THE FESTIVAL
The Emancipation Cricket Festival, a conjoined remembrance, commemoration, and celebration of the emancipation or freedom for enslaved African bodies, and the historic triumphs of West Indies cricket, take place in SVG between July 31st and August 3rd, 2025, at the Arnos Vale Sporting Facility. On August 1, 1838 or 187 years ago, the Africans, enslaved by the British in the West Indies, won their freedom. On May 17, 1965, or sixty years ago, at home, the West Indies test cricket team, under the captaincy of the iconic Garfield Sobers, were crowned unofficial world champions when they defeated the mighty Australians in the test series, two matches-to-one. On June 21, 1975, or 50 years ago, the West Indies one-day cricket team, under the captaincy of the legendary Clive Lloyd, defeated Australia, at Lord’s London, in the inaugural One Day International Championship. These three anniversaries are being brought together at a critical juncture in the evolution of our Caribbean civilisation.
Emancipation brought a formal end to a monumental crime against humanity, slavery in the West Indies; it opened the way for the humanisation of hitherto enslaved Africans, their individual and collective advancement as human beings; subjugation as chattels or things had come to a formal end for the enslaved persons.
Cricket, a quintessential English sport brought to the British colonies in the West Indies, was embraced and fashioned by our colonised people as an instrument of national liberation. In the process we infused this sport, cricket, with a distinctive West Indian style, sense and sensibility, and called it our own. It has been a core component of our ongoing social democratic revolution, and a distinctive cultural plank of our creolised Caribbean civilisation. Call it the dialectics of cricket.
The Emancipation anniversary of 2025 arrives at a time when there is growing popular support, at home and abroad, for reparations for native genocide and the enslavement of African bodies as part of the process of repairing the historic legacies of underdevelopment brought about the genocide and enslavement in the Caribbean at the hands of European colonial powers (British, French, Dutch, and Spanish); these and other European powers were so engaged in genocide and enslavement in countries in Latin America and elsewhere. In 2013-2014, the ULP government took the initiative at CARICOM to place the issue of reparations permanently on its agenda for ongoing action and to establish the CARICOM Reparations Commission. Our Prime Minister, Comrade Ralph, not only led the way at CARICOM on this issue, but has been continuously active in this great cause; and in 2014 he caused to be published a book, authored by him, entitled Caribbean Reparatory Justice, which is available on Amazon.
The respective cricket anniversaries have come to the fore in our quest to reinvigorate West Indies cricket at the time when it is at its lowest ebb since our acquisition of test cricket status in 1928. Our recent humiliation at Sabina Park, Jamaica, has wounded, grievously, Caribbean people. Cricket West Indies (CWI), a private sector company, which arrogantly, and exclusively, presumes to run the public good known as cricket, has been a disaster on all material fronts. This is hardly surprising because: (i) it derives its legitimacy not from our people, but from the International Cricket Council (ICC), run from Dubai, under the control and direction of Indian cricket imperialism; and (ii) CWI, as a neo-colonial entity, has lost any sense of the historic mission and purpose of West Indies cricket; it has drained our cricket of its liberation, mass appeal and has canalized its spirit into a submissive appendage of a monopoly capitalism, directed, ironically, from an India with anti-colonial pedigree of yesteryear, in cahoots with England and Australia. CWI has to be revamped or it will wither and die a slow, painful death. So, the Festival, in this regard, is an occasion for a call to action by the people of our region, led by the government and people of St. Vincent and the Grenadines!
THE FESTIVAL IN OUR NATIONAL CONTEXT
The former New Democratic Party (NDP) government of (July 1984 to March 2001) debased the Emancipation anniversary by changing the celebratory holiday from August 1st — Emancipation Day — to the first Monday in August which became known simply as “August Monday”, a run-of-the-mill public holiday. The ULP government, in 2001, proclaimed August 1st as the Emancipation Day, and proceeded to elaborate, every year, a month-long programme of celebration and commemoration.
In August 2023, our government ramped up further the extent of the celebratory and commemorative activities by facilitating in communities across SVG musical and cultural activities, including traditional ones derived from the folk. A centre-piece of the 2023 activities was a huge “One Family” concert at Victoria Park. In the aftermath of Hurricane Beyl of July 2024, the Emancipation activities were comparatively low-keyed as we dealt with the immediate relief and recovery efforts for the victims of Hurricane Beryl. This year, 2025, we have accorded the activities a Cricket and Cultural focus (cricket, music and the performing arts, and the embrace of Volume One of the History of SVG). The details have been highlighted through the statements of the indefatigable Carlos James and his Ministry of Tourism and Culture.
