An M-16 rifle is not the most wholesome of symbols, or the one with which Jamaicans seeking to build an economically-prosperous and democratic future would most want to be identified.

That weapon, and guns generally, for too long have claimed far too many lives in our country, where crime is all too frequent and life is not always held to be sacrosanct. Peter Tosh, the Jamaican reggae musician, was a victim of this indiscriminate violence. He was shot dead at his home in Jamaica in the mid 1980s.

But Tosh was perhaps bettered only by his contemporary, Bob Marley, as a Jamaican cultural icon - even if his skills and achievements are not always as deeply appreciated or as fully acknowledged as he deserves. Not only could he sing very well and play the guitar with skill, he made music that resonated with his time - the cantankerous, contentious, effervescent, emotive, searching and ideological 1970s. Tosh was deemed to be a contributing voice to the third world liberation struggles of the period.

But while his songs made us think and stirred people to action, they also gave us simple joy. That generation of Jamaicans and people elsewhere in the world sang and danced with Peter Tosh.

In that context, memorabilia associated with Peter Tosh's life and music should be important to Jamaica. By acknowledging and celebrating his genius and the standards he achieved, we are declaring that nothing short of excellence should be the goal we seek to achieve.

An electric guitar, shaped in the form of an M-16, rifle is perhaps the most iconic of Peter Tosh's memorabilia. In the 1980s, he strutted the stage, turning complex notes on the M-16, belting out revolutionary songs, thereby symbolically defeating those he assumed to be the oppressors of the weak and poor.

As has been highlighted in the Gleaner this past week, after two decades, Peter Tosh's guitar is again in the news. Tosh's common-law wife has put the guitar up for sale. Unless there has been a last-minute agreement between Andrea Brown and some of Tosh's children, it will be auctioned today on the Internet site, eBay.

We are not here concerned about the legal ownership of the guitar, for something more important is at stake. For what has not been taken into account is the interest of the Jamaican people, their stake in Peter Tosh's legacy and the part of it that is represented by the M-16 guitar.

This is more than a unique instrument or a potentially lucrative piece of property. It represents, too, a part of our collective achievement - the society's chorus to the music that Tosh made. We claim through him our greatness.

Hopefully, it is not too late for the protagonists in this dispute to understand and see this bigger picture and find a way to leave this important bit of Tosh legacy in Jamaica. If not, maybe the Government can still intervene and acquire the guitar as a starting point to a Peter Tosh museum.

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