WI CAPTAINCY: Denesh Ramdin Or Darren Bravo ?

mapoui,

A very interesting piece and would like to have a further understanding if I may.

It would be helpful to understand how elite is defined? Are they born into an elite or can work their way to a position that seems to be a ruling class.

Your piece gave, what appears to be, your frank account of an interesting perspective but, if possible, is there any clarity on what this 'elite' is doing to ruin cricket?

Whilst not sounding quite PC, you seem to suggest the downfall of Cricket in the West Indies is due, largely, to Blacks taking over around 1995.

Seems a sweeping statement and since that is unlikely to change, are there any prospects for the future?

Very interesting piece and thanks.

Soca..while all those initiatives by Titty are good stuff and ought to continue and be expanded..I see that as good in a west indian context.  I see it all contributing to west indian resurgence. it would not hurt if the others states did it too.

but I am not for going it alone, separation.  and I don't think that would happen either.  no administration at Factory Road comprised of the west indian elites would vote for separation...neither will the regional boards.  they are all part of a structure that has great value to them.

and remember that while there is no federation and insularity is the key the west indian elites are a unified class of people with clear definition and interest as a class of people running a social reality.  they have accepted insularity in cricket and wait their turns as they know it will come around.

so Hunter imposes Sammy...so what.  our turn will come..no comes and upsetting the apple cart.  Skameron already has useless Walton on the side..as well as Cottrell who does have potential to be good.

when Gayle resigned a year into his captaincy Hunter thought he was indispensable it seems.  they met and the result was Gayles freedom to pik the side.  he pik what...9-10 yardies, leaving out all other contenders.

the wicb did not care.  and soon Gayle and dem fell out and Sammy was in,  could that have been all along what Hunter wanted..a massive example of insularity to justify his own elevation of the unworthy Sammy.  it could have been that we were going to get a sammy captaincy regardless.  all Hunter was looking for was opportunity to slide him in

and in respect of 'our time will come'  skunt skameron will not remove sammy..prolly because the only Yaride prospect of the captaincy is a return to Gayle.  and that may be a lil difficult with Gayle older and out of form and did so mch shiit when he was captain.

but keep watch!  people like skameron and the west indian elites dont really care.  they will do what they want if they can get away with it

the west indies are a natural region and nation.  the islands and Guyana will not soo-vive on their own. individually they will be forced to join-up with the continent or re-swallowed up by corporate globalizing america..not as the cultural consistency they are now.  indeed soon enough wiped out as that and taken over by whatever consumes them.

everything is involved not just cricket.  a nation helps us survive as we are, developing in our own way, the way of our choice.  the alternative seems a nightmare to me.

I mean we face the same developments even if we make a nation.  but a nation gives us a better chance of winning what we want to be..not being absorbed into what we dont want to be

my stance has been this sense of entitlement :

NOT skill set !  :-[

socafighter,

Thank you, my question was based in curiosity rather than doubt in the ability to substantiate a position.

For me an elite is a bit different to an Old Boys' Club although there are many similarities.

In some cases it is in the interest of the Old Boys' Club to justify their existence, power and influence by making what they do successful as even an Old Boys' Club can be toppled in the absence of success.

However the above can exist, the Old Boys' Club, in the midst of failure and repeated failures if there is no accountability.

I simply cannot fathom why an Old Boys' Club/ Elites would want to destroy something that would sustain them, their cronies, and other co-conspirators waiting in line.

However many thanks, much appreciated.

arrite easy rider I will do my best

the west indian elite to be accurate is not only black but white, brown and indo as well as mixed.

these coalesce into pyramid form around the way the west indies makes its living. 

how do the west indies make its living?

used to be agriculture: cane, coffee, cocoa, coconut, cotton.  add to this Trinidad oil and bauxite in Jamaica and BG by the turn of the 20th century.

by the 19 fifties big AG was in trouble, dying away to be replaced by tobacco and tourism..while bauxite and oil flourished.  a profile of the pyramid in 19-fifty would have revealed white forrin ownership at the top, a local white elite just below..a sort of middle filled with semi professional black/indo people.

but independence is rising..a struggle that had been joined since apprenticeship and Indo arrival.  it finds temporary or partial resolution in independence, still going on, in the sham independence starting in 1962 after the federation failed...which is more like partial internal self-government

well how has the economy gone... the way the region makes its living since 1962..and what is now the relationship of the classes to that way..who make up the classes?

big ag has failed completely..only tobacco prolly has some life as far as I understand from afar.  the failure of big ag has resulted in the demise of the planter class..as adjunct of the forrin based high economy, completely owned and controlled from afar.  that class was an administrative cadre for big capitalism in the west indies.  they have been pushed out by a professional black/brown and mixed elite, full or degrees from every university in the world...who rode the new 'independence politics to power.

but what is their power?

their power we find is not an independent power but a compromise, an accommodation.  they themselves as leaders wrote and had constitutions voted by the people but those constitutions apparently does not give them power to take over the economy, especially its commanding heights..which is the only way they can address the serious social problems facing the people. instead they have assumed the role of local administrative cadre to those who always owned and controlled the region from the top down.  what they are then is a class that looks after forrin regional interest and pay only lip service to the needs of the people

so if we look again at the regional class structure we will see the same pyramid and where the white local cadres for forrin interest was ..there is now a locally derived class of black/brown/mixed, and still whit..but not planters.  whites are now like or part of the regional professional classes, are businessmen and so on..still have skin advantage and so on. 

