UPSIDE DOWN ECONOMICS

There is a myth that in a country like the UK it is unimaginable that people can go hungry and without a meal. Even more worrying is the perception that there are no poor people in this country.Very recently, a friend related to me how he overheard a conversation in a corner shop where a woman - who would be considered poor by the economic standards of this country - was telling her neighbour how she was terrified about her future. She was especially worried whether she would be able to feed her three children in the coming weeks as her partner had just lost his job and that they were up to their necks in debt. She was also complaining about how the cost of living had suddenly increased.

That incident has stayed with me. From my comfortable perspective, I was not paying too much attention to prices and I decided to do so after hearing about that conversation. I was indeed struck by the way our food costs have soared over the last few months. I used to put this fact down to our growing teenage sons who seem to be always hungry with their increasing appetites. Paying heed to the prices made me reason that the increase is probably related to the rising oil prices.

The economic experts [The Economist Dec 8, 2007 (pp.83-84)], on the other hand, are suggesting that there may be more than the rise in oil price that is the cause for "cheap food" becoming a thing in the past. One theory is that because of the take off of incomes in Asia more people there can afford meat and other foods. In other words - more people are able to eat and have the means to do so. This in itself may not be the reason for the increase in food prices. The related bit is that the demand for more meat cannot be matched as the grains (that are in abundance) to feed animals are used, especially by the USA, to produce ethanol to provide an alternative and cleaner source of energy for the gas guzzlers in that country. Interestingly, one old school of economic theory is being challenged here: abundance in this case (of grains) does not not mean the lowering of prices - in fact it shoots up!

In the meantime, while the pundits theorises, who feels it most? It is the poor, whererver they are, who continue to feel the squeeze from our madhouse economics which will most likely take humankind over the final precipe. Poor people can gaze at supermarket shelves and bazaars filled with Columbus' like trinkets and canned food - they can see these but will never ever be able to touch, feel and taste. I have no heart for rich countries that are feeling the dent because they are locked into importing such trinket or foods. My indignation is directed at the causes that make and keep people poor within and between nations - which will also include my own complicity in all this and whether I am willing to live a counter life.

Indeed, the poor are still with us - as Jesus is purported to have said according to one of the gospel writers. And their condition, instead of improving is getting worse. Free Trade, the new abode of the Western God (now being taken over by the East) is daily praised as the source of plenty and prosperity and in whom lies salvation. As Eduardo Galeano puts it: "Free trade is sold as something new, as if born from a cabbage or the ear of a goat, despite its long history reaching back to the origins of the unjust system that reigns today."

And, do not give me all that spiritualising bull-nonsense about "Blessed are the poor", as human flesh continue to be born in the indigestion of hunger, wallowing in it to ultimately die of hunger. Poor people too want to enjoy full life right here on earth. It is time for theologians to take off from their shelves and re-read all those dusty volumes of liberation theologies (A Theology of Liberation, God of the Oppressed, Minjung Theology and the rows of the many such other books). God's preferential option for the poor should now move from being an option to becoming God's preference and hard talk

For the poor are still with us. In fact, they have always been with us - but the lure and grip of inhabiting spaces in the "master's house" may have intoxicated us and clouded our vision. It is time to get sober, to protest and certainly get angry to act. After all, in economic terms: it is cheaper to eliminate poverty than to maintain it!

copyright jagessar

Image Credit
tkhere.blogspot.com/2007/08/turn-your-world-u..

THE SHAPE(S) OF GREED

I recall an early incident in my ministry along the coast (Berbice)of Guyana. In one of my sermons, I attempted to respond to the economic state of the country, the effects of the IMF and global economics. In retrospect, this has been a revolving theme in my ministry in Guyana and later in Grenada. At the end of that service an old rice farmer got up (as he would always do!) to say his few words about the sermon. He said: "Pastor, all dem fancy big words you throw at us in dat sermon boil down to one thing: greed - pure damm greed. Call it what what you wish or dress it up in fancy clothes and words: it is still greed." His words, and they were many more on a number of other occasions, have stayed with me. In a curious way this man's thoughts like so many others were beating my theological reflections into concrete and connecting shape(s) in the harsh context of the increasing impoverishment of many many people.

