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Former Member
Colin Croft vilified Burnham

January 11, 2012 | By KNews | Filed Under Letters




Dear Editor,
My attention has been drawn to an article written by Colin E H Croft which appeared under the rather long and inelegant title of “As Caribbean T-20 starts, Guyana’s cricket asks “if not, why not?” in the Sports Section of Kaieteur News January 8, 2012
I am not surprised that the article in question is just as confusing and unenlightening as its title.
Frankly, this is the first time that I have been forced to read anything by Colin Croft. The crass language, incomplete sentences and the weird opinions expressed are unworthy of a former Test cricketer and a commentator who has elected to educate the public about the administration and playing of cricket in the region.
Croft must know that cricket writing has been graced by such eminent talents as CLR James, J S Barker, Sir Hilary Beckles, and Tony Cozier, to name a few. These men have raised cricket writing to level of an art that has brought joy, pleasure and education in equal measure to the cricket public in the Caribbean.
On the basis of this article, Croft does not stand a ghost of a chance of entering this distinguished fraternity.
Note that I have chosen not to dwell on the rather crude and unjustified criticisms of Clive Lloyd and the dismissal of the Harper brothers as “blowhards.” I leave it to Croft to decide whether it is good manners to bite the hand of those who have helped his career or to pour scorn on those who are making great sacrifices to promote and develop cricket in Guyana.
But I have noticed that I have wandered away from my main theme. I am sure I will be forgiven, for the foregoing views on some aspects of Croft’s rantings had to be answered. In paragraph fourteen Croft states:
“I thought that Guyana’s first, and last, ‘African-style’ dictator, L. Forbes S. Burnham, that same dark-black guy who paraded down Water Street, seated on a milk white horse, 3:00pm on afternoons, flanked by handlers, a la Robert Mugabe, to ‘admire’ thousands of ‘his people’ lined up, sweating and swearing outside Bookers Ltd, just to buy cheese, had died. Do some like him still exist in Guyana?”
Before I demolish this nonsense let me pause to deal with an editorial matter. Is it possible that the Sports’ Editor of Kaieteur News allowed this inaccurate and tawdry description of LFS Burnham to pass? He should have used his blue pencil to save the Guyanese people from having to confront this atrocity on a good Sunday morning.
If KN aspires, as it says it does, to being the best paper in Guyana it will have to exercise greater and more prudent editorial judgment. It could have begun by a better ordering of Croft’s syntax. And, pray God, when did Mugabe start to ride a horse?
Croft too seems to be lacking in judgment and care for the truth. My father-in-law Mr. LFS Burnham has been accused of many things by his critics but never for owning a ‘milk white horse’ and riding it along Water Street at 3:00 pm to experience a ‘frisson’ over citizens lining up to purchase food.
This is a fantasy born of his hatred of Forbes Burnham, the same Burnham who intervened to enable Clive Lloyd return to the Caribbean and rejoin the West Indies team in 1973.
In a year’s time Lloyd became captain of the regional side and one of the young fast bowlers he nurtured and helped in his Test career is none other than one Colin Croft. If Forbes Burnham, in an inspired moment, did not act swiftly to correct the selector’s folly of leaving out Lloyd from the Test side, Croft might not have had a Test career.
But as I have made it clear, Croft is not a man known for his gratitude.
I am a public health professional and I deal with facts. I am always alarmed by men such as Croft who for reasons of jealousy or hatred bend the facts to serve personal ends.


Dr Richard Van West-Charles

Replies sorted oldest to newest

quote:
“I thought that Guyana’s first, and last, ‘African-style’ dictator, L. Forbes S. Burnham, that same dark-black guy who paraded down Water Street, seated on a milk white horse, 3:00pm on afternoons, flanked by handlers, a la Robert




Not even Janet ever called Burnham " L. Forbes S. Burnham, that same dark-black guy " "Guyana’s first, and last, ‘African-style’ dictator".
FM
quote:
Originally posted by Wally:
[QUOTE]“I thought that Guyana’s first, and last, ‘African-style’ dictator, L. Forbes S. Burnham, that same dark-black guy who paraded down Water Street, seated on a milk white horse, 3:00pm on afternoons, flanked by handlers, a la Robert


It's good a Guyanese black guy called Forbes, "that same dark-black guy" instead of the great Janet Jagan, or else they would have called her a racist.

