Melville Cooke You shall be free indeed when your days are not without a care/nor your nights without a want and a grief/But rather when these things girdle your life/and yet you rise above them naked and unbound
Kahlil Gibran, 'The Prophet' (Freedom)
IN A time long gone, in a faraway land (The Gleaner's subs desk, about five years ago, actually), there was a young lady from Brown's Town, via St. Lucia, named Stephanie. A literary enthusiast, she had a passion for a particular section from Kahlil Gibran and I can recall a couple moments when she inclined her jaw at 45 degrees and intoned 'Naked and unbound', with a gleam in her eye, a twang on her tongue and an eye on the page she was planning.
I remembered those moments when I passed 'Redemption Song' for the first time, the morning after it was unveiled, and they have stuck with me as the debate rages on.
It is also interesting that the lady who sculpted the piece quoted from Gibran in the first debate I heard about the matter, on 'The Breakfast Club' shortly after the artwork was erected (OK, I could not help that little one). However, she chose the discourse on marriage to address the distance between the figures, quoting:
Aye, you shall be together even in the silent memory of God/But let there be spaces in your togetherness/And let the winds of the heavens dance between you
The furore that has raged over 'Redemption Song' has long drifted away from its relevance to Emancipation Day and how much it signifies freedom to a discussion of nudity and, more specifically, the size of the male figure's penis.
One of the very few persons I have heard sticking to the point about how representative it is of freedom has been Carolyn Cooper.
It has struck me that the debate has engulfed us far more than the concept of Emancipation has. I really wonder how many of us who are creating a storm over the pieces have taken part in something as simple as an Emancipation vigil, or read a little about the process leading up to the day.
And I wonder how many of the furious ones have actually been to see 'Redemption Song'? I remember in another far-off time, when debate raged over another work of art, Bounty Killer's Look, an amazing number of people who were dead set against it had never heard the song. This time, however, they may claim that they have seen pictures, but a bandwagon is a hell of a thing.
MORE INTEREST IN EMANCIPATION
I have no problem with the statue. Even with the sidetracking of the arguments against it going down the path of nudity, it has stirred more interest in Emancipation and what it means than a simple 'breaking of chains' monument would have done.
I would also like to humbly suggest another purpose for 'Redemption Song'. We do not speak to our children about their bodies enough, if at all, and I for one can testify that my introduction to the reproductive process came from a few pamphlets that were lying around the house.
And then there was, of course, the 'Anonymous' series of books.
When an adult takes a child to Emancipation Park and the little one points and asks, "What is that?", there is no escaping what "that" is. The answer should be simply 'penis' or 'vagina', so that the child learns from early that these are normal parts of the body. That they have names and are not 'roosters' or 'friends' and 'small tigers' or 'salt ting'.
Demystifying the sexual organs will go a far way towards doing the same for the reproductive process, so that there will be fewer persons asking that Dear Pastor, Aaron Dumas, if they have sex in water or standing up they will not get pregnant, as their friends say.
If 'Redemption Song; can help in that process, it is good enough for me.
As for the size of Mr. Man's privates made public, I am reminded of an incident in the white man's clash that was misnamed World War II. The Russians ran out of condoms for their soldiers and asked the Brits for help in preventing the 'clap' from becoming army-wide applause. Churchill was most willing to help and ordered that the Russians be supplied forthwith with the largest condoms available, but they should be marked small.
If the gent is to be taken as representative of the Jamaican man's penis, I do believe it will be a lift for the tourism industry and get a rise out of our economy, which is now between a rock and a hard place.
Sex educational class
Teacha mek yu eyeglass los-
Was that Yellowman?
Mel Cooke is a freelance writer.
