Miss Lou, Bob Marley deserve more, say critics

A proposal by Prime Minister Andrew Holness to create a new national honour – the Order of National Icon – to honour Jamaican legends such as Robert Nesta ‘Bob’ Marley and Louise ‘Miss Lou’ Bennett-Coverley has been dismissed as unacceptable by The University of the West Indies (UWI) Professor Rupert Lewis.

Lewis, who is professor emeritus of political thought at the UWI, Mona, said the two Jamaicans are “indisputable candidates for national hero”, and argued that they both played an essential role in Jamaica’s Independence by helping to create a national identity.

“Cultural identity has been the basis for Jamaican Independence, not the Constitution, not the political activists … . The basis has been the contribution from the grassroots like Bob Marley through the establishment of an identity and a global presence,” he added.

Lewis contends that Miss Lou’s advocacy for the acceptance of Jamaican creole – a language that was derided in the colonial era – makes her worthy of Jamaica’s highest honour.

“At the time of the 1940s and the 1950s, in particular, in the period before Independence, she gave people self-respect in that the way they spoke was right, there was nothing wrong with how they spoke, and championed Jamaica’s bilingualism,” he said.

Bob Marley is considered one of the pioneers of reggae, who took the genre to the world.

The Order of National Hero is the most senior order and may be conferred upon a Jamaican who has rendered to the country service of a most distinguished nature.

Bob Marley and cultural Miss Lou died in May 1981 and July 2006, respectively. The two are members of the Order of Merit, the third highest national honour.

“He (Holness) may be seeking a compromise, but this is not a compromise that is acceptable,” Lewis told The Gleaner yesterday.

In his message marking National Heroes Day on Monday, Holness said that the government had completed preliminary work and will be moving forward with the legal process to introduce the new Order of National Icon.

Once the legal process is completed, he said, it would be conferred on Miss Lou and Bob Marley.

Holness said the honour will be “a most well-deserved and long overdue recognition of their legendary contributions to Jamaican culture and music”.

“Miss Lou’s work in promoting Jamaican Patois and folk traditions has cemented her as a pioneer of our national identity, while Bob Marley’s music transcended borders, making him an international ambassador of reggae and a symbol of resistance to oppression and a beacon of unity and love,” he said.

Renowned storyteller and orator for the Edna Manley College of the Visual and Performing Arts, Dr Amina Blackwood-Meeks, believes that new national honour is redundant.

“I do not understand the logic in that. The Jamaican people have absolutely ... they are not equivocating about whether Bob and Miss Lou are national icon, they are not equivocating about whether they are national treasures. They are national icons who are loved and embraced by a wide cross section of the society,” she said.

“I do not understand the logic of how you take people of this international stature, and say the best we can do for you now, is National Icon-you can’t make me something that I already am,” Blackwood-Meeks added.

Absent from the discussion, she told The Gleaner, are clearly outlined criteria for who should be considered a national hero.

“I don’t think the country has ever been educated about what the criteria for national hero are,” she said. “We need to know what we are talking about so we can say if those criteria are old fashioned, or we need to add things or we need to adjust things.”

She noted that our current national heroes have each contributed to a different aspect of nation building, but contemporary Jamaica’s identity is found in the achievements in sports and culture.

“Is it not time to look at those two fields, and say, ‘anybody qualify for the greatest honour that the nation has to give?’,” she asked.

Meanwhile, Opposition Leader Mark Golding, in his National Heroes Day message, also echoed sentiments that Bob Marley should be recognised as a national hero.

“His (Marley’s) greatness is embraced in all corners of the earth. He gave us the enduring power of One Love,” Golding said.

He added that Marley, “more than any other, has made our music an inspirational force of liberation, justice, and equality for all the peoples of the world”.

Golding did not mention Miss Lou.

In the meantime, writing in The Gleaner in 2021, former Prime Minister Bruce Golding had indicated that a committee chaired by the late Professor Rex Nettleford had proposed the establishment of a new order, which would address the cries for high honours for icons such as Bob Marley and Miss Lou.

“ In 2008, I appointed a committee, also chaired by the late Professor Rex Nettleford, specifically to review the system of national honours and awards. The committee was not in favour of increasing the number of persons declared as national heroes,” Golding wrote. “ Instead, it recommended that a new order be created – the Order of Jamaican Heritage – as the next highest honour to that of National Hero, to be bestowed on ‘individuals who made significant contributions to Jamaica’s heritage over an extended period of time, for example, the Hon Louise Bennett-Coverley and the Hon Robert Nesta Marley’.”

sashana.small@gleanerjm.com