Orville Taylor | Heroes needed

As I write this column, my heart swells with the flood of Jamaican children and adults, bedecked in the black, gold and green and the ‘bandana’ fabric, in the iconic style of Jamaican ‘Royalty,’ Miss Lou. It might be surprising that despite our appropriating it, the bandana is just one of the many variations of the ‘Madras cloth’ worn by the Creole speakers in the Caribbean. Indeed, during this very same month, St Lucia, Dominica, Martinique and Guadeloupe celebrate Jounen Kweyol (Creole Day) which really is a week. During this period, they celebrate their culture and heritage and only speak their Patois in official and public spaces. One will find the Jamaican pattern too, but the way these blend the two words call to mind a Jamaican curse word.

Tomorrow, National Heroes Day, we dust of the biographies of persons who have had an impact on the nation on the whole, positively influencing and shaping the course of history. To commemorate with us is the grandson of ‘Jah Jah’ His Imperial Majesty Haile Selassie I, Prince Ermias Sahle Selassie. His first visit was in April 2016 just weeks after the anniversary of the Coral Gardens massacre in 1963, when black policemen and black Rastafarians were killed in one of the scars on our governance.

This time the Prince met with the power brokers: “The Governor General, the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition, as well as members of the Ethiopian and Rastafari communities and the National Council on Reparations.” Ethiopia has never been colonised nor has it ever colonised us. Any honour from Ethiopia as an equal African nation is special. His last trip, initiated by my ‘bredda’ Ras Michael Barnett, a man knighted by this majestic nation. He is the only Jamaican whose royal knighthood means anything to me, because it is not a continuation of the colonial dissonance that our leaders and wannabe heroes cuddle up to.

UNSURE

Still, I am unsure of the global community influence of the Prince. After all, Ethiopia itself removed the shackle of the monarchy by taking the crown from the head of the lion in 1974 and replacing the sceptre in its paw with a spear. Furthermore, there is nothing inherently special about the Prince except that he reminds us of the impact of Jah Jah and what Rastafari has done to international African consciousness. Thus, as blasphemous as this might sound to my Rastafari bredren, except for the fact that his ancestors did not enslave ‘I and I’, his royal heritage is just as insignificant as that of King Charles and others; because power and influence must not be inherited in modern democracies. Jah Jah himself taught us that equality and justice – not privileging – equate to peace.

Jah Jah words ring true today, some 59 years after he warned the UN, a year after we became independent and months after Coral Gardens. “Ensure that the dream of equality is finally realised for all men to whom it is still denied, to guarantee that exploitation is not reincarnated in other forms in places whence it has already been banished.” Lest we forget, many Jamaicans fought and died so that both parties in Parliament could be stewards of our democracy. Hugh Shearer and Michael Manley fought for inviolable workers’ rights, some of which are leeching away.

Leaders are mandated to act in the interest of the nation, generally the majority. It may take personal risks of political suicide and even actual homicide. But the heroic leaders must be willing to lose elections and income, to do what is right.

CONCERNED ABOUT HIS LEGACY

Our current prime minister, Andrew Holness, is understandably concerned about his legacy. Doubtless, that must be his goal as he does the self-accounting of his own tenure. His party is the eponymous Jamaica Labour Party while the Opposition People’s National Party is also as much a party formed on the back of the working class. The threshold is simple and clear. To be heroic you must have made the place better than how you found it and in doing so, enhanced the lives of those persons who are the drivers of the economy/society; the working class. Otherwise, you get and ‘F’.

Of course, capitalists can be national heroes. George William Gordon, a legislator and co-founder of one of our erstwhile premier financial institutions, paid the ultimate price for speaking out and up for the poor. For this reason, he, not Marcus Garvey, the second greatest black man to walk earth, is my number one national hero.

In previous columns, I have assessed Nanny, Paul Bogle and Sam Sharpe. None of them was as self-sacrificing as Chief Tacky, who, like Gordon, gave up a privileged position and a life of influence. He was an overseer who was willing to die to liberate all enslaved Africans on the island. Until he is enshrined as a hero, none of the elected politicians should dare to recommend any more heroes, especially those who were elected to do precisely what they might have done.

On October 10, THE STAR carried a 2016 photo of the Prince greeting a mass of Rastafarians. Beside Minister of Culture Olivia ‘Babsy’ Grange, he was separated by a security barrier with Marksman emblazoned on it.

Trust me; there is a deep symbolism there and Jah Jah’s speech resonates. Garvey, Shearer and Manley are watching.

Dr Orville Taylor is senior lecturer at the Department of Sociology at The University of the West Indies, a radio talk-show host, and author of ‘Broken Promises, Hearts and Pockets’. Send feedback to columns@gleanerjm.com and tayloronblackline@hotmail.com.