ONCE AGAIN, a Jamaican work of art has been placed on trial and found wanting by a group of persons who have condemned it and are preparing to sentence it to oblivion.

While our eyes have been turned elsewhere, a gathering of persons in Morant Bay, the St Thomas capital, assembled last Saturday to “bun fiyah” gainst the statue of National Hero Paul Bogle who the nation chose to honour for his contribution to Jamaica’s liberation history.

The statue was commissioned by the government of the 1960s. The sculptor was Edna Manley, noted not just as a member of the nation’s most famous political family, but as an artist of international reputation. She chose to salute Bogle’s spirit in his two roles – the Baptist preacher-activist and the peasant who would have wielded a machete not only as an agricultural tool but also as a means of defence in times of war.

She produced a work of a black man, in militant stance, holding the machete, standing resolutely, his total posture forming the cross of Christianity which he served. The statue was raised in front of the Morant Bay Courthouse, scene of the infamous trial which came in the wake of what our history has always designated as the Morant Bay Rebellion. Even from the beginning, the statue attracted the disfavour of some persons.

The main objections: a) it too black… b) lips too thick… c) nose too broad…

d) It nuh look like him. This came from persons who could never have seen the real Deacon Bogle. His life was taken from him in that fateful year of 1865. There have been claims made in recent times that there is a picture of him “somewhere”. There is no record of any of the peasantry of Stony Gut having such a valued treasure. A drawing said to be in the Institute of Jamaica would be just that – an artist’s impression.

The controversy about blackness was a curious one, considering that the statue came on the scene at a time when black consciousness was on the ascendancy. However, persons actually went to Morant Bay to see the statue and to try chipping off the black colouring in the ciment fondu, a new medium which Edna Manley used to fashion the work.

In time, the blackness debate subsided and the Bogle statue became part of the landscape in front of the Morant Bay Courthouse and together, statue and building formed a heritage site in the St Thomas parish capital. But now – with so many other things to worry about, with so much facing the nation – a Morant Bay Rebellion of another kind is being mounted.

Little has been said about the courthouse which was severely damaged by fire in 2007. Last year, the statue was gouged by a man said to be of unsound mind. It has since been restored and was set to be returned to Morant Bay while a group of citizens of the parish decided to consider how to restore and revive this aspect of their heritage. The fate of the courthouse has not been settled but the statue has fallen out of favour. Why? “It don’t look like him”… Here we go again.

THIS TIME the statue has been weighed in the balance and found wanting because (A) He shouldn’t have his back turned to the courthouse – that is disrespect. (B) The machete (interpreted as a sword). The top is up in his throat signifying the cutting off of his speech, the tip of the sword (machete) points to his scrotum, cutting off all the regenerative capabilities. In martial arts that signifies surrender… and Bogle never surrendered, said a spokesperson.

The real argument, however, seems to be the old cry, “It don’t look like him.” No one has come forward yet to prove for sure what he looked like, but of one thing the objectors are sure it is not Mr Bogle and they can prove it. How? They’re incensed that a man in Stony Gut was the model used by Mrs Manley. Apparently, this makes the statue a deception because people were under the impression that it was a depiction of a real-real Missa Bogle. So, the protestors have enlisted the support of the Kingston and St Andrew Corporation to petition the prime minister and the minister of culture to have the statue removed, nearly four decades after it has been a fixture in the public square in St Thomas.

Sadly, it appears that the Jamaica National Heritage Trust seems prepared for surrender and retreat. It is being said that the statue would most likely be removed to storage in the National Gallery, just as was done when the first Bob Marley statue was bound with ropes and dragged ingloriously from its stand at Independence Park (opposite the National Arena). It was exiled to spend years gathering dust at the gallery because “it never look like Bob”.

Persons were openly hostile to the concept of the artist Christopher Gonzalez who chose to depict Bob as a biblical figure, a tree planted by the waterside, his locks as roots going down into the earth. People didn’t get the message so a realistic (but quite boring) replacement was installed.

Our public artistic taste leans heavily towards literal depictions in statuary, resulting in debilitating controversies about what such and such “look like”. Nobody wants to hear about “artistic interpretation”. If it nuh look like him, forget it. We’re still fighting over the Emancipation Park duo.

IN THE CURRENT state of economic debilitation in which St Thomas finds itself, one would assume that there are far more pressing and compelling subjects for consideration than whether the statue was of Mr Bogle fi true. Meanwhile, the courthouse still lies in burnt-out ruins. The talk of a tourism product for St Thomas continues just that – talk. We will have to assume that when the statue is safely put away in the storeroom of the Gallery, then the sensitive eyes of the concerned citizens of Morant Bay can turn to look for signs as to what Mr Bogle’s legacy really means.

Surely he did not walk all the way to Spanish Town to tek on Governor Eyre, to return to Morant Bay to lose his life for his belief in the God-given right to freedom and dignity – and now for his legacy to become the subject of futility and confused logic. Bogle’s statue will go – but does St Thomas know where it is heading?

bgloudon@yahoo.com