Why have successive political administrations in the last four decades failed so miserably in declaring Bob Marley, the people’s truly authentic prophet and poet alongside Marcus Garvey, a national hero?

It is as if, despite our increased access to information globally, and universally recognised sense of national awareness and cultural certitude as a society, especially since Independence in 1962, the slave mentality still throttles among a great many of us, including, of course, our post-Independence governors.

This fact is borne out most forcefully yet again by the latest round of chatter — mostly from high places — about which Jamaican(s) should or should not be declared a national hero; and the effort to debunk any move to place Bob in the pantheon of our existing seven national heroes on the basis of mean-spirited cant and self-righteous bleat.

It was the late C L R James who advanced the view that an immature society exhibits its backwardness by its generosity in denigrating public and private figures, seeing to it that anyone who is on the make is unmade, defaming character if it appears to be gathering glitter, and targeting the weakness of others rather than their strengths. Happily, none of this rules out the possibility of the emergence and functioning of individuals who turn out to be better than the very society that spawns them, who through dedicated service, vision, and strength of character can rise above the dint of folly and bequeath to succeeding generations guidelines, maxims of prudence, values, and inspiration for future action.

What is more, given that our sense of place and purpose was forged in the crucible of the exploitation of labour, the psychic violence of racism, and the vilest consequences of social and economic marginalisation — leading to our legacy of psychic anguish of denial and despair — we tend to lose focus as to our true identity and are paralysed in our efforts to mobilise the energies of the mass of the population towards genuine production, self-reliance and confidence.

But herein lies the powerful relevance and heroic phenomenon of Bob Marley against the likes of national heroes George William Gordon, Paul Bogle, and Sam Sharp, to name just a few. For our heroes are forged out of a life of achievement, excellence, and pace-setting critical to the human condition, and faith in the people from below without the patronising stance of the patrician is a legacy that all seven of our existing national heroes portray.

In the final analysis, then, the universal celebration of the resonance and redemptive powers of Bob’s timeless music — a music, lest we forget, that was the anthem of the freedom fighters in Zimbabwe and apartheid South Africa and which, furthermore, formed the background melody accompanying the revolutionary and historic breaking down of the Berlin Wall, and which propelled him into the universally prestigious Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as the first international superstar from the so-called Third World, and led to the album Exodus being designated the album of the 20th century by Time magazine (1999) and the song One Love voted by the British Broadcasting Corporation as song of the century in 2007 — underscores the heroic legend that he is.

All of this, and a great deal more, naturally makes elevating Bob Marley to national hero a mere formality. As such, I say respectfully to our governors: Get on with it!