Ignoring a rich mine of information
The trend towards anti-intellectualism may be partly fuelled by the polarity between concepts of old and new. As new America broke from old Europe, it developed oppositional stances to perceived European values.Susan Sontag wrote of these reactions in terms of "American innocence and European sophistication; American pragmatism and European intellectualising; American energy and European world-weariness..." It is a position she sees in the Europhile's identification of America with "commerce-driven barbarism".
It is not too difficult to discern the realignment in West Indian culture between these two colonists. Time was when Caribbean intellectuals were respected and accorded prestige because their contributions towards development were recognised. As we absorb American-shaped ideas of the "new world", and learn to trust more implicitly its notions of what constitutes "democracy" and "terrorism", we are abandoning the ability to think critically and to construct blueprints for development relevant to our needs. Indeed, we do not seem able to distinguish what is relevant to us as West Indians.
At one with this pattern has been the inclination to relegate intellectual activity to the periphery, to treat intellectuals contemptuously and their contributions as tiresome interventions in "big people business".
We are satisfied to dismiss them as "airy-fairy idealists" not rooted in the real world, who want us to talk about culture when we need to discuss industrialisation and trade.
The value placed on wisdom and erudition was sufficient to elevate men like Eric Williams, Michael Manley and Tom Adams to leadership platforms. Today what are the preferred qualities of leadership? The shift has been away from the smart man to the smart-man, and cunning rather than wisdom is applauded.
In the case of cricket, I have been trying to understand why such a rich mine of information and thought has been so persistently ignored while its decay has been blithely fostered. The West Indies has had its cricket affairs more minutely analysed than perhaps any other cricket culture, yet that information has been wilfully buried under a thoroughly anti-intellectual approach.
Is it that we have followed a prevailing worldwide trend? When John Buchanan was appointed Australia's cricket coach in 1999, his intellectual style was derided. An academic with a degree in human movements, a teaching diploma and a Master of arts in sports administration, Buchanan implemented computer analysis of every ball bowled, incorporated studies on motivation and movement and even the teachings of warlord Sun Tzu into his coaching. Coupled with the massive investment by Australia in academies and training programmes, the results are indisputable.
In the West Indies, we have had the considerable intellectual inputs of Learie Constantine, CLR James, Michael Manley and Hilary Beckles in the realm of cricket development. I have been revisiting some of their work, and last week mentioned the report of the CARICOM-UWI cricket conference of 2000 as a guiding light of the process.
The report has since been circulated to regional newspapers so they can disseminate its contents as they see fit. Newspapers should see their role in promoting this discourse, as it is not enough to simply report on matches and condemn the West Indies Cricket Board (WICB).
In March 1996, as a newspaper editor, I had published a proposal for the development of West Indies cricket prepared by Michael Manley and O.K. Melhado and submitted to the WICB. It was not as detailed or comprehensive as the 2000 conference report, but it provided an intellectual framework and context for development, and set out a phased plan. That was more than a decade ago, and it has been followed by substantial work, such as The Development Of West Indies Cricket by Beckles.
I am focusing on these sources of knowledge because they have existed in the dark and must come to light. We have the information, we need to study it and act now.