at the very top white forrin ownership still prevails but forrin power is now very entrenched much deeper than in the old days for among many negative developments for the west indian people..the entire financial system is control by regional central banks which are in the total control or ownership of international banking..which has bled the west indies, gutted all the currencies from independence to now and continues.

so we have a division of labour between our forrin controllers and the local elites.  it is a colonial administration really, with the elites/local economy now responsible for all the costs and administration of the colonialism that still exists.  control remains in the metropole drawing profits without expense..a cost now fully borne by the colonised.  our people pay for their own control by forrin power..the small regional armies and the police now turned into virulent forces against the people of the region.  our elites are responsible for the organization of the local forces and their deployment.  they all that is local but take dictation from washington and london in forrin affairs.

they have no power to do anything regionally that benefits the people.  if they start doing stuff for for the people, for which they do have constitutional power they would be infiltrated and removed from power in one way or another.  in the past BG was invaded and a dictator was installed.  the Yard was turned into a violent, destabilized mess under Manley and Seaga.

so what we have is a class of people in the west indies who occupy an administration of the region mostly in government/local ngo's and regional institutions... who are defined by their social role relative to the way we make our living...and by skin colour and ethnicity.  their role is to keep the region safe for forrin exploitation.  they understand that fully. 

it is the same in every territory, they all know each other, work together in frames like Caricom that has brought them close together.  they are aware of themselves as a class and how they make their living.

they look out for each other and make sure the system works.  all their eggs are in that basket...not in the independence of the region but in its dependence on its traditional exploiters.  and the condition of the region is the same as it ever was for the people..indeed getting worse as global capitalism has ripened fully and the people must be made to pay the bills of the capitalist, and to guarantee their profits.

as such then the west indian elites who do not control the region but have ceded that to ole Marse, carrying out their job of keeping things safe for the forriner must also keep things safe for themselves.  that means they are part and parcel of, indeed totally invested in the exploitation of the west indian people. 

therefore all that assist the people to find clarity, cohesion as a massive class of people exploited by their own elites in conjunction with forriners must be destroyed, tamped down and held in check, turned from any progressive potential into use against the people themselves, to frustrate the very goals that can bring benefit and social capability to the people.

the society as it is organized needs the west indian masses in one way only..to be a helpless foolish exploited mass, guaranteeing the profits of ole marse and the security of his underlings, who are west indians themselves... educated and professional classes of black, Brown, white, mixed west indias.

that is why cricket in particular is snuffed in the west indies, sabotaged into futility by the new west indian elites.  cricket is full of rebellious history and representation of the peoples struggle for an equal playing filed in life as a whole.  that is the story of west indian cricket.  that is not a story the elites want the people to know, become girded by, encouraged by, exemplified by a championship team of now comprised of all west indians, uniting black brown and mixed. they don't want dat at all..will not permit it if they can help it

if you are in the business of controlling people you have to shut them down..leaving no glimmer of hope, no possibility at all of some idea, fact, structure that can spin out of control and lead to revolution.

{ I thought this was a way to start..I run off at the mouth but it will help me to get my thoughts together.  I have not really thought about this situation in depth..nor read up on the issue for a long time }

socafighter,

I believe the English had a substantial influence in, the infrastructure to include Sporting, both in the West Indian Territories and Australia so there is some shared history.

From what you have said, the ACB is very transparent and successful, either using what the English left or changing it to their own version.

If the failure, as mapoui puts it, started in the late 90s and those factors are unlikely to change then.....?

Very interesting dynamic though.

because they are sustained by its opposite...the opposite of what you establish

yes they could be sustained in the way you suggest but that is not the way it happened in the west indies..the way it got to this day. 

but it could sustain them if they broke with the old way and became nationalist, accept responsibility for the region.  if they maintained competitive politics in such an independence they would have to stand on their achievements to maintain power or they would lose to their opposition.

or precipitate a revolution

so whatever nationalist achievements they can add to their cv would help.  so they could claim that they re-built cricket for example for it would in their interest to do so. 

they have taken over, kicked out the forriner and now the buck stops with them.  they are responsible for their own survival then, and so accountable to the nation in democratic politics/society. 

there would be no forriner to come sailing in in warships to bomb the people back into compliance.  it would be entirely up to them to maintain themselves as a dominant class in the society by making sure that the people get enought to remain satisfied with them

countries like Canada, OZ, Kiwi are more like that..although there is great control there too..not complete independence. but they have far better deals than we do. and the only way we can get a better deal is to rise up against our own elites, toss them take over and organize a way of life that meets the needs of all

I don't see that as a problem at all.  and I don't see why it bothers you. look in the mirror and you will see a chauvinism or several reflected.

you dont bother with that. things like that are products of an ongoing reality, born of it and its specific conditions and will change with the development of the situation. 

what you have to do is your part for positive change ignoring any negative emotional response o your part.  indeed you dont have to working for any specific change at all.  just go ahead and carry out your best interest.  that will do..help make change

Very interesting having taken the time to outline some very relevant historic context.

It is very interesting that the ownership of the West Indian Central Banks, much like America where the Federal reserve, are actually privately owned. I had not been aware of that, in the West Indies, as ownership decides influence and power.

Whilst everything has some interdependence and whilst the WICB can be seen as an Old Boys Club or even Elites these groups will always exist, even in the poorest of poor places.

If as, mapoui indicated, the real problems, with the WICB, commenced around 1995, therein lies the problem to be addressed. However in the absence of accountability, I do not see a solution.

tenks!