Rohan Kanhai -1975
He was gifted with eagle-like eyes’ and he had the speed of a hare and the concentration of a man on fire.
Those qualities abounded in him, a testimony that can be retold by opposing bowlers from England, India, Pakistan, Australia and New Zealand.
Of course we speak of Kanhai when that dapper figure dons his whites and marches to the middle with bat in hand at the start of an innings in test matches, in first class games or what have you.
Hitherto unknown excepting for those who were fortunate to dwell in the areas of Port Mourant in Berbice, this new found West Indian cricketer blazed the trail of West Indies cricket, bringing joy to many who, among other things, defied the elements of the weather, inclement or otherwise, to see him pepper the most fearsome of bowlers in his quest of blasting for runs. Continue reading
Loewenstein: Disaster Capitalism
REFUGEES: No room for today’s ‘tired, poor, huddled masses yearning to breathe free’ — By Mohamed Hamaludin
The number of free African Americans increased from around 60,000 in 1790 following the Revolutionary War to about 300,000 in 1830 and European Americans feared they would help the still enslaved to escape or revolt and believed anyhow that they were an inferior race who would be better off elsewhere. The American Colonization Society and others came up with this solution: send them to Africa.
African Americans, in general, objected strongly, with some pointing out that they had lived in the United States for generations and were “no more African than white Americans were European,” as Wikipedia puts it. “Shame upon the guilty wretches that dare propose and all that countenance such a proposition,” abolitionist and scholar Frederick Douglass declared. “We live here—have lived here—have a right to live here and mean to live here,”
Still, 4,571 African Americans were relocated between 1820 and 1843 to West Africa, in a collection of settlements with names such as Mississippi in Africa, Kentucky in Africa and Republic of Maryland that formed the nation of Liberia by 1857. Because of diseases, only 1,819 survived. Continue reading →
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