CWI TWISTS AND TURNS ON THE FESTIVAL
The announcement of the Emancipation Cricket Festival (ECF), two or so weeks ago, plunged into a state of apoplexy the neo-colonial CWI headed by a wannabe Napoleon Bonaparte, Kishore Shallow, a political partisan of the NDP and its declared election candidate for that backward party. Quick out of the metaphoric block, Shallow, a puny man with a shallow mind, and a little brief authority, hungry for status and more, denounced the ECF as a “circus”; derisively, he scorned this significant initiative as an entertainment event of acrobats, clowns, and trained animals; he asserted that it would never happen because the Caribbean Premier League (CPL), to which some participating players are contracted, has given no permission, and he sought to frighten the participating players with potential bans from CPL and CWI. What a nasty piece of work!
Shallow went on a mega rant, even demanding quite disrespectfully of the Caribbean’s senior statesman, Comrade Ralph, “to shut up”; this followed upon his earlier denunciation of Ralph as “an old fool”, “an old clown”. Shallow evidently has some deep-seated “father issues”; resolve them in your head, bro; he is also backward to the core.
Promptly, CPL issued a letter dated July 14, 2025, to the government authorities (Annette Mark, CEO of the SVG Tourism Authority) that it was “delighted” at the holding of the ECF, confirmed that CPL had “no objection” to the ECF, wished it “success in celebrating” this landmark, and offered further help, if needed. The owner of CPL is a white man from anti-colonial Ireland, Denis O-Brien, who incidentally heads “Repair”, an advocacy group for reparations; he understands Emancipation and Cricket, but some “black skins in white masks”, to use Frantz Fanon’s telling description, do not. Shallow and his side-kicks were despondent; so, the CWI “empire” decided to strike back by having CPL’s Chief Executive Officer, Pete Russell, write another letter dated July 16, 2025 to the government indicating that in accord with their agreement with CPL, CWI’s approval is also needed; clearly, a threatening dark hand, behind the scenes, prompted CPL’s second letter. Shallow and his shallow ones including the perpetually sad cases who are too blind with political partisanship to be truthful eye-witnesses, and too deaf by malice to be reliable earwitnesses, in tow were gleeful.
The government of SVG, through its Prime Minister, calmly reiterated that the ECF is going on and it would not be writing CWI because it has no reason so to do. This justifiable statement, the affirmation of our country’s sovereignty, and the declaration that “the park mek to play on Emancipation Day”, placed CWI on the defensive. Meanwhile, the senior staff at CWI headquarters were openly grumbling that Shallow has gone off the deep end. William Shakespeare had long ago advised aptly in Measure for Measure: “But man, proud man, dressed in little brief authority, most ignorant of what he’s more assured.” The public heat on CPL, and its desire not to accommodate Shallow’s folly, occasioned a third letter, dated July 18, 2025, to Annette Mark, the contents of which are revealing of Shallow’s empty and futile machinations:
“As you are aware from my previous correspondence, CPL is delighted to be able to give its sanction to the Cricket Festival. It was always our understanding that CWI had no objections to the staging of the event, and it was a matter of process to get the necessary approvals in place from their side.
“I believe this has been resolved now; however, if it has not been, then please don’t hesitate to reach out so that I can follow up on the commitments made to CPL.” [OUR EMPHASIS]
Clearly CWI had made commitments to CPL about “no objection”, yet Shallow was on the airwaves trying to brow-beat players into submission. Absolutely pathetic! On the very July 18, 2025, CWI’s Chief Operating Officer, Lynford Inverary, wrote Annette Mark, a grovelling missive, copying this letter to Shallow; CWI’s Chief Executive Officer Chris Dehring; Clement Marcellin (President of Windward Islands Cricket Board); and Dougal James (President of SVG Cricket Association). In this letter, CWI issued its “no objection” without any formal request to it by the government of SVG.
Interestingly, the letter of CPL’s Pete Russell dated July 18th was first sent, unsigned and not on a CPL letterhead; Russell was in Guyana; a little later that day at 5:35 p.m. it was sent to Annette Mark on a CPL letterhead and signed. CWI’s letter of capitulation on July 18th was sent to Annette Mark at 4:13 p.m. clearly, there must have been ongoing conversations between CPL and CWI’s senior officials at its headquarters on the issue. The message of mature professionals to the incredibly infantile Shallow was clear: “Stop your crap, and this childishness once and for all; stop playing petty partisan politics in SVG with an important matter like the Emancipation Cricket Festival. You are not on a winning wicket; you look idiotic; we will save face for you from your own path to self-destruction. You have enough on your hands with the humiliation of Sabina. Don’t tangle anymore with Comrade Ralph on this; the park met to play on Emancipation Day.”
Nuff said! Let us celebrate in unity on Emancipation Day! Thanks to the grown-ups at CPL and CWI. Our next grand celebratory cricket festival would be in 2028, the 100th anniversary of the official test cricket status of West Indies cricket. By then Shallow would have been relegated to a mere historical foot-note, and the talented Chris Dehring would have abandoned his temporary occupation of the crease at CWI headquarters for greener pastures in a People’s National Party (PNP) government led by his friend and former business partner, Comrade Mark Golding.
