Guest post: Ben Lewis reviews Stevan Riley’s (director) ‘Fire in Babylon’, 2011, DVD.
Those who labour under the illusion that cricket is the dull and dreary preserve of the British establishment; that the gentle thwack of willow on leather should hold no interest for the workers’ movement and should be confined to the fields of Britain’s public schools, would do well to watch at least the opening scenes of Fire in Babylon.
Intimidatingly built young men from different Caribbean islands replicate the run-up of a fast bowler, with the film then cutting back to archive footage of some of the great fast bowling of the late 1970s and 80s, the belle époque of West Indian cricket. This footage depicts the fastest ‘bouncers’ - short-pitched, fast-paced deliveries which rise up at the batsman’s ribs/throat/face - in an frenzy of broken jaws, cracked ribs, bruised torsos and dislodged helmets. The game can be brutal and captivating in equal measure - a world away from the soporific shelter of the exclusive MCC box at Lord’s. As any trip to the slums of Mumbai or the shanty towns of Bangladesh will show, cricket is a sport that can capture the heart and minds of millions.
Fire in Babylon is the story of how, under the shrewd captaincy of Clive Lloyd, a great West Indian cricket team stood up against the best in the world to do precisely this: to captivate and inspire millions across the globe from Guyana to Melbourne via Soweto.
Clive Lloyd (pic: BBC)
The team’s legacy lies not merely in the fact that it rose to become the best in the world within a matter of years, nor that its development of breakneck speed bowling revolutionised the game. The team also became an outlet, a mouthpiece of black self-assertion, confidence and identity for a people who had been stripped of this identity by the chain and lash of colonialism. The team sought to create a ‘level playing field’ in a world still marred by the basest racial prejudices and inequality. And then it proceeded to bombard that playing field with unplayable, lighting bolt deliveries, with which few could cope.
In the words of Bunny Wailer (of Bob Marley and the Wailers fame), cricket in the West Indies belongs to “daily life” and is deeply rooted in the “spirit” of the islands. The film portrays the roots of the game by filming local musicians - young and old - rapping, singing and telling stories about the great cricketing names which every young person growing up on the islands would have known: Garfield Sobers, Frank Worrell and so on. Cricket and social life are almost inseparable.
It is no accident, then, that one of the greatest works on cricket was written by the Trinidadian Marxist, CLR James (‘Beyond a boundary’). As James harrowingly depicts, the game blossomed within the struggle against colonial oppression. He writes of black slaves working on plantations who, in a desperate attempt to escape their bondage through cricket, would wait for the ball to be hit out of the cricket ground and throw it back as hard as possible, hoping to be accepted on to the team of their masters. To the colonial masters living out their lives in the sun, cricket was seen as a way of imparting British values and decency. Indeed, it was not until the 1960s that the West Indies team had a black captain, thanks in part to the outraged CLR James.
For Clive Lloyd’s team, young and keen to prove themselves on the world stage, cricket became a way of turning these attitudes on their head, standing up in solidarity and resistance against continued racial oppression and injustice.
In order to do this, the team had to stick together in the fight against ‘Babylon’, an enemy which took on multifarious forms and guises both at home and abroad. ‘Babylon’, as Bunny Wailer explains, is not a ‘place’ but a ‘process’, and it includes the West Indies Cricket Board that paid them a pittance and then banned them for playing in well-paid World Series Cricket; the racial oppression of a South African government that tried to lure them into touring as ‘honorary whites’(!); the British gutter press which decried the West Indian ‘terrorists’ and spoke of ‘bouncers and bongos’. Although relatively short, this film portrays a long and arduous struggle; from the lows of humiliation at the hands of Australian fast bowlers Dennis Lillee and Jeff Thomson in 1975, to the highs of international success.
It was this drubbing in Australia in 1975 which sparked a rethink of the West Indian approach formerly dubbed ‘calypso cricket’. While ‘calypso’ has connotations of fun, entertainment and beauty, the term epitomised a colonial attitude towards the benighted team. It portrayed them as cricketing also-rans who were keen to please the crowd, knew their place and lost with a smile on their faces.
