SUMMER has gone and things are back to normal. It went by quickly, and before you know it National Heroes Day will be staring us in the face. The heritage holiday is followed by Christmas so watch out, the Christmas, breeze will soon be blowing.

Heritage Week is the signal for debates around new national heroes. We have lived with our seven for a long time and, as mighty in valour as they were, they get a failing grade when it comes to motivation and inspiration. I think the heroes did their best to uplift Jamaicans, but we have not been responding as we should. It is not their fault. Our heroes were selected on the basis of true heroism and self-sacrifice. But we are not seeing much of that around. Perhaps we have got tired of the present lot. Perhaps it really is time for us to consider additional national heroes.

Whenever the argument arises, two names head the list: Bob Marley and Louise Bennett. Michael Manley always runs a distant third because there is too much baggage coming along with his claim.

Michael has a lot going for him, good looks, charm, stridency, populism, and good intentions. But he was a politician, and you know they get the blame for messing up things. Besides, he did the State of Emergency and arrests thing, and his record of economic achievement is questionable. He came at the wrong time, as he would have been more suited for the turbulence and passion of the Bustamante and Norman Manley founding fathers era.

Bob Marley smoked the weed, so he is out. Miss Lou gave us generations of culture and national pride and we really ought to consider her claim more seriously next year, but something tells me that she would not have been comfortable in that role and may have demurred.

Nevertheless, Miss Lou and Marley have been presented with the Order of Merit, high accolades indeed. It’s a surprise that Manley was never considered for an Order of Jamaica (OJ), although his prime minister status allowed him an automatic Order of the Nation. His cousin and one of his best friends, Hugh Shearer, was awarded the OJ largely for trade union services. Both men played an equally iconic role in the development of the labour movement, so why not Manley?

I think we are stuck with our top seven. There is a reluctance to increase the number of awardees, a reluctance we don’t see when it comes to making lower awards. National heroes do not come at a dime a dozen. What our seven heroes did for Jamaica will never be duplicated in our lifetime, which is why the annual debate about new ones always quickly dies down when you compare their contributions to those of the many other Jamaicans who have made their own significant contributions.

Under the National Honours and Awards Act, promulgated on July 18, 1969, formal recognition of service to Jamaica and its citizens may be given by conferment of the six Orders of the Societies of Honour.

For those who came in late, the Order of National Hero tops the list and carries its own motto, “He built a city which hath foundations”. It is followed, in order, by the Order of the Nation, the Order of Excellence, the Order of Merit, the Order of Jamaica, and the Order of Distinction.

The Order of Excellence is one we hardly hear about. It is reserved for foreign heads of state, and to the best of my knowledge there are only three awardees to date; Thabo Mbeki, president of South Africa; King Juan Carlos of Spain; and Jakaya Kikwete, president of Tanzania.

I was pleased to be reminded that William Knibb, an English Baptist pastor, was the first non-Jamaican and white man to be granted the high honour of the Order of Merit.

His posthumous award was granted in 1988 in recognition of his relentless fight to emancipate the slaves. He died in 1845, aged 42 years, and was buried at his Baptist Chapel in Falmouth. The service was attended by 8,000 former slaves, and appropriately, the text of the sermon was taken from Zechariah XI, vs 2, which reads “Howl, fir tree, the mighty cedar has fallen.”

Which brings me right back home to my own choice of George Headley as a national hero. Out of all the names shortlisted, Headley is the one who was accepted as a true hero of the people in his lifetime. He was accorded the classical treatment of songs, poetry and prose that garlands the names of those who have been created icons by their own people.

His exploits, deeds, achievements, the blows he struck for Jamaica and the West Indies, the doors he opened and the walls he scaled, made him a legend in his time.

Headley is still considered the world’s greatest batsman, comparable only to Australia’s Donald Bradman. And he was well beloved. He was revered for his discipline and application as much as his mastery of the game. Crowds flocked the grounds to get a glimpse of him wherever he played.

It can be studied how the emergence of the West Indies as a Test-playing region in the late 1920s and 30s coincided with the political and cultural movements that marked the early stirrings for independence across the Caribbean.

Michael Manley himself wrote that Headley’s feats in those days provided “the reassurance which the black people and middle class needed at that time… he became the focus for the longing of an entire people for proof of their own self-worth, their own capacity”.

He was idolised throughout and after a career which saw him earning zilch.

He was up against odds of colour and station, but that did not deter him. He withstood indignities and colour creeds and yet soldiered on, carrying the fortunes of the West Indies cricket teams on his shoulders and earning the name ‘Atlas’.

Manley saw the title of ‘Atlas’ not just in sporting terms, but in his “carrying the hopes of the black English-speaking Caribbean… he was black excellence personified in a white world and in a white sport.”

The political movement, on the one hand, and the advancement in cricket continued to grow in the 1930s with the Progressive League spearheaded by W G McFarlane, Norman Manley and Richard Hart proposing national self-government for Jamaica in 1937. And Alexander Bustamante giving a voice to the labour movement which swept Jamaica in 1938.

Along comes George Headley, who capped that period with his unprecedented and immortal 106 and 107 at Lord’s in a famous first Test vs England in 1939.

Ten years earlier, Headley’s centuries in his first international series in 1928, as a boy of 19, had resonated well with Marcus Garvey’s call for dominion status (political independence) for Jamaica in 1929.

Headley’s elevation to the Order of National Hero would be a mighty shot in the arm for reviving interest and support for cricket. It would also provide an enduring example as a role model for sustained application, disciplne, modesty, and the ability of the human spirit to triumph over odds.

He was a hero who never took his eye off the ball.

Lance Neita is a communications and public relations specialist. Comments to lanceneita@hotmail.com