Yes, greed (pleonexia) - the inordinate desire for more and more - may change shape, colour, size and hands, sometimes unrecognizable, but still remains greed. These thoughts and others [that is, the new forms of colonialism] were present as I read that the decline in oil output will incite more wars. Greed, especially in the context scarcity, knows no limit. And as such, it is not surprising to learn that the UK and other nations as well are preparing to submit to the UN its claim of sovereign rights over a vast area of the sea-bed off Antartica.

Remote is one of the words used to justify the right to that claim. This certainly sounds like the earlier and later colonial soundbites of European hegemony.The Caribs, Arawaks, Indians and Africans who lived in the remote Heart of Darkness must be civilised and taught how to live in their own ancestral lands; but first the "civilising agents" must grab all their lands and natural resources.

A difference in this later/new case is that God is not mentioned - perhaps just thought of. Or maybe there is no longer a need to talk about God as in the 1st place that was an excuse to lay hands on the lands of the natives. No need for that now, as the voters will find such an argument unconvincing and besides, God has a chronic housing problem in the UK. It may also be, that it is yet to determine whether Penguins have souls and are in need of salvation. In fact, I wonder what these inhabitants of Antartica would say if they are given voice and agency. Who knows, it may be that a lot of theological ink can yet be spilled on this matter.

And, it is not only the Antartica that the British want to plant their flag on: there are claims in the Atlantic on Falkland Islands, Ascension Island and even a joint claim lodged at the UN by France, Ireland and Spain for a large area of seabed in the Bay of Biscay. With the recent discovery of oil and natural gas in Guyana the Conquistadores will be returning in hordes to the loss city of Eldorado.

Forget the environmental impact and the 1959 Antartica treaty of which these nations have all signed. King Oil, Gas and Greed - the trinity is calling the shots. How do we do theology with this? Where are are the prophets and prophetesses? How do we undress the lies? Eduardo Galeano puts these lies nicely: "Traditional geography steals space just as imperial economy steals wealth, offical history steals memory and formal culture steals the word." Look closer: eurocentric theology or more properly white theology has a hand somewhere in the schooling of all such stealings - whether by guile or by force!


copyright jagessar

Image Credit

The Trinidad Guardian (Sunday 26th Feb, 2006)
Photo by Shirley Bahadur

CHURCH MELTDOWN?

I never thought I would associate the word "meltdown" with church. It is a term one associates with the overheated core of a nuclear reactor! Nothing in my experience of church in the Caribbean and teaching at Queens (Birmingham) led me to ever think of making such an observation even though John's vision on the isle of Patmos saw a city with no temple. As a minister on the "roll of ministers" of the United Reformed Church (URC) and after following this ecclesial tradition over the last eight years, I am more and more persuaded by the comment of a collegue that the URC is behaving like a structure in melt-down mode. For most of the eight years I have tried to be positive about the URC and I still do even though the URC has effectively pulled out of Queen's college where I am still teaching but now employed by the Queens Foundation.

The December 2007 issue of the Reform (The Magazine of the URC) with the focus on "what it means to be a learning church" only added to my sadness about the state of the URC and further served to strengthen my colleague's view that the denomination is in "meltdown" mode. Initially, I wanted to write a long response but such wishful thinking was cut short as I realise I had no one to send it to. That is, someone who would really bother to read it. Hence, I have ended up using my blog space to make a few observations - where at least a few friends will read it.

I am struck by the opening piece entitled "Opening Doors" which from my perspective read more like holding the "door ajar" that is, with a deliberate attempt to close it when necessary. The discourse in this piece around "people of God" "partnership" "ecumenical" and "vision4life" are good sound bites but deep down lacks vision, adventure and risk. There is no long term strategy here - only insipid inhouse maintenance. Imagination is missing: can we begin to live a vision we have never first imagined? A better title for the piece would be: "removing doors". At least such an act would take some imagination and risk.

