Dear Editor,

Within the last few years there has been an international wave of relocating, toppling, and defacing statues and monuments of prominent people who are now on the wrong side of history.

Statues of Christopher Columbus, Confederate leaders, and other known racists and advocates of slavery have been the chief target. In Jamaica, however, the land of Alexander Bedward, Marcus Garvey, Rastafari, Bob Marley, and many other black radicals, this trend has not caught on despite the efforts of several vocal local advocates to stoke local awareness. Most Jamaicans seem indifferent.

Statues of Admiral George Rodney in Spanish Town, Queen Victoria in Kingston, and Christopher Columbus in St Ann have been the favourite target of critics. The advocates have called for their removal and other statues to decolonise the public spaces and remove these monuments which glorify values of slavery and colonialism and have caused much pain and sorrow.

Instead of seeking to remove and destroy the statues that most Jamaicans care or know little about, local advocates should seek to build new monuments and statues to highlight their heroes, which could include Bedward, faith healer and political preacher from August Town; JAG Smith, legal luminary and legislator, who played a significant role in Jamaica’s constitutional development; Leonard Howell, the founder of Rastafari; Thomas Lecky, noted scientist and developer of the Jamaica Hope: Edna Manley, sculptor, who is regarded as the mother of Jamaican art; and St William Grant, who played a critical role in the workers’ protests in the 1930s and for whom a park is named, yet no statue of him exists there.

No shortage exists of people who have made positive contributions to various aspects of nation-building and deserve to be memorialised. Public and private partnerships have undertaken many similar projects with little effort and much success.

The former colonial rulers of Jamaica erected various statues and monuments to memorialise their heroes. They built structures intended to serve as eternal reminders of the importance of these people. In so doing, their images and names are held aloft for posterity.

Since 1962 there have been several monuments and memorials of individuals built to reflect the new values of the Jamaican nation. As a result, several statues of national heroes and other prominent people who contributed to national life, such as sportsmen and sportswomen and other cultural icons, like Bob Marley and Louise Bennett-Coverley, have been erected. Recently, in May 2022, there was the unveiling of a bust of Agnes Bernard, a working-class woman who fed the workers involved in the 1938 Kingston waterfront riots, which played a decisive role in Jamaica’s march to Independence.

Statues and monuments are not just public art for aesthetic purposes. They are intended to remind the society of personalities who are deemed important to the society and highlight the values of those who erected them.

The old colonial statues are often ignored and remain in a state of neglect and disrepair. They serve, however, as important reminders and evidence of our past and should be used as tools to educate and remind the society of its origins and how far it has evolved.

New monuments and statues should be erected in public spaces to reflect the values and aspirations of our nation and those whose life and work have helped to form the nation and to put it on the path of progress and productivity. We do not need to remove the old to build the new.

Duane Harris

doharris@hotmail.com