Hartley Neita, Contributor

In my young years at, what was then called, an elementary school, we learned more about the geography and history of England than of Jamaica. Later came the war between England and Germany and subsequently between the USA and Japan.

And because reports of the military actions in Europe, North Africa and the Pacific were published in detail in the Daily Gleaner (there was no other news media then), we learnt the names of countries in Europe and elsewhere, some of their history and other facts about them.

Limited knownledge

Meanwhile, our knowledge of Jamaica was limited. We knew the names of the counties, the parishes and their capitals, the main rivers, the names of the railway stations, historical tragedies such as the earthquakes which destroyed Port Royal and Kingston, of the 'discovery' of Jamaica by the Spaniards and its capture by the English.

Few books were then written by Jamaicans. We, therefore, read novels written by Englishmen such as Charles Dickens and Sir Walter Scott, and poems by Lord Byron, Percy Blythe Shelley and William Wordsworth. Much later, we discovered the works of Jamaican authors such as Roger Mais and Claude McKay, and poems by these men and by George Campbell, Vivian Virtue and J.E. Clare McFarlane.

It was the same too with painters. We saw prints of paintings by John Constable, an Englishman, in our English text books. And there were Jamaican painters at the time we never saw their works in the rural district where I lived.

There were also playwrights. Plays written by Vere Johns, Frank Hill, A.E.T. Henry and Archie Lindo were presented to full houses at the Ward Theatre in Kingston. Later it was the Little Theatre Movement which saw the flowering of actors and actresses, such as Louise Bennett, Ranny Williams, Charles Hyatt, Leonie Forbes, Reggie Carter, Lois Kelly, Inez Hibbert and a list of stars too long to record. It was, however, the plays by Williams Shakespeare, Oscar Wilde, and other Englishmen which took pride of place.

Greatness of a country

As time passed we were to discover that the greatness of a country was not just its geography and history and its natural resources. A country had to have the soul of the people who were creators. That is when we found the Jamaican soul.

We found it when George Headley became the first batsman to score two centuries in each innings of a test match at Lords.

We found it when Thomas Lecky developed four breeds of cattle, the Jamaica Hope, Jamaica Red Poll, the Jamaica Brahman and the Jamaica Black, which were all adapted to tropical conditions, and which have been in demand as breed stock internationally.

We found it when British Prime Minister Winston Churchill quoted Claude McKay's poem, "If We Must Die" to strengthen the resolve of Britons to fight and defeat Nazi Germany and did not identify its Jamaican author.

We found it when Arthur Wint, Herb McKenley, George Rhoden and Les Laing won gold and set a new Olympic record in the 4x400 metres relay at Helsinki.

We found it when we heard Archie Lewis singing with Geraldo and his Orchestra on the BBC during the 1940s and, more recently, when Bob Marley's song One Love was internationalised.

And we found it when Marcus Garvey gave black people all over the world, the philosophy to believe in themselves and that no man was the master of others. It is when there are scores of Headleys, Leckys, McKays, Wints, McKenleys, Rhodens, Laings, Lewises, Marleys and Garveys, composing, creating and producing that there will be a soul that is Jamaica.