ONCE UPON a time we paid tribute to our masters by naming roads and buildings and places in their honour. And so there is the Princess Margaret Hospital and the King George VI Memorial Park. There is even the Cinchona Gardens named after a Countess of Peru, who never had anything personal to do with Jamaica.
Since the cutting of the umbilical cord with royalty, our politicians, in particular, have taken it upon themselves to be remembered for their deeds through the identification of their names with places.
Not all these places were named by the politicians, themselves. Sometimes, the naming was a parting gift by his side of the political fence. At other times it was done to obtain hoped-for political advantage. So we have been seeing a growing number of highways and schools named after our political representatives who were known and popular in their times, but whose memories are fading with time. Soon, these monuments to their glory will be moved hither and thither as was done to Dr. Bowerbank's and Queen Victoria's statues.
PLAQUES SHOULD BE MOUNTED
Now if we really want these personalities to be remembered, apart from merely giving their names to places and buildings, plaques should be mounted at the sites relating who they were and what they did. I find it embarrassing when out of mischievous curiosity, as I have done, I ask children and adults in the towns and villages who these persons were who have been immortalised in stone and wood. And receive a stony silence.
I also chuckled recently when I saw a mongrel lifting its foot and leaving its mark at the foot of one of these signs. That's the contempt the animal feels for these memorials, some of which should probably meet the same fate from human beings.
These reflections came to mind this week when I heard visiting South African President Thabo Mbeki paying tribute to Jamaica and Jamaicans for the role played by this country, and its leaders and people in the long struggle by black South Africans against the oppression of apartheid superiority. My mind went back in time to when Bustamante publicly refused to shake the hands of a former South African President who was an architect of this racially insulting policy, at a reception given by the Queen, or was it the King, for British Commonwealth leaders at Buckingham Palace in London.
I remember, too, Norman Manley's bold move in banning trade with South Africa, even though he had no authority under international law to do so. Maybe he was not shackled by legal niceties. And even though, except for wine and whatever gold we could afford, there was little trade with the country, it was a symbolic gesture which helped to begin the international hurt against South Africa.
This generation does not know of those things; they do not know what took place before 1980. Neither do they know of the pressures brought against South Africa by Jamaican sportsmen, musicians, and others like tiny Sandra Kong, who walked out of a Miss World contest which she could probably have won, so stunningly beautiful she was, when it was brought to her attention that a South African girl was competing in the contest. A gesture which many Jamaicans thought of as being asinine at the time. For what could it do to move the consciences of the leaders of apartheid and allow black
people to participate in their government?
MEMORIALISE
And so, we have since named a Park and a highway to memorialise the South African leader, Nelson Mandela. But who will know who he was when they see the sign on the highway 20 years from today, if it is not plastered over by dance-hall posters. There is no accompanying monument which tells his story, or what was apartheid which could well have been a Forty Shilling curse word.
By all means we must remember men and women of past glory, but tell us why. How many schools have been named after politicians and the children do not know who he was? The name was probably imposed by edict from elsewhere and no consultation took place with the teachers, parents or children.
If you don't believe me, arrange a poll. The results could be embarrassing.