Peter Espeut HAVE YOU ever stopped to think that most of those we honour as National Heroes took up arms to fight against an oppressive state apparatus? If a search was on at the time to select National Heroes, the names would all have been different. Nanny and Samuel Sharpe fought to end the enslavement of black people. We call them heroes now, but at the time they were guilty of treason and sedition, and armies were sent to hunt them down; Sharpe was hung by the neck until dead in the public square which today bears his name. A search at the time might have led to the British officer (Stoddart) who shelled Nanny Town, or the man who captured Sam Sharpe, being made National Hero.
Paul Bogle and George William Gordon fought the oppressive system the planters and the British Colonial government operated after emancipation. Only planters could vote; only planters could stand for election; all the judges were planters, and only planters could sit on juries; all the attorneys were planters; the militia officers were all planters. Opportunities for the poor small farmers and others were limited, and there was a general feeling of hopelessness and powerlessness.
POOR BLACK PEOPLE
They tried legal means first. Bogle and a large throng walked from Stony Gut in St. Thomas to Spanish Town to present Governor Eyre with a petition from the poor, but the Governor considered himself too good to speak with poor black people, and refused to see them. Soon the Custos and other planters were killed and the Morant Bay courthouse and other buildings went up in flames. Bogle and Gordon (and hundreds of others) were sentenced to death by court-martial and hanged as insurgents, but they are National Heroes today because we see the value of the killing and burning they did with the wisdom of hindsight. If Governor Eyre and the government of the day were selecting National Heroes, Bogle and Gordon would never have made the list!
Finding black people still at the bottom of the ladder in the white-dominated Jamaica of the earlier part of the twentieth century, Marcus Mosiah Garvey denounced the system of white supremacy, and encouraged black people to get education and to open businesses, to have economic power and earn the right to vote. He was imprisoned and derided and deported, and is ridiculed by the white elite to this day, and would never have made the Queen's Honours List at that time.
Universal adult suffrage came only in 1944 while the British were distracted with World War II, through the efforts of the cousins Manley and Bustamante, and others. The parties they formed and led have turned Jamaica into a land where, in the words of our present Prime Minister, hostile tribes are perpetually at war fighting for scarce benefits and spoils. And when Britain went on a campaign to shed its colonies, and Jamaica gained political independence in 1962, we made Bustamante and Manley National Heroes.
MAJOR PLAYERS
Of course the selection committee was made up of partisans of Manley and Bustamante, and so their selection was a foregone conclusion. The days when we were giddy with the new wine of independence have passed, and we have taken a long hard look at those days and have found the major players wanting. Busta and Manley were not perfect, flawless and without sin; they made their contribution for our advancement as a nation which has taken us to a point, but they have made Jamaica into a violent, tribal society. I think they deserve no more than the Order of Jamaica or the Order of Merit for their efforts. But it is now that we need Heroes who are prepared to put their lives on the line to take us out of the mire the parties of Manley and Bustamante have put us in. It would be unfortunate if in the heat of passion we should name more partisans as national heroes.
Every year the selection committee honours party heroes. In a true spirit of bi-partisanship, over the years our National Honours lists have been littered with politicians from both sides. I suppose National Honours are part of the scarce benefits and spoils, and I for one feel that dispensing National Honours to tribalists devalues those so-called "honours". Not everything that is good for the party is good for the country, and the political parties should have their own honours lists instead of misusing the National Honours lists.
True National Heroes must be able to stand up to the hindsight test, and we must be careful to avoid hasty and rash heroisation in fits of euphoria and rushes of blood. And sweet words cannot a National Hero make. There must have been "action" and tangible results of national or international impact.
I am pleased that the genuinely Honourable Louise Bennett-Coverley has been honoured and feted by the whole nation. She has made us comfortable with our language and our music, and has through drama and poetry and song, held up Jamaica and Jamaicans like a mirror for us to look at and be proud. None of the fool-fool-Jamaican-come-from-country type of comedy from Miss Lou, which really makes us look stupid and increases feelings of inferiority.
If there are genuine National Heroes amongst us today they are not to be found among the chorus line of party public relations hacks, who defend garrison politics and the right of political parties to distribute work to their supporters on some quota basis. If and when we can break out of the grasp of these two parties I am sure that the name of Wilmot Perkins will be remembered as a consistent champion of justice and honesty and patriotism and an architect of Jamaica's transformation. But honours will have to wait until this present crop of politicians passes on.
Let us leave politicians off the National Honours list until we see who will take us out of tribal politics. Until then, none of them deserves it.
Peter Espeut is a Sociologist and Executive Director of an Environment and Development NGO.