It is ironic that the URC has declared itself a multicultural church yet there is nothing in this piece or anywhere else highlighting what this means for a "learning church". Vision4Life and partnership are dominated by a stifling "Whiteness" that pervades most of the issue. Sure, there is the world church experiences with groups galavanting all the way to India, Africa and locally to Congolese congregations (in UK). But, how about engaging with and including the Black and Asian siblings in our own house! Jesus had a word for this contradiction (according to the gospel writers), hypocrisy. A leader of one of the 1st nations people of North America called this "speaking with forked tongues". I, for one, will not deny the value of the world church encounters. My question is: how many of the folks who go on these trips ever invest time in walking down the streets and roads where minority ethnic people live, work and shop and attempt to meet the "other" right in their midst? And how many, after their conversions from these travels abroad, ever invest the time and energy to do so and cultivate friendships locally? And how does this change what it means to be a multicultural church locally?

Now, it is not only the designed unawareness to the presence of minority ethnic peoples in our midst (and how they impact on our policies and theologies) that is a sign of URC's meltdown. Another sign is the response to the letter entitled "The Queen's Foundation" (p.33). The writer of this letter expressed his utter bewilderment as to why his church would want to pull out from a theological institution where energy, life, and cutting edge scholarship in the context of cultural and theological diversity, world church community and the whole people of God learning together are evident to the other ecclesial traditions (including the Black Majority Churches). The response to the letter actually reflects the effect of meltdown: the response lacks a sense of vision and daringness - it is just weak techno speak that reflects a state of denial as to what is actually happening and the folly of the Church's decision. Should I be surprised that there were only fewer than ten (10) new ordination students? Meltdown here is driven by the implication that the very people responsible for training are unable to see how they can stir a sense of vocation that will increase numbers. That is a sure sign of meltdown: especially when the very architects of Vision4Life do not actually seem to believe in the vision that is supposed to drive the change. No wonder the reactor is overheating (too much hot air perhaps) and people are panicking.

Like some others, I am putting my energies elsewhere and if my minority ethnic colleagues would ask me, I would say: re-read your December issue of Reform with a hermeneutic of suspicion and try interpreting and locating the irony of the picture of the seven (minority ethnic) young people from Trinity Church, Golders Green who have just been received in membership (p.13) within the Vision4Life.

The URC needs to stop learning and give agency to practice so that a learning and multicultural church may be birthed.

copyright jagessar

GIVE HAITI A CHANCE

A recent BBC Science Reporter news item (Nov 5, 2007) got my attention. It was about a team of international scientists (meaning mainly Americans and Europeans) who have concluded that the “Key HIV Strain in the USA came from Haiti”. These experts examined archived blood samples (1969) from Haitian immigrants to the USA (who may not have known that their blood samples were archived and for what reason) and have decided that Haitians were the carriers and that they themselves had contacted the HIV strain from the Congo. How Haitians got to the Congo in the first place is another matter - but the link between Haiti and Congo re-inforces a certain kind of theory about the orgins of AIDS. The cynic in me, wonders whether the findings would have be different had a team of Cuban, Haitian or African doctors carried out this research?Whatever truth there may be in these findings, I am always suspicious of White American hegmony and the attending racism. Both know no bounds – whether it it directed at Haitians, Africa, the rest of the Caribbean, African Americans, Native Americans or Hispanics, among others.

