Of heroes and hypocrisy
Lloyd B Smith
Tuesday, September 19, 2006
Jamaica Observer
Every time a modern-day icon dies in Jamaica these days, there are feverish calls for that individual to be made a National Hero or Heroine. History has shown that such a decision should best be left to future generations who will be better able to assess these people's worth in a dispassionate and non-partisan manner.
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| Lloyd B Smith |
The passing of cultural icon Louis Bennett-Coverley has once again brought this debate to the fore, and with it a great deal of hypocrisy. There have been repeated calls for her to be added to our pantheon of Jamaican greats with the nation's highest honour in the same way that many groups and people have been calling for reggae icon Bob Marley to be made a National Hero.
My major concern with these calls is that we are still a nation of double standards and a "two-facedness" that belies reason. To begin with, Bob Marley during his heyday was never accepted by the movers and shakers of the Jamaican society, and his music for the most part remained on the periphery of the island's popular culture.
It can be said that if Marley were alive today, he would more than likely be living in exile either in Europe or North America and he would have tremendous difficulty getting one of his songs to be a number one hit in his homeland.
Bob was a ganja smoker who was wont to "big up" the herb in many of his songs and utterances. No doubt, he was the "real revolutionary" and as such must be understood within the context of his own struggles to become somebody in a world where the "bald heads" ruled the roost.
But I find it most ironic that Marley, who openly extolled the virtues of ganja smoking and used the "sacrament" extensively as a means of inspiration and confidence booster, is considered by some a fitting candidate for National Hero, while if a "youthman" is caught with a ganja spliff, he is likely to be fined and or confined! When a Jamaica Tourist Board advertisement invites potential visitors to come to Jamaica and "feel all right", there is the subliminal message in Marley's lyrics of coming to Jamaica where the best sensimilla (herb, marijuana) is to be found and enjoyed. What better way to feel irie. Yeah mon!
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| If Marley, Garvey and Miss Lou were all alive and living in Jamaica among us, they would not be happy or at ease with what they would have to tolerate |
Miss Lou in real terms died in exile, just like Marcus Garvey. It is no secret that she and her dear husband could not afford to live out their last years in Jamaica, land they loved. And it is evident that were they to have remained here, it would have been difficult for them to get on the social pages of the leading print media as their genre of entertainment would have had great challenges surviving alongside the burgeoning dancehall and eagerly embraced North American hip-hop culture. In the same way that Prime Minister Portia Simpson Miller is being ridiculed because she allegedly has difficulty speaking the Queen's English. Would a Louise Bennett-Coverley coming to her rescue be accommodated or reviled?
I put it to you, dear reader, that before any definitive attempt is made to make Marley a National Hero, then the controversial question of whether or not ganja smoking should be decriminalised needs to be addressed. We all become "italists" and "dreadlocks" when it suits us to take on the "I man" image, especially when we want to relate to the average Jamaican. It becomes "exotic" and "sexy" as well as fashionable to speak patois or dress and behave like Rastafarians, but there is a glass ceiling.
You know, we are such a confused nation thrashing around like a beached whale that desperately wants to get back into the ocean and find its way back home. So we get excited about calling for Marcus Garvey to be exonerated by the United States government while at the same time in his own homeland he is on record as being a miscreant! I daresay that if Marley, Garvey and Miss Lou were all alive and lving in Jamaica among us, they would not be happy or at ease with what they would have to tolerate.
The bottom line is that we need to come to terms with ourselves as a people and for starters we need to cut out the hypocrisy. Jamaica is still a plantocracy and "backra massa" is alive and well. This is what Garvey, Marley and Miss Lou fought against in their own inimitable ways - Garvey through his philosophy and teachings, Marley through his lyrics and Miss Lou through her witty but potent verses. For them to be truly National Heroes/Heroine then the Jamaican people must live out their dreams, not just mock them or, even worse, reject them whether wittingly or unwittingly.
Before we get all caught up with this hero thing, let us get Garvey, Marley and Miss Lou into her educational system so that what they fought and stood for will eventually embed itself into the national psyche.
For now, the only true National Hero for most Jamaicans is Brer Anancy because when all is said and done, "jinnalship", "bandoolooism" and "polititricks" are the order of the day. Marcus Garvey exhorted us to emancipate ourselves from mental slavery, Bob Marley insisted that we must chase those crazy baldheads out of town and Miss Lou wanted us to "tun wi han mek fashion".
Intrinsic in all of this is the empowerment of the Jamaican people who must find themselves if the nation is not to continue on a path of persistent poverty and dependency.
What we need more of now are more everyday heroes and heroines who dare to fashion a Jamaican dream that we can all share.
lo20co@excite.com
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