A CLOUD OF WITNESSES Ian McDonald 1 Ian McDonald A CLOUD OF WITNESSES © The Caribbean Press 2012 Cover design by Peepal Tree Press Cover image: Dreamstime All rights reserved No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmit- ted in any form without permission. Published by the Caribbean Press. ISBN 978-1-907493-37-9 2 A CLOUD OF WITNESSES Ian McDonald 3 4 PREFACE I have contributed a regular weekly column to Stabroek News for over 20 years. It has been an interesting challenge and a pleasant occupation. If I had been a different sort of writer the number of words written in this form might have pro- duced, say, 10 good novels. More than one friend has told me my time would have been better spent that way. I have made a small selection of 100 columns from those I have written over the years. A special concern has run through these pieces. I have wanted to place the joys and cares, the sorrows and delights, of Guyanese in a wider context than Guyana. In Guyana I think we stifle our lives too much in local worries. Guyana, for instance, is caught in the same trap as scores of other poor and vulnerable countries. Struggling in this trap, we are certainly not uniquely wounded. We should try to see ourselves in a universal context. It has hap- pened before, and it will happen again, that men suffer from the pains of maladministration and the frustrations of bu- reaucracy. It is true elsewhere and in other times that people lie and cheat and scavenge for money and that others are brave and open-hearted and talented. Love and hate exist beyond the seawall. Tears are salt the world over. In other lands bright- ness also falls from the air. I have a suspicion that people like to have writers they read confine their work to a particular subject. But I have not been a columnist of anything in particular – not economics, not sport, not business, not religion, not social commentary, not literature nor art nor drama, not international affairs. And not politics, though how men govern and misgovern other men must always be a topic of interest. When one thinks about it, the concept of “Government” is a strange one for it assumes as its fundamental premise that certain men and women – human like you and me – can and should be allowed to take upon themselves the right (duty?) to direct the rest of us what to do, presumably for our own good. On the face of it that is a very unreasonable premise 1 and a remarkably arrogant presumption. Why should flesh and blood men and women, with feet of clay like anyone else, presume to think for us and act for us and push us around and mollycoddle us and punish and re- ward us as if they were inherently superior beings? It doesn’t make sense does it? Yet unless there is Government with strong executive power the lives of men in general soon be- come, as Thomas Hobbes pointed out long ago, “Solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.” The fear of anarchy is deeply in- grained in every society. All countries from time to time ex- perience events which heighten their people’s yearning for stability at any cost. In our own case the civil war of the early 1960s, out of which independent Guyana was born, had I be- lieve a far more profound and longer-lasting traumatic effect than is generally realized. It seems to me, then, that the fol- lowing passage from Nadezda Mandelstam’s great book Hope Against Hope has a deep relevance for countries, including ours, that have known bitter turmoil. “There has been a time when, terrified of chaos, we had all prayed for a strong system, for a powerful hand that would stem the angry human river overflowing its banks. This fear of chaos is perhaps the most permanent of our feelings - we have still not recovering from it, and it is passed on from one generation to another. There is not one of us - either among the old who saw the Revolution or the young and innocent - who does not believe that he would be the first victim if ever the mob got out of hand. “We should be the first to be hanged from a lamp-post” – whenever I hear this constantly repeated phrase, I remember Herzen’s words about the intelligentsia which so much fears its own people that it prefers to go in chains itself, provided the people, too, remain fettered.” How do men sail safely between the Scylla of limitless dic- tation and the Charybdis of back to the jungle anarchy? It is a riddle that mankind has spent thousands of years trying to 2 solve. It is a riddle that from time to time needs to be ad- dressed. However, I do not feel compelled to write much about poli- tics or government. There is a good poem by Louis MacNeice called ‘A Fanfare for the Makers’. These lines from that poem sum up a little of what I like to write about: “A cloud of witnesses. To whom? To what? To the small fire that never leaves the sky. To the great fire that boils the daily pot. To all the things we are not remembered by, Which we remember and bless. To all the things That will not even notice when we die. Yet lend the passing moment words and wings”. Ian McDonald 3 CONTENTS PREFACE ................................................................................ 