There is, of course, a history to all of this – and yet again Haiti bleeds. This time everyone will be running away from Haitian blood and will be 'locking out' Haitians. “Haiti,” writes Sam Bleakley, “is blue-black, her body bruised from history.” This is nearer to the truth - as Haiti continues to be "screwed" left, right, center, below and above.I wonder how many students of history in Britain or the USA know that Haiti was the first country to abolish slavery three years before 1807: the date being remembered this year in the UK and which has become more of an opportunity for some white and (un-emancipated)Black British Christians to iconise the benevolence of white Christians with an all inclusive conscience that will make God look like a sinner. Haiti’s freedom has been and still is costly – blood, sweat and tears. Located in the backyard of the mighty USA, Haiti is for most of the world a “corner of the dead and the forgotten” a lonely island, floating away zombie-like into nothingness.

At least this is how most of the world would like to think. But, ever since the Haitian Revolution – Haiti gets under the skin. Cuba is not America’s only nemesis; so is Haiti.Jefferson, that so called messenger of freedom who could not see the forked tongue contradictions between his Black slave owning practices and his rhetoric of freedom labelled Haiti as bad influence (how surprising) and suggested that it was imperative to fence in the Haitian plague to the island. It is one thing for a lone person to make such an observation. Most disturbing is that a whole nation believed him and it was many many years later that the USA recognized that “plague” as the land of the free.

But that recognition had a price to it – American hegemony over Haiti. Haiti’s freedom from France was costly. She had to pay France for the freedom they won (over 22 billion US dollars) to be totally free. But by then the US Marines landed in Haiti (1915) and like church missionaries left when their mission was accomplished (in 1934), that is after "screwing" up Haitians minds and lives. But people of the region know from bitter experience that 'colonial' mission is never completed. The Marines hung around like a chronic cough turning into TB. They ensured that American interests were protected (Banking and Sweat Shops among others) even if it meant killing thousands of Haitians. American occupiers do not just pull out. They leave their propped up puppets and local military goons behind to kill democracy and make beggars out of a nation – hooked permanently on American imports. Jefferson words suddenly looked real: Haitians seemed to be effectively fenced in.

But, Haitians will not be fenced in no matter what means are used to keep them down. They turn to the Sea (or the ocean) that defines them - Caribbean. They launch their make-shift boats from whatever scraps they could find and set sail for the Coloniser's own turf. Many are swallowed up by the Caribbean Sea while others get through. And for those caught: well, it is not uncommon for Americans to welcome "white" looking Cuban boat people and at the same time turn back "Black Haitians" as undesirables, in spite of the Haitian Diaspora's contribution to US economic, cultural and intellectual life.

In this so-called corner of the dead there is colourful hope that boggles the mind and defies all the logic. “Everyone”, write Eduardo Galeano, “is a sculptor” working “tin cans and scrap metal that they cut and shape and hammer with old-world mastery, creating marvels that are sold in the street markets.” Moreover, the skeleton body bruised and battered by history is like a “pearl rubbed to hard brilliance from grit” (Bleakely).

In spite of the evidence, Haitians are filled with hope. No wonder David Williamson was surprised with the Haitian spin on Philippians 4:13. “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.” In Creole the verse reads: “In any situation that appears before me, I can degaje…” He had expected to find the word fe (do or accomplish). But degaje captures reality, as it is in Haiti and so the spin: “we can make things work some other way and in spite of”. The shift in verbs tells it all. For according to Haitian realities (past and present) it is not with God's help they can make any dream come true. That would be a lie. With the help of the Divine they can expect to degaje – that is, just to get by and make life work.

In the meantime, the white curse of American hegemony remains fixed on the tired backs of Haitians. It may be time to invoke the spirits of the loas to dispell this curse, for the power of the white Jesus has repeatedly failed the Haitians. I wonder how Black and Womanist American theologians, if they do find out about this recent scientific findings about Haitians and the HIV Strain, are going to respond.

copyright jagessar

CONFUSED SPACES

I often read the monthly issue of the Balsall Heathan that Leonora brings home. And if your are wondering - heathan (not heathen) in this case has nothing to do with faiths. The Balsall Heathan is the community newletter of Balsall Heath, Birmingham (UK). In the September 2007 issue a piece under the "Balsall Heath Forum Focus" grabbed my attention. It was entitled: "Can this really be happening?" and it was about the state of the back entranceto the garden and yard of an elderly citizen. It was like a South American jungle and inaccessible. Apparently there was no help from the environmental services and so it was left to a group of concerned folks from the community to do the clearing and cleaning up.

