RE: Ancil Knights' comment re Fitzy

2013-Sep-06-0841Hrs

Our brother Ancil Knights makes a fair comment about the collective silence regarding Fitz-James Williams, when contrasted with the euphoria that has attended the 50th anniversary celebrations. He asks whether the alumni are hard hearted, or whether we are ungrateful?

I do not blame Ancil for writing like that. To not think about Fitzy (and the Cuff) while commemorating the birth of Mausica 50 years ago would indeed be akin to being blind to the presence of the elephant sitting in the living room. If someone introduces the Pips, the obvious response has to be yes  "but what about Gladys Knights?

But I can offer a third hypothesis to be considered along go with the Ancil offers  and it is that silence often communicates in ways that words cannot. For example, during our return to the campus as part of the celebrations, when we once again went to the assembly,  Rodney Foster called for a brief period of silence, in memory of the many lively souls who once lent their presences to that space, in the absolute peak of their youths, and at the height of their powers. And anyone who was there knows that that period of silence said more than we ever could about those bright lights, now extinguished.

And we saw what that silence masked, when Rodney, in an inspired and unscripted revelatory moment, in the middle of that silence, asked for people to say aloud the name of a fallen Mausican, and there was then this incredible outpouring of names, names of the dead. I heard about forty, and I myself shouted out Yvone Fitz-Andrews! Horatio Hospedales! I could have gone on, Kenneth Bobb, Ken Parmasad, "Toco," Martin Brathwaite, "Psychee, "

It was painful. But that outburst of names is what was beneath the silence.

Silence is not nothingness. It is in fact a kind of speech.

Try to exclude Fitzy from the story of Mausica if you can.

I was once cursing profusely in the downstairs corridor of Fair Haven, and when I looked down that corridor at the top of it, there was a bald-headed man, with what looked like a group of visitors being brought unannounced to have a look at the place. I found a way to melt into the walls of the hostel, as he artfully guided the guests away. I heard from that tour guide about this event shortly after, with a wry smile on his face, and I have heard from him about that event many times over the decades. He has that on me. I should have been at least wearing clothes he said. Cursing like that.

Silence is speech. And in the circumstances, far from ungratefulness, or hardness of heart, my own reading of our silence regarding this man is that it was perhaps the most eloquent and respectful way to grieve. We reserve silence for reverence.

Theodore Lewis (Scratchy).

Theodore Lewis 69