Orville Taylor | Gordon: #1 hero; Takye two

Among the seven, despite Marcus Garvey being the greatest in terms of his influence and impact on people of sub-Saharan African descent, George William Gordon is head and shoulders above his peers in this pantheon of National Heroes. Wednesday will be 159 years since British Governor Edward Eyre murdered Gordon, on the pretext of him being involved in a peasant uprising known as the Morant Bay Rebellion or as some of my colleagues declare, the Morant Bay War.

It is a well-known saga, where disgruntled peasants, led by Deacon Paul Bogle; not Thomas Jennings, were frustrated in their attempt to have a conversation with the government and ultimately the confrontation became bloody, resulting in the loss of many lives. This story is well chronicled and does not need rehashing in this column. However, most important, there was absolutely no evidence that Gordon was involved, or that he even was aware that the largely spontaneous escalation would have taken place. What matters, is that Gordon took on battles, which were not even his fights.

The term ‘hero’ is used very loosely nowadays and gratuitously applied to sportsmen and women and even entertainers and actors. Not that there are not persons within this category, who clearly are heroic or even are heroes. However, there are numbers of elements which are indispensable, when one is being described as a hero.

According to the University of Oxford, a hero (heroine) is “… someone who is admired for their courage, selflessness, and noble qualities, and who is willing to take risks or make sacrifices in order to help others or achieve a noble goal.”

Courage is an essential element, because it implies that the individual faced dangers or challenges, which could lead to hazardous consequences. Bravery always connotes the likelihood that one’s actions could lead the actor into situations of harm and she or he stands to lose something, which either has been achieved or not yet attained.

Still, the willingness to take risks, while a necessary condition, is not sufficient. Criminals and miscreants take risks, break the law, flout rules, abuse power and perform endless atrocities. Sometimes, personal ambition is mistaken for heroism, given the admiration which often comes with high achievement. An individual who has made the decision to forgo gratification and simply self-actualised is no hero, because she or he is doing it simply for himself or herself.

MISUSED WORD

A commonly misused word, and confused with deferred gratification, ‘sacrifice’ always means not only depriving oneself of something that she or he needs, but more important, to do so on behalf of other individuals or a larger entity, such as a race, community or country.

In this regard, the question has to be, what was at risk for the individual who carried out the course of conduct? And if the stakes are high, with little or nothing conceivable, that the individual can gain for himself or herself, then such a person is unequivocally a hero or heroine.

My comments on the eligibility of the founders of the two main political parties will be reserved for another column. Nonetheless, Bogle, Sam Sharpe and Ashanti Queen Nanny, who engaged the oppressive racist authority in the fight to either free or uplift their fellows, are beyond dispute. Nanny, to the best of my knowledge, unlike her brother Kojo and other Maroon warriors, did not sign any treaty with the British government, which agreed to conspire to assist the British in capturing their fellow Africans, who escaped slavery and also to join with them in quelling any kind of resistance from their kinfolk. In our conversations about reparations and apologies for the heinous process of slavery and its consequences, whatever the ‘context’ might be as my historian fellows love to point out, the discussion must address the role of Africans on the continent and on this little rock in the Caribbean, in making the entire slavery and plantation system work.

Gordon had everything to lose and virtually nothing to gain. As a privileged ‘deputy-white’ man, he could have taken on a racial identity, like some of the other leaders after him.

CLOSER TO WHITE

This half-white/half-black man, who looked far closer to white than black, was upper class, a legislator and an extremely wealthy individual, perhaps even by today’s standards. Yet, he was a thorn in the side of the governors, constantly warning inside and outside of the chambers that unfair laws, discriminatory practices and inhumane treatment of the black underclass would ultimately lead to major social uprisings.

Commissions sent to Jamaica after the 1865 uprising, and other major conflicts decades later, validated the very things that Gordon was advocating, as he constantly spoke of proper tribunals and access to justice, as well as economic benefits to the formerly enslaved Africans. Physically removed from the legislature, he had annoyed Governor Eyre to such an extent that he, not satisfied with being antagonistic to him, eventually had him hanged for something he knew absolutely nothing about.

Gordon made the ultimate sacrifice, losing his life in fighting for the benefits and uplift for a group of persons with whom he had sympathies, but to which he did not belong, according to the social hierarchy in this plantation society.

Using the same rubric, it is completely befuddling as to why Chief Takye is still not a national hero. Though coming to a tragic end in October 1761, a major uprising began in April 1760 under the influence of this Akan chief, who, because of his leadership skills, had been appointed as an overseer on a plantation in St Mary. An extremely privileged position, and inconceivable for a black person, Takye used his status in pursuance of his vision of a free black colony, an Africa outside of Africa.

After more than a year of open conflict, with the African seizing more and more of the island, like so many other movements, betrayal came from within.

We have a lot to fix in ‘righting’ our history.

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.