MIA > Archive > Tim Hector
Fan the Flame, Outlet, 10 January 1997.
Online here https://web.archive.org/web/20120416011318/http://www.candw.ag/~jardinea/fanflame.htm
Transcribed by Christian Høgsbjerg.
Marked up by Einde O’Callaghan for the Marxists’ Internet Archive.
Prime Minister Lester Bird in his New Year address to the nation said the following:
“We are not enemies, nor must we ever be so. Though passion may have strained the bonds of our affection, it must not break them. The lesson of other nations set at each other’s throats must lead us to another course – one in which debate is possible, discussion encouraged and dissent tolerated. Such a course need not–and should not–necessitate division, disruption and destruction. The mystical chords of memory, stretching from the playing fields, schoolrooms, and the front parlours of our homes to every heart and every heart-felt emotion, should keep alive the flame of our unity, until it again burns brightly fanned, as surely it will be by the better angels of our nature.”
Now several people met me and said that in this passage PM Lester Bird was referring to me in particular. At first I brushed off these persons with some glib remark like “It could not be me. Lester has no time to be bothering with dis-established small-fry like me. He is into big projects” or some such variation on the theme. Strangely though, some people took it so seriously that they took to calling me about it, and when I said I had not heard or seen the speech, on radio or TV, at least three callers got a text and read the passage to me.
At that stage I said: “The Prime Minister is a man who uses words. He loves the sound of words. His words do not correspond to reality. He is pleased by the sound and ring of his own words in his own ear. Those words do not mean a thing! They will not be matched by a single corresponding deed which will make word, flesh”. And I may add, lately the Prime Minister has become very Biblical to take in those in the lap of religiosity. Let him make his word flesh, so that it may dwell among us. Not Lester Bird. Never. Not the man I knew. Note I did not say “the man I know” but “the man I knew.”
One caller who is a student of literature of the highest calibre took to analysing the speech. She insisted that Lester Bird was holding out “an olive branch” to me. She took the phrase “the front parlours of our homes” and insisted it could mean no one else but me. “Who else” she asked “in the Opposition has been in each other’s front parlour, but you and Lester?”
I tried to be off-putting. “Even if that were so,” I replied “What does it mean. It sounded like a nice thing to say and Lester said it. That’s all. Words without meaningful content is Lester’s forté”. She would not be put off.
”What about” the phrase to every “heart and heartfelt emotion?” I tried to interrupt. She would have none of it. “And he goes on” she said “to say that these heart and heartfelt emotions should keep alive the flame of our unity until it bums again brightly fanned as surely it will be by the better angels of our nature.” The use of the word “flame” quickly followed by “fan” is as direct a reference to the writer of Fan the Flame.
Cornered, I answered “So what?” She herself had no reply, except to say, “you get my point though. It was an appeal to you and you cannot deny it.”
I decided to take in front before in front took me. So I questioned “So what am I to do, if as you say it was an appeal to me. An appeal to do what, may I ask?” She had no answer, and honestly admitted it.
Now as I always tell people nowadays who inquire about such matters that:
“Lester and I are the best of friends, but we do not speak and probably never will again. Whenever we meet, I give him the respect due his office as Prime Minister, but in recent time I do not even have to do that since I can rely on him to look in the other direction.”
Between 1969 and 1975 Lester Bird and I were the best of friends. We did together all the things which young men do. We had, I think, a wonderful period of co-operation on cricket. He shared with me the passion to see a Leeward Islander on the West Indies team. Note, it was a Leeward Islander, we did not care from which of the Leeward islands the cricketer came. We were out to prove a point. That point was this. If the West Indies was to be integrated it had to be integrated all the way through. And we in the Leewards had to make it into the integrated West Indian house, not as tokens, but by merit. And merit alone.
Let some examples suffice. Lester Bird as President and I as Secretary of the Antigua Cricket Association, I was also at the time Secretary of the Leewards Cricket Association, deliberately arranged to bring Derek Robbins XI here, before Derek Robins decided to take his International XI to South Africa. We wanted to put a Leewards player on the Derek Robbins XI. So a fixture was arranged for Derek Robbins XI to play a Leewards XI in Antigua. Two players in particular from the Leewards were to be on view. Viv Richards and Elquemedo Willett the Nevis leg-spinner. Things went according to plan. We prepared the Antigua Recreation Ground with lightning speed. I worked my butt off leaving nothing to chance to get it done on time, despite the short time available. In the process I became an ‘expert’ on what we call “devil’s grass” its removal and replacing.