Was Burnham an " African-style dictator?" YES HE WAS

Did burnham ride a horse, whether black, white or brown? YES HE DID. Even when he was Mayor of Georgetown, you would see him riding his horse in the afternoon around town.

It is known fact that Lloyd was Forbes "boy" and the dictator got him the captaincy of the WI. That is why lloyd treated Kallicharran in such a racist manner while he was on the team.

Van West must defend his father-in-law, no one should expect any different, if not he would become single the next day
FM
quote:
Originally posted by Wally:




Croft on the attack.


This was during the first Packer series in Australia. The West Indies team wore pink! The colour was changed for the second series.
FM
Its there a LIE or misinfo here?????
quote:
Originally posted by Wally:
quote:
“I thought that Guyana’s first, and last, ‘African-style’ dictator, L. Forbes S. Burnham, that same dark-black guy who paraded down Water Street, seated on a milk white horse, 3:00pm on afternoons, flanked by handlers, a la Robert




Not even Janet ever called Burnham " L. Forbes S. Burnham, that same dark-black guy " "Guyana’s first, and last, ‘African-style’ dictator".
Nehru
quote:
Originally posted by Nehru:
Kanhai and Kalicharran had to gain their Status by themselves . They did it despite the BIAS form Guyana and the WIBC.


yuh can talk some real rass Big Grin
FM
Man you have to be the biggest ass kisser on the Planet OR you are very limited in your knowledge.
quote:
Originally posted by raymond:
quote:
Originally posted by Nehru:
Kanhai and Kalicharran had to gain their Status by themselves . They did it despite the BIAS form Guyana and the WIBC.


yuh can talk some real rass Big Grin
Nehru
quote:
Originally posted by Nehru:
Man you have to be the biggest ass kisser on the Planet OR you are very limited in your knowledge.
quote:
Originally posted by raymond:
quote:
Originally posted by Nehru:
Kanhai and Kalicharran had to gain their Status by themselves . They did it despite the BIAS form Guyana and the WIBC.


yuh can talk some real rass Big Grin


he was the PNC batty boy in the eighties...
FM
You have to take what Croft is saying with a grain of salt. Burnham is the one who put a life time ban on Croft from playing for the Guyana cricket team because he went to South Africa to play cricket.

Going to apartheid South Africa is something I could never ever ever do no matter how much money I am offered and no matter how desperate my situation is in life. I would have prefered death. My ancestors were Indo- Aryan and Dravidian peoples who were some of the first peoples to walk the face of the earth not some hill coolie to be kicked and spat upon by some J.O.B (Just off the boat) Dutchman/Englishman.

Those guys should not have only receive life time ban from playing Guyanese cricket but their Guyanese citizenships should have been suspended for 10 years.
FM
quote:
Originally posted by Wally:
You have to take what Croft is saying with a grain of salt. Burnham is the one who put a life time ban on Croft from playing for the Guyana cricket team because he went to South Africa to play cricket.

Going to apartheid South Africa is something I could never ever ever do no matter how much money I am offered and no matter how desperate my situation is in life. I would have prefered death. My ancestors were Indo- Aryan and Dravidian peoples who were some of the first peoples to walk the face of the earth not some hill coolie to be kicked and spat upon by some J.O.B (Just off the boat) Dutchman.

Those guys should not have only receive life time ban from playing Guyanese cricket but their Guyanese citizenships should have been suspended for 10 years.
That does not make anthropological sense. The Dutchman may be crude with native south Africans but the fact he used racial hierarchy to mythologize his status is exactly what you do in the highlighted sentence. His ancestors and our ancestors are of the same stock and came out of Africa at the same time . The phenotypic differentiation is a matter of inbreeding in a geological location.

Aryan and Dravidian do not go together in this scheme as it is a similarly sociological hierarchical constructs utilizing phenotype to produce the insidious varna creed still existing in india.

Croft should indeed be deserving of being banned. It was not the honorable thing to do. But one has to take into account that playing together does indeed offer chances to debunk the idea of superiority.
FM
quote:
Originally posted by marlon:
[That is why lloyd treated Kallicharran in such a racist manner while he was on the team.
Kallicharran and most others would vehemently disagree with such racist view. You are consistent in spewing racist comments on this MB.
FM
quote:
Originally posted by D2:
quote:
Originally posted by Wally:
You have to take what Croft is saying with a grain of salt. Burnham is the one who put a life time ban on Croft from playing for the Guyana cricket team because he went to South Africa to play cricket.

