Submitted by Wayne Pilgrim-Cadogan

Once again Barbadians have been insulted by one of their own. Not only have we become a copycat society, but a worshiper of politicians and also people with titles behind their names and continue to be the laughing stock of the West Indies. After receiving a phone call on Saturday and being asked about my thoughts on the naming of the Sports Complex at UWI in the name of Usain Bolt, I was left in shock since it was the first time of hearing the news and was told that it was in the press. I would not have known that since I refused to patronize one of the local newspapers because they would only print certain articles that I write, because they do not want to mash certain people in Barbados corns.

After reading a copy of the article regarding the issue, it would appear that we in Barbados have a bully who is turning this country upside down and making a path for their own legacy. Barbadians have very short memories and grumble for nine days over issues and do nothing. This particular individual has been embroiled in controversy after controversy over the years going as far back as in 1992 with the Mutual issue and the schooling of their children at a particular supposedly white school. It is because of this individual constant wrangling in those early days, and after getting into a heated argument with my best friend who thought that the same individual was the greatest historian after Eygen Weber or even a Quentin Skinner after he had met him in his office. I had never heard or known the individual to be any great historian or sportsman, or that he was a better historian than any of the other historians that we have here in Barbados or the region. As a result of all the raving surrounding the individual, I have never ever read anything that he has written and will never ever read anything that he writes.

The period after the Mutual debacle is a long trail of controversy surrounding this individual leading up to this latest insult to all Barbadians including his self. This individual wormed himself into the cricketing arena circles locally and regionally and became a bully in those circles. In the West Indies cricket boycott in 2009; he was the bully in getting the majority of the ill-fated West Indies cricket team to comprise of players from the UWI cricket team and a failure for a captain. This same UWI team is the one that leap frog a number of teams through the back door into Division 1 cricket in Barbados. There is a long trail of issues surrounding this individual to mention all. There is the constant issue surrounding university fees with the Barbados government, which the Barbadian tax payers have to subsidize, it’s the Mandela Park (this is a whole issue in its self), the demolition of the chapel at the Lazaretto and now the naming of the sports complex after Usain Bolt. Only in Barbados could this happen, it would not happen in Germany, Canada, USA, Antigua or Trinidad. I can understand Jamaica, he is their hero and all accolades from around the world go to Jamaica. Why is it that we in Barbados are so quick to jump on other territories sportsmen and women achievements and not ours? Or sports writers and sports casters are all guilty of praising up the other territories athletes as if they were Barbadians. I am not saying that we should not highlight their successes and achievements, but we do go overboard in doing so. The individual stated that Mona Campus had named their sports facility stadium after Usain Bolt; I have no problem with that, of all the great Jamaican athletes, sportsmen and women he is the greatest. Bolt is the greatest and probably the greatest athlete of all time that the world has ever seen. Therefore Jamaica has all rights to even name the country after him after taking a referendum to the people of Jamaica. The individual is even bullying Trinidad and Tobago in his statement in the press to follow suit. Sir Garfield Sobers is the world’s greatest cricketer and no other country in the world has named a facility after him or honoured him to my knowledge, not even one of his own Caribbean territories other than Barbados. The individual also based his point on the fact that Sir Frank Worrell has a complex named after him in Jamaica. What the individual did not state as the historian that he is, is that Sir Frank was an outstanding black man of his time, similar as to what Mandela was to black people in Africa, born in Barbados and moved to and lived in Jamaica as a 23 year old in 1947 and was educated in England, broke the colour barrier as the first black man to captain a test team. That he was a Warden of the University in Jamaica, served as a Senator in the Jamaican government, two halls named after him at the Cave Hill campus and Vice Chancellor in Trinidad and a ground named after him. Sir Frank Worrell is listed as a Jamaican in his Biography in the Encyclopedia Britannia. However, there is one other theory floating around, could this be a payback to Jamaica for a past incident?

It would appear that the selected committee was bullied into the decision rather than going to the people of Barbados with a referendum for the naming of the sports facility, who finances the majority of finances to the Cave Hill campus. The facility is a multi sports complex and not only a facility for Track and Field. From the article, it would appear that the learned individual does not have a knowledgeable concept of athletics when he spoke that the track was “extended to facilitate being used for sprints and 100m and 110m hurdles”. There are a number of people that the sports complex could have been named after, Sir Garfield Sobers, Louis Lynch, Jim Wedderburn Reggie Haynes, Lorenzo Best, Anton Norris or one of many others who are all great Barbadians that have contributed immensely to sports in their own rights. Although Barbados has not made any significant strides in terms of sports development since the sixties does not mean that we should not honour one of our own. A local DJ on one of radio stations stated that “no one in Barbados can compare to Bolt”, although that is true and in the whole world, does not mean that we should not honour one of our own. Why not rename the Queen Elizabeth Hospital after Dr. Mickey Waldron or Dr. Richard Haynes, they both contributed to the medical landscape of this country? I would hope that this is not a done deal and that the government of Barbados would intervene in this matter and that of the Mandela Park as it the tax payers of Barbados who has the burden of funding the University and the high salaries and wages of the University. Although Barbadians have a tendency to sweep issues under the carpet that affect them rather than speaking out, I would hope that instead of grumbling over the issue that they would make their disapproval known publically by not supporting this issue, even if it means having to show their disapproval by boycotting all activities there whenever they are held there. This is my personal opinion regarding the issues surrounding the subject of my article.