While such neglect raises ones blood pressure (getting angry) and the community taking the initiative to make a visible difference lowers it by giving hope a concrete shape, I am intrigued by the story behind the plot of of overgrown land. From the piece, I learnt that it is owned by the City Council and that there are many such plots in the city But precisely because it is the City Council's there is always ambiguity and confusion as to who owns it - and hence who tends it. The article referred to these plots of land as confused spaces and suggest the need to reclaim them.

Confused Spaces started my mind working overtime.In the context of theologising, I love the descriptor 'confused spaces' as this aptly sums up my own journey with its multiplicity of faith impluses that shape me as an Indo-Caribbean-Guyanese male residing in Birmingham. It fits in very well with my call for an Anansi hermeneutics and the reclaiming of limbo and limbo spaces as a paradigm for doing theology. For it is the in-between spaces, the confused and contradictory spaces that offer ripe possibiltiies to experience moments of transcendence and catch a glimpse of the divine - not in the neat and dogmatic categories we tend to parcel out "truth" in. Like Anansi, I thrive in confused and ambivalent spaces as I am forced to risk throwing myself at the mercy of grace, rather than attempting to come up with quick, easy and exact answers that bring closure on the movement of the divine.

In the meantime congrats to the community for taking the initiative!


copyright jagessar

RE-MEMBER-ING

Memory or the act of recalling is a constant struggle for my overloaded mind. With so much to recall (including all the pin-codes and passwords) the ratio of action to the amount of information received quickly spirals downward (Neil Postman). In this context of data smog, I am constantly sipping cups of Gingseng tea hoping that that the herb will improve my ability to re-member. Not that everything I have encountered is necessarily what I wish to re-member. I suppose with maturity I have now perfected the art of being able to recall events, names, places and peoples selectively. Yet, this is not an act that I can always control. At times I am at the mercy of the very act that takes over and work in its own surprising, creative and complex ways. “Wavering memories”, as Derek Walcott wrote may be one way to put it – but not fully.

This was the case quite recently when I received an invitation from one of my former congregations in the Curacao (where I lived and worked for four years [1995-1999]), to write a short impressionistic piece on my time in that community. I was amazed to find how easily the juicy and positive stories started to roll off the keyboard of my computer – as if time had rolled back and it was happening right before me. I even started to make connections with earlier events and narratives in my life in Guyana, Grenada, Jamaica, Netherlands and now in England. I could not help thinking that my presence in the communities where I lived and worked was purely incidental. What actually mattered were the lives of the people who departed from the Church after the benediction.

For one whose “home” is always elsewhere and who straddles multiple and religious identities the act of re-member-ing or re-calling is as important as it is complex and ambivalent. What we remember, why we remember and how we remember point to the complexity related to the act of re-member-ing and our humanness. There are those who would contend that when you lose access to the past, the present becomes confusing and the future disorienting. I would not wish to dispute this. Yet, as a member of the Indo-Caribbean diaspora access to that past – given colonial history – remains elusive. For me it has remained largely in the imagination – one that I can construct with multiple layers and for diverse situations. Hence, there is no confusion about present and future. There are, in fact, vistas of exciting, adventurous and “limbonal” possibilities that counter notions of fixed and pure identities and histories.