Seeing the devastation caused by Lillee and Thomson’s ability to bowl over 90 miles per hour, Clive Lloyd travelled around the West Indies searching for bowlers who could do the same. Michael Holding, whose dulcet tones will be familiar to any cricket fan from his television commentary, was one of the four 90mph bowlers dubbed ‘the four horses of the apocalypse’ who terrified batsmen into submission with deliveries that whizzed past their ears. When the West Indies returned to Australia, the number one side in the world, in 1979, they gave back what ‘Lillee and Thommo’ had dished out ... with interest. Here were the beginnings of a new era in which West Indian cricket became a beacon of hope against racism throughout the world - whether in the stands of an aggressive Melbourne crowd (“Lillee, Lillee, Lillee - kill, kill, kill!”) or on tour in England, where many West Indians had settled to work and would flock to the grounds to watch their heroes. Cricket was equality, competition was respect. Winning was dignity.
Not that this unprecedented success was welcomed by the British cricketing establishment without jealousy or ill-feeling. Several calls were made to ban ‘bouncers’, to make the pitches slower or to limit bowlers’ run-ups to slow them down. The objectors had short memories - not so long ago the English team had invented ‘bodyline’ bowling tactics as a way of overcoming the Australian team.
Against the backdrop of the tours to England, the film nicely pieces together clips of several people decrying the number of “immigrants” in the country and moaning about how there were not enough houses to go around. Not much change there. But the cricketing team became a rallying point for West Indian migrants in Britain, who flocked to games to celebrate their team’s success, particularly what will forever be remembered as the ‘Blackwash’: hammering their former colonial masters 5-0 on English soil in 1984.
The interviews with some of the cricketing greats are occasionally heart-rending, at times heart-warming and often simply hilarious. For example, Joel Garner, whose 6’8” frame alone would turn most batsmen’s legs to jelly, recalls how he once asked his fellow bowler Colin Croft what he would do if he had to bowl against his own mother. “Then my mother is the target,” quipped Croft, to much laughter from the cinema audience.
Vivi: the star of the show (pic: BBC)
The character that dominates the film is Vivian Richards, the “master blaster”. As a remarkably aggressive batsman and Clive Lloyd’s successor as captain, Richards was one of the figures most influenced by the philosophy of black power. When, unlike Croft and others, he refused to tour South Africa and thus turned down a ‘blank cheque’, his stance inspired many across the world. He recalls how the then incarcerated Nelson Mandela sent thanks to him via bishop Desmond Tutu, and how he became a hero back home, whereas many who went on the rebel tour were cast out from Caribbean society.
Protected only by his cap and his wristband with the African colours of green, yellow and red (he never wore a helmet), Richards would swagger out to the middle as though he was strolling to his own kitchen to put the kettle on, not facing bowling that could literally knock his head off. “But inside”, he said, “inside you were focussed”. He felt the pain of oppressed black people world-wide, and had a point to prove.
Viv has always been a bit of a hero for me, and this sentiment was only reinforced by this film. While the film did not explore just what Viv now thought of those like Mandela, today’s poster boys of imperialism (“the struggle goes on” he declares), it would be misplaced to criticise the film on this score. It is a film about how remarkable sporting performances can challenge seemingly immutable views and beliefs.
A childhood memory I will never lose is of a close member of my family, one who may even have made the odd racist quip, running into the room elated, a copy of The Sun in his hand. “Viv Richards is coming to Glamorgan [our local team]! Viv fucking Richards is coming to Glamorgan!” If that is not an indication of the universality of sport, of the fact that the achievements of such a figure can inspire so many, then I do not know what is. Viv’s plundering of county bowlers in a Glamorgan shirt did much to challenge certain forms of racial narrow-mindedness in South Wales.
Cricket enthusiasts and sports fans will probably get the most out of this film, especially those a little older than me who remember summer days spent watching these inspiring men. Yet the pervading spirit of freedom, equality and dignity which leaps out from every frame extends well beyond the boundaries of the cricket pitch. Stevan Riley’s film allows even a newcomer to cricket to understand both the game and the politics. As such, even those who cannot tell their googlies from their flippers or their leg slips from their deep gullies will draw much inspiration from a film destined to be enjoyed by people far beyond cricketing circles. Just don’t forget to pack your helmet: ‘Dem balls be like bullets’.
Solidarity cricket
The third annual solidarity cricket match between Hands Off the People of Iran XI and the Labour Representation Committee XI will take place on Sunday September 11 in East London. Money raised will go to Workers’ Fund Iran. For more information, email info@hopoi.org