Going to apartheid South Africa is something I could never ever ever do no matter how much money I am offered and no matter how desperate my situation is in life. I would have prefered death. My ancestors were Indo- Aryan and Dravidian peoples who were some of the first peoples to walk the face of the earth not some hill coolie to be kicked and spat upon by some J.O.B (Just off the boat) Dutchman.

Those guys should not have only receive life time ban from playing Guyanese cricket but their Guyanese citizenships should have been suspended for 10 years.
That does not make anthropological sense. The Dutchman may be crude with native south Africans but the fact he used racial hierarchy to mythologize his status is exactly what you do in the highlighted sentence. His ancestors and our ancestors are of the same stock and came out of Africa at the same time . The phenotypic differentiation is a matter of inbreeding in a geological location.

Aryan and Dravidian do not go together in this scheme as it is a similarly sociological hierarchical constructs utilizing phenotype to produce the insidious varna creed still existing in india.

Croft should indeed be deserving of being banned. It was not the honorable thing to do. But one has to take into account that playing together does indeed offer chances to debunk the idea of superiority.



D2 it is quite clear that you do not know what white supremacy is and has never experienced it.
FM
quote:
Originally posted by Wally:
quote:
Originally posted by D2:
quote:
Originally posted by Wally:
You have to take what Croft is saying with a grain of salt. Burnham is the one who put a life time ban on Croft from playing for the Guyana cricket team because he went to South Africa to play cricket.

Going to apartheid South Africa is something I could never ever ever do no matter how much money I am offered and no matter how desperate my situation is in life. I would have prefered death. My ancestors were Indo- Aryan and Dravidian peoples who were some of the first peoples to walk the face of the earth not some hill coolie to be kicked and spat upon by some J.O.B (Just off the boat) Dutchman.

Those guys should not have only receive life time ban from playing Guyanese cricket but their Guyanese citizenships should have been suspended for 10 years.
That does not make anthropological sense. The Dutchman may be crude with native south Africans but the fact he used racial hierarchy to mythologize his status is exactly what you do in the highlighted sentence. His ancestors and our ancestors are of the same stock and came out of Africa at the same time . The phenotypic differentiation is a matter of inbreeding in a geological location.

Aryan and Dravidian do not go together in this scheme as it is a similarly sociological hierarchical constructs utilizing phenotype to produce the insidious varna creed still existing in india.

Croft should indeed be deserving of being banned. It was not the honorable thing to do. But one has to take into account that playing together does indeed offer chances to debunk the idea of superiority.



D2 it is quite clear that you do not know what white supremacy is and has never experienced it.
I am not speaking to white supremacy but the confusing anthropological analysis that concluded you are different from the dutch on the basis of human ancestry. You are not different from him and Indo Aryans were not the first people to walk the earth. They are just a label for peoples with a common ancestry. The sociological and phenotype are also different constructs though the formed together in geographic isolation. I was not speaking to racism.
FM
quote:
Originally posted by Wally:
Colin Croft was once an "honorary white". Maybe the man still is.


My information is that they played against Black, and mixed teams

They believed that their actions would break down apartheid. Their detractors thought otherwise.

Some of the elected "leaders" who ostracized these rebel cricketers were themselves practicing racism on a daily basis.
FM
Burnham was the Chief of them all!!!! Come on Nara have some balls and state FACTS.
quote:
Originally posted by NARA:
quote:
Originally posted by Wally:
Colin Croft was once an "honorary white". Maybe the man still is.


My information is that they played against Black, and mixed teams

They believed that their actions would break down apartheid. Their detractors thought otherwise.

Some of the elected "leaders" who ostracized these rebel cricketers were themselves practicing racism on a daily basis.
Nehru
quote:
Originally posted by Daren David:
quote:
Originally posted by Wally:




Croft on the attack.


This was during the first Packer series in Australia. The West Indies team wore pink! The colour was changed for the second series.




Guys when I first saw this picture. I was thinking Croft just came back from playing Pagwah.
FM
Cricketers went where there were opportunities. West Indians went to racist societies to get an education and build a better life . Think about America and England before the Fifties. Do you see them as sell out?
Billy Ram Balgobin
quote:
Originally posted by Wally:
Those were racist societies but South Africa was a different society it took racism to the extreme and was organized by the state.


Do you think that it served any positive purpose to have Croft and company ( all blacks) put a licking on the white cricketers in the presence of disadvantaged blacks?

The politicians can talk all they want, but these guys helped to bring down apartheid.
FM

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