Another year, another birthday for Bob Marley, and yet another debate about whether he should be named a national hero.

Before I say anything else, let me declare my position. Bob Marley should be made a national hero, and one of the reasons he has not yet been made one is down to a couple of things - Bob is Rastafarian and the other is the myopia and lethargy that abound within the halls of power. We seem incapable of ridding ourselves of the same prejudices that Garvey and our other heroes worked so hard to eliminate.

One definition of a hero is a man or woman who is idealised for possessing superior qualities in his or her given field. Bob Marley is such a man. During his lifetime, Bob put Jamaica on the map. His music hypnotised the world and added to Jamaica's appeal; it's mystique. There are places in the world where Marley is a symbol of Jamaica. I remember when I was in United Kingdom and meeting a guy from the Solomon Islands, who when I told him I was from Jamaica, immediately retorted, "Bob Marley!"

musically gifted

Marley is perhaps the most popular Jamaican ever, and his appeal has brought many visitors to our shores. They have come to find out what about this little island of ours spawned such a powerful and musically gifted being.

But to those who have the power to begin the process of making Marley a hero, and for many of us among the citizenry, Marley is nothing but a Rasta who sings. To them, a hero is only someone like a Alexander Bustamante, or a George William Gordon, a Norman Manley or Paul Bogle, men who sacrificed and brought about change to this country. But here is the question. After we fought off the colonial masters and orchestrated independence (efforts that so far we have managed to waste), are we saying no one else can become a hero?

The battles have already been fought and won, or lost, depending on how you look at it. But people like Marley helped advance Jamaica and its culture. Jamaica has one of the most appealing cultures on the planet. Everybody wants to talk like us, walk like us, and lately run as fast as we do. Marley played a big part in helping to develop that.

What Bogle, Sam Sharpe, and others did with their machetes, what Manley, Bustamante, Gordon and Nanny did with their courage, Marley has done with his music and that to me, makes him a national hero.

The thing that continues to amaze me, however, is that like when he was alive Marley was hardly ever recognised in this country but revered everywhere else. Three decades after he died of cancer in 1981, Marley still outsells and out earns virtually every other reggae recording artiste here in Jamaica. Yet, the only time we get a steady diet of Marley music is on his birthday. And that depends on the DJ on air.

Just recently, I heard someone describe Marley's music as boring. I thought about the comment for a minute and decided not to respond. What I was thinking, however, is that much of the 'exciting' noise that passes for music these days usually fades away with a few weeks, yet this 'boring' Marley music is still creating significant impact globally, decade after decade.

Despite all this, however, like we do with virtually everything else, all we do is talk about making Marley a hero, a national hero. If we really wanted to, he would have been made one already.

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