Even they talk about feeding their families. Yet, as in all cases, we pay the higher price, violence, murder, political assassinations and incarceration. We do not blame him entirely, but enough is enough: to steal a phrase.
Further, Croft and others like him with opportunities to voice opinion enjoy that opportunity only because others fought and died. A Peter Tosh/Bob Marley song made it into the film’s decent soundtrack, the Marley version of, “Get up, Stand Up”. Victims of apartheid had no voice. No sooner they stood up to speak, death, violence and incarceration would visit. That human bond was betrayed in so many ways. Given Croft’s pronouncements, a more appropriate song would have been Tosh’s prophecy of “the day the dollar die’.
Since the film, another of Croft’s colleagues, the heretofore unapologetic captain of the ‘rebel’ tour to South Africa, Lawrence George Rowe apologized. It took the re-naming of the players’ pavilion at the Kingston Cricket Club Ground, Sabina Park, to exhume this apology after years of denial and plain foolishness. This presentation was made at the beginning of the recent match between India and the West Indies. Evidently, the current Jamaica Cricket Association hatched the plan without any consultation with history, with Jamaican people, and with Rowe. The decision seemed to have caught Rowe by surprise and unprepared for an apology.
When the gravity of the situation struck the ‘Association’, and informed minds understood that the renamed pavilion would be unveiled at the beginning of an internationally televised test match, they asked Rowe to fashion this apology. Press reports indicate there was ‘back and forth’ regarding the wording of the apology. He read,
“About 28 years ago, a team of West Indies cricketers toured South Africa. At that time South Africa was banned for the apartheid regime. That tour and other such tours were grouped together as rebel tours. It was organised and conducted without the approval of West Indies’ cricket board. Such tours were in fact outlawed by cricket boards over the world, by governments including the government of Jamaica and by other international organisations like the United Nations. Understandably, that tour upset the people of Jamaica. Today I sincerely apologise to the cricketing fraternity of Jamaica, the Caribbean and the rest of the world.”
Luckily, few fans showed to witness the unveiling and apology.
Before I forget, about the film, it’s always nice to reminisce about the good old days. Films are generally romantic and “Fire in Babylon” is no exception. This is the Hollywood model: nothing too serious, generous dashes of levity, good music, even a Bollywood-type song and dance in between, and a nice time for all. Rases Frank “I” from Antigua and Colin “Bones” Cumberbatch were given some screen-time to develop a more accurate context: slavery, racism, independence, and Black Power and apartheid in particular. The least said about Sir Hilary Beckles is probably best. However the real challenge to historians and historically based presentations is to make it relevant today and to spawn a discussion about the present and a way forward.
The film despite its romance seems to have disturbed an ants’ nest and partly because the coverage given to ‘rebel cricketers’ forces us to revisit an unhappy time and to compare it with to the current madness that is Caribbean cricket administration. Maybe unwittingly, it reveals the contradictions of some ‘rebels’ who now hold opinions on Chris Gayle and his dispute with the current WICB, like Lloyd and I suppose Haynes. (Lloyd was a Packer ‘rebel’, not South Africa). Further, it ignores the 1975, 1979, and 1983 cricket world cups. Part of that I believe is to exclude Alvin Kallicharran and Rohan Kanhai from the subscript: both went to South Africa, but wouldn’t fit the film’s thesis of African rebellion, African betrayal, and the fight against massa.
Others seek to move away from this unholy period of our history but Croft ensures we remain by being ever-present on our screens and print- media with his peculiar ideas. His first test captain Sir Clive Lloyd has a stand named after him at Bourda in Guyana; even though the authorities subsequently moved the test venue elsewhere. Plus, he was knighted by the Queen and presented with numerous awards, degrees and letters. Sir Isaac Vivian Alexander Richards, also a knight, has a stadium named after him in Antigua. It started out as a sandpit but the sand seems to have settled. Malcolm Marshall, Michael Holding, Andy Roberts, Joel Garner, Haynes and Greenidge are part of a list with their names on a piece of real estate, in a cricket ground. Sobers has a statue, even though they moved it from the center of town to the cricket ground. He had lunch with Ian Smith of Rhodesia. Sobers apologized.