We (Caribbeans) may be “history’s afterthought” with “origins that range from the most disparate places…” [Derek Walcott, Tiopolo’s Hound (2000)]. Why not? After all, as the story goes, God chose what is insignificant, foolish and ‘looked down upon’, to shame the wise and powerful. This is worth re-member-ing. For the “act” of re-member-ing is at the heart of the Christian life. It is “constitutive of faith itself and not a mere elaboration of beliefs already held” [Don Saliers, Worship and Spirituality (1996)]. It is something we do when we gather not only in church and around the eucharistic table – but also when we gather for meals, wherever that may be, and when we tell the stories or narratives that constitute that of the faith community and our own lives. In our present day context where we are programmed only to remember the last 48 hours, the act of re-member-ing becomes a necessary, urgent and subversive piece of work that ought to energise us to reverse such and other dominant trends in our lives. For our struggle against dominant and excluding power is that of “the struggle of memory against forgetting” [Milan Kundera].

© copyright Jagessar

Doing Theology: Before, During & After the Hurricane Season in the Caribbean

It is “Hurricane Season in the Caribbean.” They begin as storms – tropical storms to be more precise and still categorized as natural disaster: perhaps, a good way to downplay the effects of global warming and the human contribution on the increasing numbers of and ferocity of these storms.

While I have experienced heavy winds in Guyana, it was only in 1988 that I experienced and survived the might of a hurricane – “Wild Gilbert” as it was immediately popularised by a local singer. In the midst of pouring rain and mighty winds, I witnessed whole roof tops flying, buildings blown down, trees and poles uprooted and galvanised sheets folding up like paper around leaning posts that were held by a mass of tangled electrical wires. After the hurricane departed and when it was safe, I managed to walk towards what used to be the main road. All I saw was total chaos with no road in view. I am sure Caribbean people who constantly live through the threat of hurricanes can tell a bundle of other stories –deadly ones as well.

One of the things that that always impresses me is the way life gets back to “normal” after a brief spate of being dazed and how people quickly pick up the pieces and bounce back with style. I guess for many people (many mostly poor) there is no time for the luxury of seeing an insurance agent and talking with the bank or seeing a counsellor about being traumatised. They need to get back to eke out a living and resurrect another shack over their heads. Even the more well-to-do folks would not sit around wasting time though they may have insurance for such stormy days. This is not to diminsh the real cost that hurricanes will leave in their trail of debris.

I note that Caribbean life lies somewhere between land and the deep blue sea – with the "devil" around somewhere. The tourist brochure may sell a paradise of sun, sea and sex - missing out the region's history of one disappoint after another (past and present). Bob Marley did not miss it when he sang of Caribbean people as “survivors”. Philip Potter developed the same thesis to speak of Caribbean as the “in spite of” people – with the amazing ability to bounce back in style after every disaster. Yet, these setbacks do have a price that those outside of the region may not always perceive: stagnated economic development and the fragile/risky nature of the Caribbean economy are just two.

So, how is theology done in Caribbean before, during and after hurricanes? There is hardly anything among the written stuff coming out of the region that offers a clue. Perhaps Caribbean theologians are too busy re-building churches and houses! It would be exciting to theologise on the following: Are Caribbean people survivors because of faith or in spite of faith? If it is the former is it only Christian in shape? If it is the latter what does this mean for our theology? While there is a paucity of the written stuff – preaching/sermonising after a hurricane tends to cite the disaster as the Christian God (largely White and Eurocentric) being angry at the ungodly and immoral practice of the Caribbean nation and her people. This is besides the fact that hurricanes flatten houses and places of worship without discrimination.

Hurukan, according to the Caribs (after whom the Caribbean Sea is named), is the God who created earth, animals, fire and people and governs over whirlwind, hurricanes, thunder and spiritual illumination. It may just be that Hurukan is the spirit at work in Caribbean surviving – especially since the Christian God as preached, taught and represented over the years seem never to be on the side of Caribbean people from the time of Columbus to Bush. Theologians in the Caribbean need to consider such disasters (eg. hurricanes) as sites for doing and rewriting theology rather than burying their heads in the musky theological tomes from Christian Europe and America that will continue to clog up Caribbean minds. Perhaps, hurukan may be able to purge our minds.

