Another look at renaming Ian Fleming Airport

Julian 'Jingles' Reynolds, GUEST COLUMNIST

When I first heard of "the suggestion" made by officials of the Jamaican Government to rename the Boscobel airport in St Mary, the Ian Fleming International Airport, in honour of British author and creator of James Bond, the cinematic British espionage character, I immediately felt it was the doing of Chris Blackwell, the world-renowned adopted son of Jamaica and co-founder of Island Records, and the mastermind behind the evolution of Bob Marley as an international superstar.

I dismissed it as the whim of an influential Blackwell making another move to enhance his business interests around tourism investments in St Mary. The explanation coming later from Prime Minister Bruce Golding that the name of Ian Fleming associated with the airport would serve to attract "high-end" visitors, flying in their private jets to Jamaica, sounded weak to me. How many super-rich tourists would find any excitement and inducement to visit Jamaica because of the name 'Ian Fleming'? Not many, I believe.

But recently while carrying out research on a project being developed for Jamaica, I looked at Fleming's, along with Noel Coward's and Errol Flynn's, relationships with Jamaica, particularly the parishes of St Mary and Portland. And I was forced to re-examine my scepticism of naming the airport after Fleming.

The first big revelation was Blackwell's own link to Fleming because of his mother Blanche's 'friendship' with Fleming. Many readers by now will know of Blackwell's early link to Jamaica through his mother, who was a member of a prominent Jamaican family, the Lindos, and his father being a British army officer who served in a British regiment stationed in Jamaica.

According to several research materials now in public domain, the James Bond short story Octopussy, which later became the sixth Bond film starring Roger Moore, was the name of a boat given to Fleming as a present by Blanche, Blackwell's mom. Furthermore, a few of the James Bond novels had either characters or scenes inspired by Blanche. Blackwell later, at his mother's urging, purchased the Fleming property, GoldenEye, and the nearby Coward property, Firefly, where the famous British playwright and actor reposed to write several plays that continue to be performed on stages around the world. Blackwell has developed these properties into world-class vacation spots for the rich and famous.

From in the days of Fleming, Coward and Blanche Lindo, who it is recorded sold properties to Fleming and Coward, these Jamaican homes away from cold drab Britain and elsewhere in Europe and the United States became the heavenly escape for the movers and shakers of international societies. Kings, queens, princes, princesses, movie stars, prime ministers, lords and ladies. Frolicking in the Jamaican sun and breeze with their guests and favourite and most fortunate 'locals'.

St Mary, however, remains today holding the ignoble title of one of the poorest of the 14 parishes of Jamaica. And likewise, Portland, next door to St Mary, despite having a history of being the first international tourism destination in Jamaica and the home of Errol Flynn, one of the icons in Hollywood filmmaking history, is ranked not too far up the scale from St Mary. Portland's case of high unemployment and economic deprivation is even more inexplicable as there are three major hotel properties - Trident, Blue Lagoon and Dragon Bay, owned by two of the most well-heeled Jamaican capitalists, Michael Lee Chin and Gordon 'Butch' Stewart, respectively - that have remained closed now for more than five years.

The recently released The Creative Economy Report 2010 put out jointly by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) addresses what a few of us have been postulating for many years: that there is wealth-building potential for Jamaica in its creative outputs - music, dance, fashion, theatre, film and television production and their accompanying intellectual property rights. I would have hoped that with this most encouraging news from these esteemed bodies that points to a way out of the socio-economic depression which has shrouded Jamaica now for several years, the current leaders, Government and private sector would call for serious discussions involving all stakeholders in the creative and financial sectors of the country. But to date, nothing - it's like a 'tush', a minuscule blip on the radar of the Jamaican decision-makers.

Why hasn't Prime Minister Golding invited Lee Chin and Stewart and made them an irrefusable offer that will induce them to reopen those lucrative properties and get people working and generate revenues for the country's coffers? And instead of just naming an airport in memory of Ian Fleming, why not put Blackwell's interest with other private-sector interests and government participants to organise an annual international literary festival in St Mary to honour Fleming and Coward and their ties to Jamaica that will attract international writers, publishers and followers of the literary arts?

What of the film festival?

What has become of the James Bond/GoldenEye film festival started a few years ago by the Blackwell group? Fleming wrote all of the James Bond novels there in St Mary. The James Bond films are the second most successful movie franchise in the history of filmmaking, with worldwide grosses of just over US$5 billion. It is surpassed only by the Harry Potter franchise. Three of the James Bond films have scenes set in Jamaica, and the producers are about to put the 24th James Bond film into production. The first one, Dr No, was shot entirely in Jamaica, with Blackwell participating both behind and in front of the camera. Clearly the strategy should be to grow this film festival into one of the must-attend international film festivals by industry people and movie buffs from around the world.