Croft, however, remains a living reminder of a past and it’s not the heyday of West Indies cricket. It is about the crime committed against humanity. Croft sees no difference between the rebel tour to South Africa and the one to Kerry Packer in Australia. Croft opened the door for what can only be construed as a bouncer when fast bowling colleague, Michael Holding speaking about the ‘rebels’ intoned that, ‘…if they paid them enough money they would even accept chains on their ankles’.
Both Holding and Croft are alleged to have voiced opposition to the film’s director over-playing race: the black/white angle. But I imagine for different reasons. White-Europeans have benefitted most from the derision and exploitation of the poor; some of whom are White Europeans. White privilege still dominates our existence. So a White-Black conflict may legitimately be overdone, but it’s really the exploited against the exploiter. It so happens that the largest percentage of the exploited is Black or Brown and the exploiters White. This is why South Africa needed Croft and others to play in that country, to make the point about the exploiter and the exploited: as an example of who is in charge.
It is this exploitation we respond to when we play and that is why all teams came under the gun and from whatever country. I can only surmise that Holding objected to the film’s Black/White focus because of the availability of a more inclusive umbrella of class and struggle. Holding, Richards, Roberts and others who refused the offer to go relied on the support given by Marley and other soldiers of that time. This response is primarily cultural with culture acting as the basis for sustained rebellion. Just as the history informs the particular expression of Reggae, Soca and Chutney, it informs the style of our cricket.
What some see as a nationalist response to colonial power is a culturally rooted interpretation of all endeavors and against the elimination of the culture and its cricket. Richards surmised in the film that had he accepted the ‘open check’ and gone to South Africa West Indies cricket structure would have collapsed.
Well, it has. I believe those tours to South Africa had a debilitating effect on our cricket from which it has not fully recovered. Yes, it continued in the immediate aftermath with some strength under Richards, but, not since. Now we face a season of discontent and with a WICB unwilling to play its best batsman, Chris Gayle. Where a WI cricket board with Clive Lloyd as a member would stand against Gayle playing, while remaining silent on a pavilion for Rowe
Croft unwittingly, and by his mere presence, raises serious questions about our socio-political conditions today and about our values and a way forward. If the filmmakers intended as such, power to them.
We need to revamp the stereotype of the big, mean, intimidating African fast bowler. It’s still mentioned by every commentary team at every match the West Indies team plays. Despite, the relatively short Kemar Roach and Fidel Edwards bowling at 90 mph, evidently, the West Indies would never be able to win again without a tall quartet. The Black is silent. No room is left to understand the slower bowling of the very tall Kieron Pollard, Suleiman Benn and to a lesser extent, Darren Sammy. Still, commentators get away with talk about our athleticism without noting the intellect successful bowling requires. Perhaps, this is the Black White focus we all find objectionable.
In the film, the 6 foot, 8 inch, Joel “Big Bird” Garner tells a story about asking Croft what he would do if he, Croft, was bowling to his own mother. I believe the story was intended as a bit of levity. But given the context of his other comments we cannot be sure that Croft would not bowl a bouncer to her head. After all, according to him, it’s about the money.
Rowe was rewarded with a pavilion in exchange for an apology. Even the architects, builders and maintenance workers of apartheid have apologized. Croft missed a golden opportunity during the film. Instead he seeks to justify the ‘rebel’ tour. Rebels fight for a cause not to be the voice of Babylon. In the film Bunny Wailer intoned that Babylon is not a place, it’s wherever unrighteousness exists. Croft auditions as Babylon’s spokesman. Rowe got a pavilion, maybe Croft is holding out for a whole stadium, a knighthood, and, yes, some money, in Babylon.
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