To cut a long story short. Derek Robbins XI came and played. Those were the days when I sold the Antigua Cricket Association the idea that the L.I. tournament and a couple of Shell Shield (now Red Stripe) games were inadequate for producing a Test cricketer. So we use to arrange several top-class matches each year. (Sadly, since my time they have gone back to the old formula.)
Richards and Willett performed well in the Derek Robbins match. After a lot of diplomatic work behind the scenes, by both Lester and I, one of the two was to be selected to tour with Derek Robbins. Lester and I celebrated our triumph in suitable company – more need not be said!
For some unknown reason, when the interviews were held Vivi Richards and Derek Robbins did not hit it off. It was mutual. Willett was chosen. Lester and I rejoiced. We had done it. Willett was on his way. Test selection was just a matter of time. And it came shortly after Willett returned from the Derek Robbins touring team. Integration was being concretely fostered and furthered.
The other story I will relate also concerns cricket. Vivi Richards, Lester and I had no doubt was star quality. But he kept on failing on every big occasion. At that time, Robin Bascus and Tanny Rose in particular would hammer and pound Lester and I for selecting him for various matches when he was failing. They heckled us constantly. Sometimes it rattled Lester. But that’s another story.
Once, Kenrick “Hutton” Isaac and I pulled a fast one. As Secretary and Assistant Secretary we inserted ourselves on the Antigua Selection panel. The late Malcolm Richards, father of Viv, was a selector. We sensed that they were about to drop Vivi. So we claimed that under the Constitution, the Secretary and Assistant Secretary were – ex-officio – by virtue of office-members of all committees. We got through with our argument. Lo and behold the whole thing backfired! The Selectors were adamant Vivi had to be dropped. Teach him a lesson, sort of approach. Malcolm Richards was more than adamant. I admired him for it. Son or no son, justice had to be done. Performance did not merit, out he went. But long before it became popular there was a saying which Lester and I used as our password: Form is temporary in cricket, but class is permanent.
We could say that as much as we liked. The Selectors dropped Vivi, on current form. Hutton and I (I do not remember which of us came up with it) struck on the device in the selection meeting. The team, rather the 12 selected needed an emergency fieldsman. All the selectors agreed that Vivi would be the emergency fieldsman. Good.
We handed the team to the captain in alphabetical order and the captain, Larry Williams, promptly selected Vivi Richards.
At that time Malcolm Richards had not retired from the Prison as a Prison officer. However, when his shift was over and he came through the ARG gate facing the prison, and he saw Vivi playing, you could hear his sonorous baritone voice from Land’s end to John O’Groats, so to speak. He gave Lester, Hutton and I hell. Fortunately, Vivi batted well. Class, like truth, will out.
Then Lester and I seized an unusual moment. An English team which we had never heard of before, but which was part of some package tour, and named the Mendip Acorns wanted to play a match here, just weeks after Carnival. The Association decided it was impossible. Lester and I saw an opportunity, a mere glimmer of an opportunity. The team the Mendip Acorns had one or two players of note, Derek Underwood, probably the best leg-spinner in the world then, and Mike Brearley, later a fine England captain. But more importantly, the Chairman of Somerset County Club would be on hand. This was a moment.
We got the Carnival stage off the ground with lightning speed, thanks to the direct intervention of then Premier George Walter. Some people at Public Works hated me since then. As soon as something was not done on schedule by Public Works at the ARG, I complained to George Walter, and he would be on their case.
Guy Yearwood’s uncle, whose name I cannot remember, and a work gang had the responsibility to get all the innumerable heads of Devil Grass off the ground, and replant with fresh grass in time. Agriculturists said it was not practicable. Guy’s uncle did it. George Weaver, a fine agriculturalist and a friend of mine, gave more than able assistance. The match was on.
Then Dame Fortune played us foul. Vivi failed. Mervyn Richards, Vivi’s younger brother batted brilliantly. The Chairman of Somerset plumped for Mervyn. Lester and I button-holed the Chairman, Vivi is the man we said. We brought every argument to bear. In the end Vivi was chosen to go to Somerset. The rest is history. Vivi did what only Vivi could do. Batted like no modern player has, or will bat for a long, long time. Those were the halcyon days of Lester and Tim.
By 1975 politics took command. Lester and Hugh Marshall came to me and asked if I would run with the ALP.
It seems that, to them, I replied arrogantly. I told them that I had taken ten years to put my political perspective together and I was not going to sacrifice that to join the old order. I might have said in place of old order the ancien regime. It was not though a parting of the ways, but a cooling of the ways between Lester and Tim.