© copyright Jagessar

Savouring A Good Book: Reading and Re-reading

As a teenager I loved reading and I am still a compulsive reader. Growing upon a land where books were scarce meant that one had to re-read books a number of times – especially the good ones. It was here that my love for books and reading took shape. I suppose also that this may be one reason why I am not easily duped into buying every new book that the market tells me I ought to read. I need lots of time to discover good books and I have no problem in re-reading all the good ones still on my shelf over and over again. I often wonder if I would ever manage to read all the books in our house; this is besides the fact that one can never be able to read all the excellent volumes published. So why waste money on books that should never have been written or what the "firm" tells you that you should read? Writing in the August 2007 issue of the New Internationalist the Cuban writer and journalist, Leonardo Padura Fuentes tells of “The joy of rereading” without losing the thrill and excitement of the first reading. He writes:

“…given the impossibility of knowing whether a pretty cover hides a jewel or a jackass, I prefer to wait until time sort things out and pick from the detritus of the market those flowers that always bloom. In my library I have enough fine books to re-read to satisfy me for a long while.”

Let me savour again City of Joy (Dominique Lapierre) and If This is A Man (Primo Levi).

copyright jagessar

Nyame nnwu na m'awu (God does not die and so we shall not die)

The above title, the presentation of Dr. Elizabeth Amoah, sums the excitement and hope generated at the recently concluded Black Theology Conference at Queens Birmingham (UK), July 13-15, 2007. Participants heard a diverse range of views (panel presentations and keynote speakers) on theological and biblical perspectives on the legacies of the Transatlantic Slavery. Three key challenges, among others stand out:

a) The need to continue the work of de-constructing the inherited eurocentric Christian paradigms and doctrines (such as Original Sin, Incarnation, Suffering, Cross and Crucifixion etc) that many Black Churches and Christians tend to hold on to as if it dropped straight out of the hands of God from Cloud Nine. b) The need to re-claim, give agency and privilege African and African Caribbean religious traditions and cultures( as seen in all the panel presentations). c) And, the need to interrogate and read with extreme caution what we have received as "Sacred Christian Texts". To paraphrase Professor Randal Bailey's challenge: "Is it really in the Texts?"To this end the question of giving greater and equal agency to Black peoples narratives was affirmed as seen in the presentations by Revd Dr Marjorie Lewis and Revd. Dr. Delroy Reid Salmon.

There were a number of other challenges and issue raised. We need to let the discussions continue and find ways to make these ideas real in our practice of faith and faithfulness. I am already looking forward to next year's gathering, please Mama God!

Calypso Cricket is Alive!

They actually did it: the West Indies have won the one day series against England. Like Miss Lou, I can only exclaim "what a devil-ment Miss Mattie" or with Paul Keens Douglas, I now have to wonder if the security managed to contain Tante Merle as she tried to climb over the rails to give the boys some bear hugs and all dem juicy kisses.

Did they actually read CLR James' Beyond a Boundary? They certainly played good cricket and with style. What a good way to end the tour: a timely reminder from the Caribbean as the English go through the motions of commemorating the bicentenary of the 1807 Parliamentary Act to abolish the Transatlantic Slave Trade. Bring out the steelpans!!!

Re-igniting Caribbean Cricket

As a cricket lover, the future of Caribbean Cricket is constantly on my mind. The present team touring the UK is young and full of exciting possibilities and there is the need to support and give them a chance to ‘blossom”.

Yet, I cannot help but wonder if there is still something missing. If, as Caribbean people from every walk of life will affirm with philosophical air, ‘Cricket is We’ – what has happened to us? I suggest that the whole team, including the “overseas” coach re-read and study carefully Beyond a Boundary by C.L.R. James.

After all, ‘What do they know of cricket who only cricket know?’ Perhaps, rediscovering cricket as that ideological weapon of subversion and as an opportunity to move beyond the boundary or from someone else’s backyard and occupy legitimate space centre-field may once again liberate Caribbean cricket and give Caribbean viewers less grey hairs just looking West Indies at the art.