ONE LOVE!

A recommendation, made over a decade ago for the creation of a new national honour called the Order of Jamaican Heritage, is now being “actively reviewed”, Culture Minister Olivia ‘Babsy’ Grange has revealed.

The disclosure comes amid a new national poll which found that Jamaican music icon Bob Marley is favoured over retired sprint legend Usain Bolt and cultural giant Louise Bennett, popularly known as ‘Miss Lou’, to be the country’s next national hero.

The Order of National Hero is the highest honour that can be conferred on a Jamaican citizen.

Forty-four per cent of respondents or nearly half the population would select Marley if he, along with Bolt and Miss Lou, were under consideration for the award, but only one could be named, the latest Don Anderson poll has found.

Thirty-six per cent said Miss Lou, which would make her the next selection if there was space for two, Anderson said.

Twenty per cent of respondents selected Bolt, who still holds the world 100-metre and 200-metre records.

“Bob Marley has been identified right across the 1,015 persons we interviewed in all parishes as the number-one choice for the next national hero,” said Anderson, whose firm Market Research Services Limited (MRSL) conducted the poll.

The poll was designed and conducted by MRSL with financial support from what the company describes as a group of senior corporate executives of a publicly listed entity. It has a plus or minus three per cent margin of error at the 95 per cent confidence level.

Only persons aged 18 years and older and registered to vote were included in the sample.

Grange, the minister of culture, gender, entertainment and sport, steered clear of making a selection, expressing her personal opinion that “all three are deserving” of the award.

“But it’s not within my purview to make such a decision or to even indicate what that decision could be,” she said.

In 2009, a report by a parliamentary committee that reviewed Jamaica’s system of National Honours and Awards recommended the introduction of a new honour, the Order of Jamaican Heritage.

That honour, the committee proposed, would be Jamaica’s second-highest national honour and would be bestowed on “individuals who made significant contributions to Jamaica’s heritage over an extended period of time.

The committee cited Marley and Miss Lou as examples.

Grange said the full slate of recommendations made by the committee is being actively reviewed, including “when it comes to the national hero or any such level of awards”.

Anderson noted, during an interview with The Gleaner yesterday, that support for Marley was “fairly” even across all age groups.

“But the largest single category who felt that Bob Marley should be that person was those persons in the 25 to 35 age group, where 49 per cent of them echoed this opinion,” he said.

“So you can see conclusively across the age groups, Bob Marley is the preferred entity, except in the 55 to 64 age group where Louise Bennett comes out on top,” he disclosed.

Clyde McKenzie, a noted music scholar, said Marley, Bolt and Miss Lou are “three outstanding contributors to our national life”, but said the selection of the Jamaican entertainer behind the global anthem One Love was not surprising.

“He is revered. I think Bob Marley is kind of sealed in terms of just how much we are immersed in his presence…and I think that would be the explanation,” McKenzie posited.

“It’s not a question of what their relative value is to the society.”

livern.barrett@gleanerjm.com