They won the election. To be fair, they kept a promise to me, and Outlet resumed publication. In turn I became Chairman of the National Sports Council. Guy Yearwood and I, with Guy firmly in charge worked out a coaching programme, which included Richie Richardson and Eldine Baptiste as the star players. We had a comprehensive sports programme. I was going to devote time to my second sports love – Athletics. The then Minister of Sports, Mr. Joseph Myers and I got along well. He accepted the programme and commended me and the programme to Cabinet. That was 1977.
Then Space Research broke. Antigua being used as a conduit to send sophisticated artillery to racist South Africa. Outlet was on the case. Lester and I went at each other hammer and tongs. He on radio and IV, I in Outlet and pickets and ‘unlawful’ demonstrations. Lester’s complicity in the whole monstrous scheme of sending arms to racist South Africa, was self-evident to me. Let an example suffice. Electricity was suppressed throughout Antigua, an island-wide black-out, one Sunday night, to allow Space Research to move another shipment of arms, even after a hue and cry was raised! Horror of horrors. I broke all personal relations with Lester Bird.
He retaliated. At Tanny Rose’s urging, who had then changed his Joseph’s coat of many colours, for a red coat, I was fired as Chairman of the Sports Council with instant effect. Minister Myers personally expressed his amazement at the decision. His unfailing decency shone through in a dark hour.
Later, the Bird regime would compensate all those Civil Servants and APUA workers who were dismissed by the previous government. I had done nothing. As Vice President then of the Public Service Association, it fell to me to lead in the strike of Customs workers, and APUA. I had been removed from my teaching post for these normal trade union activities. All the then dismissed Civil Servants were compensated, except me. My 15 years of public service went down the drain. Though I had stood up for others, no one stood up for me. Tough luck, I said, and carried on smartly.
The police searches would follow. The arrests would follow. The jailings would follow.
Through it all I vowed never to take it personally, but politically. That is easy to write on a page, but it took some doing. Lincoln’s malice towards none, is an easy though noble thought. But mark my word, it takes some doing in extreme circumstances.
Since 1977 until 1989 there were no personal relations between Lester and I. I gave him my official respect. On Arah’s brutal murder in 1989 he and I spoke as friends for the first time in 12 years.
The arms to the Colombian drug cartel brought us together. His resignation from the government made us closer. His return to the government, leaving his colleagues who stood up with him out in the cold, shattered the relation. Lester’s betrayal of his colleagues who stood up with him, was even more abhorrent to me than the colleagues he abandoned. All of self, I thought. Besides, the purposes for which Lester returned to the government, to secure money for his foreign friends, scattered the shattered.
I thought and still think that Lester was devoid, totally devoid, of any West Indian political consciousness.
Let me define that concept West Indian political consciousness. The shortest and best definition I know of it comes, of course, from the premier West Indian thinker C.L.R. James. James is speaking in a most notable speech, since published, and entitled A National Purpose for Caribbean Peoples. He is speaking of the campaign over the return Chaguaramas from the Americans to Trinidad. He said this:
“I want to tell you another aspect of the West Indian personality. During the campaign over Chaguaramas there was no hostility to Americans [in Trinidad]. There was no hostility to the British. Trinidadians wanted it [Chaguaramas] back. They wanted the national property back. But that antagonism which develops against the imperialist power did not develop in Trinidad. And I think I know why. You see, we are all expatriates, even the African ex-slaves. The country has never belonged to us. We had no national sentiment about it. But the people of Trinidad now said ‘We want to get Chaguaramas back.’ But the development of a powerful nationalist sentiment and hatred of the imperialist power, that did not exist in the West Indies. And I believe that to be a part of the West Indian personality. When a new nation comes into the world it brings something new, and I think those are the two things that we have brought. First a very critical and creative attitude to intellectual and historical developments, to sport and writing; and secondly a tremendous passion for national development, national recognition, but without the violent imperialist hatreds which usually accompany it. I think that is part of the West Indian National consciousness.”
To me Lester does not share that West Indian national consciousness, in part or in whole. He will always serve and subserve foreign interests. His essential experiences were shaped in and by America. No critical consciousness was formed. It was veneration of higher by lower. He will always subserve foreign interests, and subvert local interest. It is a way of seeing. There then can be no meeting of the ways between us both. Twice bitten, not just four times shy, but a million times shy.
It would be remiss of me, definitely dishonest and perhaps amoral, if I did not say that in conventional politics here, there is a person who epitomises for me “a tremendous passion for national development, national recognition, but without the violent imperialist hatreds which usually accompany it.” That person is Baldwin Spencer.
Last updated on 14 February 2022