1 1. DUEL IN MERCY WARD ................................................ 9 2. CRICKET: A HUNGER IN THE WEST INDIAN SOUL ................................................................ 15 3. JOCK CAMPBELL ........................................................... 26 4. REMEMBERING MARTIN............................................ 33 5. THE COMFORT OF ALL THINGS .............................. 37 6. PAINTING THE WIND.................................................. 40 7. I TRY MY BEST TO BELIEVE ........................................ 43 8. TRUE VALUE IN A NATION ....................................... 46 9. ENCOUNTERS WITH GENIUS: CHEDDI JAGAN AND SONNY RAMPHAL ............................................ 49 10. THE OLD AGE OF MY PARENTS ............................. 53 11. MEMORIES OF FRIENDSHIP .................................... 56 12. WELL-REMEMBERED FRIENDS .............................. 59 13. MAKEPEACE ................................................................ 63 14. OUR AGEING AND OUR UNCHANGING SELVES ........................................................................... 66 15. THE POETRY OF WAR ................................................ 69 16. POWER IN PERSPECTIVE .......................................... 72 17. VOYAGING IN THE MIND ........................................ 75 18. A MATCH FOR THE AGES: THE ADELAIDE TEST, 1993. .............................................. 79 19. FIRST BEYOND COMPARE ....................................... 83 20. THE GENIUS OF BRIAN LARA ................................ 86 21. LICKET ........................................................................... 91 22. ENCOUNTERS WITH GENIUS: MAUREEN “LITTLE MO” CONNOLLY ....................................... 94 23. THE MARVELLOUS POETRY OF MAD JOHN CLARE ............................................................... 97 24. WHAT IS A GOOD EDUCATION? .......................... 101 25. THE TONGUE SET FREE .......................................... 104 26. WHEN DID NOTHING CEASE TO BE?................. 107 27. WHAT THE EARTH SWALLOWS IS SOON FORGOTTEN .............................................................. 110 28. WHAT REALLY IS IMPORTANT ............................. 113 4 29. WHILE THE WORLD BURNS .................................. 115 30. THE DEATH OF ICE .................................................. 118 31. THE RUDENESS OF BEING LATE .......................... 121 32. TUTORIALS IN LIFE .................................................. 124 33. TRADITION, DRAMA AND LOVE......................... 128 34. PAINTINGS WITH NO DEATH IN THEM ............ 131 35. PLANNING FOR THE GOOD LIFE ........................ 134 36. RELAX, AMERICA. .................................................... 136 37. REFLECTIONS IN THIS SUDDEN NEW YEAR ... 139 38. THE ADDICTION OF COMPETITION................... 142 39. PAGEANTRY ............................................................... 145 40. THE BATTLE AGAINST BAD GOVERNANCE .... 147 41. THE GREAT ADJUSTMENT ..................................... 151 42. THE HORROR OF NEVER BEING OUT OF TOUCH.................................................................. 154 43. THE CONSTERNATIONS OF ART ......................... 157 44. THE DEAD HAND OF THE BUREAUCRAT ........ 161 45. THE GREAT FLOOD .................................................. 164 46. THE GOOD LIFE ......................................................... 168 47. THE ENORMOUS PRIVILEGE OF LIFE................. 171 48. ILLTH ............................................................................ 174 49. IMMORTAL FRAGMENTS ....................................... 177 50. IN DREAMS BEGIN RESPONSIBILITIES .............. 180 51. NOW FOR NOW AND NOTHING FOR HEREAFTER ...................................................... 183 52. NAMING IS NOT KNOWING ................................. 186 53. MAGNANIMITY ........................................................ 189 54. NATIONAL ACCOUNTING AND REAL LIFE ..... 192 55. “OPEN THE CLENCHED FIST OF THE PAST” ... 195 56. MILOSZ ........................................................................ 198 57. COLOUR OF THE SKIN ............................................ 202 58. EXTRA LESSONS REVISITED .................................. 204 59. LAUNCHING HISTORY OF THE THEATRE IN GUYANA, 1800 – 2000 by Frank Thomasson ........ 208 60. A CULTURE VALUABLE IN THE WORLD ........... 210 61. A LEGACY WORTH LEAVING ..............................