In January 1992, I wrote a two-part article in The Sunday Gleaner, "Jamaica's TV, film industry: a lot of room for growth", pointing to the potential of this sector making a significant contribution to the island's development. In June 2004, I made a presentation at the University of the West Indies which was reported in The Sunday Gleaner, "The Jamaican music industry - a disrespected treasure", highlighting the significant contributions that Clement 'Coxson' Dodd, and his peers Roy White, Jack Taylor, Duke Reid, King Edwards, Joe Higgs, and Prince Buster made to the emergence of the Jamaican music industry. And coupling this with the irony that despite Jamaica, having two prime ministers, Edward Seaga and P.J. Patterson, who played important roles as studio owner and producer, and artiste manager, respectively, and gave to the world a Chris Blackwell who built what is considered one of the most successful independent record companies, Island Records, and a Rastaman recognised as an international music icon, Bob Marley, the country has not exploited all these assets.

Admittedly, there has been improvement in the important roles of music, film, television and, more recently, fashion to the Jamaican economy. But as pointed out earlier in the cases of film and literary festivals, there is a great deal more that can be done. The problem, as I have so often alluded to, is that the leadership lacks vision and execution, and is plagued by disunity. This disunity is not only riveted in classism, and partisan politics, but also with 'bad-mindedness' that prevents even those within the same class to coalesce for the benefit of nation-building.

Cases in point, Tribute to the Greats, The Annual Dennis Brown Birthday Celebration, and the closure of the Calabash Literary Festival (the first two I have connections with). All three are grass-roots events, relatively small but possessing enormous potential to attract visitors worldwide to Jamaica. The first two are based in Kingston, the cultural capital of Jamaica, and the latter is situated in the idyllic southern area of Treasure Beach in St Elizabeth.

Not enough support

These are events that should be getting maximum support from the Ministry of Tourism, the Ministry of Culture, the Jamaica Tourist Board, corporate Jamaica, and the banking sector operating in these communities. However, this is not done, hence Calabash closed last year after a 10-year struggle by the organisers to keep it going. The D. Brown street festival, and Tribute, that highlights the contributions made by many to the Jamaican music and entertainment industries, struggle to keep going, getting only inadequate financial inputs by the organisers, their families and close friends, out of passion and commitment. Tribute to the Greats, which has been around for 14 years, is yet to attract a major sponsor, although it has given recognition to major contributors like Prince Buster, Lee 'Scratch' Perry, Derrick Morgan, Ken Boothe, Alton Ellis, Hortense Ellis, Sugar Minott, 'Coxson' Dodd, Duke Reid, Edward Seaga, P.J. Patterson, and Sonia Pottinger, to name just a few.

The UNDP/UNCTAD report, which Jamaican Andrea Davis had a hand in drafting, in the meantime, signals the importance of 'creative' industries to the future growth and development of several emerging nations in Africa, Asia, South America, the Caribbean and Central America. Jamaica is noted for reggae. However, the Jamaican Government has draft statutes to be discussed in Parliament now going almost 16 years that would go far in providing the necessary framework to advance the country's creative output, making these more rewarding to the participants and the country as a whole. But clearly this is not a priority. At the same time, the Nigerian government just recently invested some US$200 million for infrastructure development for its burgeoning film industry that in 18 years has grown to become a US$2.75-billion industry built primarily around DVD distribution of low-budget Nigerian films.

The renaming of the Ian Fleming Airport is a first, significant step, but there is much more to be done. Jamaica is fortunate to still have the active minds of Seaga and Blackwell, notwithstanding, who have great insights, experiences and creative energies to apply to nation-building. And there are so many others: Barbara Blake Hannah, Maxine Waters, Sheryl Lee Ralph, Barbara Gloudon, Ibo Cooper, Tony Cobb, Sly Dunbar, Bunny Wailer, Mayor Desmond McKenzie, Winston Blake, Andrea Davis, Junior Lincoln, Kingsley Cooper, Bunny Goodison, Kingsley Goodison and Maxine Stowe, who can make invaluable contributions to revving up the creative juices of Jamaica that next year will be celebrating 50 years of political adulthood.

Let's try to do things drastically different. More unity. More vision. More execution.

Julian 'Jingles' Reynolds is a writer, filmmaker and entrepreneur operating in the US and Jamaica. He is celebrating 45 years as a published writer. Email feedback to columns@gleanerjm.com and fiwipro@yahoo.com.