Columns

Paul
Buchanan

Sunday, July 09, 2017

( In continuing to serialise sections of the book Jones Town Trench Town The Journey Back written by former Jamaica cricketer, economist and politician Paul Buchanan, today we look at the legacy of Reggae great Robert Nesta “Bob” Marley)

Bob Marley's legacy is not only to be found in his enduring exposure of Jamaica's popular music to every corner of the globe; his prolific output of albums espousing conscious lyrics, the freedom songs he left for posterity or the continuation of quality music by his many off springs and successors. It is much more. His dramatic performance at the height of 'the Liberation Wars' in Southern Africa, played out at an official concert celebrating Zimbabwe's hard-won independence, timelessly reaffirmed Jamaica's unwavering stand for finite justice.

Although Hugh Shearer and Michael Manley's eloquent contributions at the United Nations for international intervention and sanctions were signal moments in that heroic conflict, it is Marley's song that is remembered and sung with passion through the ages:

“Until the philosophy which holds one race superior and another inferior,

Is finally and finally and permanently discredited and abandoned;

And until the ignoble and unhappy regimes that hold our brothers

In Angola, Mozambique, and South Africa in sub-human bondage,

Have been toppled and destroyed;

Until that day the African continent will not know peace…”

His powerful cry into the Zimbabwean night sky became the anthem of the freedom fighters for majority-rule in Southern Africa. His inspirational chants and exhortations not only foretold of final victory but left for posterity, a lasting imprint of Jamaica's principled and courageous role in that epic struggle.

Allan Cole, who was with him in his last moments, tells of a remorseful Marley, reminiscing on his difficult rise and seeking answers on the true meaning of his imminent demise; why it was that so young, he had to die? The answer, which he would have known, being a seer of life, is that Jah wanted him to be an apostle for good, in a world where men have strayed and unleashed too much suffering and pain. In order to spread Jah's message and change minds with credibility, he had to be immortalised and enlarged by death at a young age, elevating him into martyrdom, above and beyond his renowned status in life.

Like Kevin O'Brien Chang, Mark Moses Alvarado, a social worker, understood this ethos of immortality:

“…Bob Marley has transcended into a space that appears to have no limit on time. He is my teacher of goodwill and rebellion.”

The brilliant guitarist, Carlos Santana, also captures the universality and power of his message and his music:

“His songs will be hymns and anthems that people can use to build a new world. He had a vision like Martin Luther King and Coltrane, of a world with no flags, no borders,and no money.”

Perhaps another guitarist, Steven Van Zandt of Bruce Springsteen's E-Street Band, best offers a fitting epitaph:

“From the purity of young romance, to the uncompromising commitment to revolution,

and every emotion in between, no voice has ever spoken such transcendent truths with such authority and communicated it so effectively.”

So Marley's profound words of wisdom and timeless admonitions, in the spirit of Lennon, stamp him as a transformative international icon, a youthful sage, who continues to inspire his broken country and push a reluctant world towards the upliftment of the human condition; a Garveyan warrior, whose enlightening spirit and causes, in the footsteps of Martin Luther King Jnr. and Muhammad Ali, definitely contributed to the ascension of a black man as president of the United States of America; a restless troubadour, whose legacy is to be found in his revolutionary lyrics confronting racism, fighting poverty, promoting justice and embracing peace, the themes of his greatest works, posited in Time Magazine's Album of the Century, Exodus, and the BBC's Song of the 20th century — One Love.