Ian Boyne, Contributor

It is important that we carefully analyse the meaning of Louise Bennett-Coverley. Why does she inspire such cult-like affection, such worshipful adoration, such unbridled love?

Jamaicans were united, for a change, last week as we celebrated the life and work of the First Lady of Culture and the Mother of the Nation. Miss Lou was more than just a folklorist, a dramatist, a poet, a broadcaster - she is far more that what she used to do. She was not defined by her professional role. There is something deeper, more archetypal about Miss Lou.

Miss Lou is the quintessential Jamaican. But Ole Time Jamaica. She is embodiment of all the goodness of Jamaica. She represents a long-lost Jamaica of civility, courtesy, and generosity of spirit, non-partisanship, resilience, resourcefulness and optimism. One misguided letter writer from Brooklyn, Sherman Escoffrey, opines that Miss Lou is great but ... He says Miss Lou should no more be made a National Heroine than Alan Magnus or Dennis Hall.

Mistaken notion

Perhaps it is because so many people who pay tribute to Miss Lou has focused on her work and professional activities why there is this mistaken notion that she is loved simply for her work. Others could have been equally brilliant in expression; equally innovative, path-breaking and trailblazing without having the impact of Louise Bennett-Coverley.

It is not just that she was the person to make us respect patois. It is not just that she was the one who brought the people's language to the paper of the ruling class, The Gleaner. It was not just that she accepted us, loved us and celebrated us. Others have done so and could have done that without generating the adulation, the devotion, the intense loyalty.

There was just something about Miss Lou, and it was not just in her work.

Charisma

It was in her character as well as her personality. Psychologists and other social scientists have puzzled about this indefinable thing called charisma. It's something which no one can define precisely, but which everyone recognises once one sees it. Or feels it. Miss Lou's charisma was not an in-your-face charisma.

But you couldn't help being impacted by it. Miss Lou is the only famous Jamaican I have never heard a criticism of. Never. She was not just a preeminent artiste and cultural icon par excellence. She was a remarkable human being - or, as the Buddhists would say, a human beam.

Louise Bennett-Coverley was larger than life. Truly.

Any political party which was able to enlist her to its causes and to have her enthusiastic support would have benefited enormously. But that's precisely the point: Miss Lou was larger than any single party. Miss Lou represents Jamaica. Full Stop. In a way which no politician can. Rex Nettleford was bang on target: "Louise Bennett was arguably the only citizen of Jamaica who could raise more cheers from the popular mass than any Jamaican political leader."

I have always associated Louise Bennett - as my generation knew her - with the PNP. Her close associations in the artistic world would naturally have brought her close to the Drumblair Group and its extensions.

Non-partisan

But you could never tell that from anything that Louise would say or do. She was genuinely, almost genetically, non-partisan in a way that was mystifying. I have never seen anyone who has mastered the art of discretion and control of the tongue in the way that Louise Bennett did.

Our adulation for her represents a deep longing for a hero. We are a country suffering from an absence of heroes. Whether the Government wants to declare it or not it doesn't matter, but Louise Bennett-Coverley is a National Hero. And it has nothing to do with 'achievements' or accomplishments, so any comparison with popular broadcasters like Alan Magnus or sports greats like Herb McKenley is both absurd and obscene. It's unforgivable sloppiness in thinking.

Social commentator

One of the things which many forget was that Miss Lou was also a social commentator. An eminent one. Her Miss Lou's views on radio were riveting, biting and topical, but so humorous and tasteful that we soon forgot the strength of the views, but were instead touched by the warmth of the voice and the expressions and the poignant humour.

As a child my earliest memory of Miss Lou, before the days of television, was hearing Miss Lou beat Ranny with the flatboard. That was an occasion for great laughter in the home as my mom, now dead for 20 years, and my dad, now dead for 39 years, would burst out in uncontrollable laughter along with me and my younger sister, as mom would blurt out, "She soon beat him with the flatboard!" I still remember us crowding the Grundig stereo to hear the Lou and Ranny Show.

That Miss Lou had to migrate, in my view, was a tragedy. She migrated not because she wanted to but, as far as I understand it, for economic reasons. That's disgraceful. Someone like Miss Lou should never have had to leave her country because of necessity in the first place.

There have been whispers of politics as contributing to the departure, too, but Miss Lou was such a generous soul, so non-combative that she would make no big issue of anything like that. And people would generally never really know the true story.

Miss Lou has spoken of going to Canada because it was easier to deal with the medical bills, especially for "Coverley". We should be ashamed of ourselves as a nation - and the political class should be, too - that someone of this truly grand stature was not given every possible luxury and facility possible, while she kept her home here and travelled as she liked.

We did not treat Miss Lou as well as we should when she was alive. And I don't mean we as a people, but those who had political power to do something about her staying here. It was good that the Government brought her back in 2003 to féte and to give her such a wonderful time. But she deserved much more. We have not yet learnt how to treat national treasures.

Never cherished bitterness

But Miss Lou never cherished bitterness and whenever I would raise the issue she would brush it off, go into some story or engage in some diversionary tactic. You could never draw her tongue. What a woman! I remember her telling me in an interview nearly 20 years ago that her mother used to tell her "It is better to be wronged than wrong." I never forgot those words, and had to draw on them many times on occasions of personal crisis and challenge.

It is that generosity of spirit, that ability to laugh at herself, to tek kin teeth kibba heartbun which contributed to making her such a wonderful and irreplaceable human beam. She is without doubt the most loved Jamaican ever.

None coming after her is ever likely to be as loved by so many for as long. Other great Jamaicans, such as Marcus Mosiah Garvey and Bob Marley, had and still have detractors. Not so with Miss Lou.

Louise expected nothing. She simply gave all. Fi wi love will never die for this Mother of the Nation.

Ian Boyne is a veteran journalist. Email: ianboyne1@yahoo.com.