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Bob Marley put reggae and Jamaica on the map through music in the way that Herb McKenley and Arthur Wint had done through athletics. In a real way he helped to sell our sugar, bananas, bauxite, and whatever else because of reggae. I believe that it was because Jamaica became known for reggae that our national football team is called the Reggae Boyz. It helped the tourism product, which is today second only to remittances in bringing in our much-needed foreign exchange.
Bob Marley continued the link with the African motherland that Marcus Garvey had done so much to cultivate. His singing of Garvey's words "emancipate yourselves from mental slavery" was one thing, but being Rastafarian he emphasised the words of Selassie "until the philosophy that holds one race superior and another inferior is finally and permanently discredited" we will not know peace.
And with his music being played everywhere, an appreciation from the African continent became very strong. But in recent times there has been somewhat of a retrogression in this respect. Indeed, we tend to shy away from the continent of Africa when referring to black history for a number of reasons, chief of which is mental slavery.
But Africa still cherishes the values of the natural differences between men and women, which is considered old-fashioned in the West. In traditional African communities, men are the head of families and are expected to be the breadwinners. The women are expected to take the motherly roles. At the same time, I understand the importance of both men and women having the independence of earning their own money.
I know a story of a Jamaican mother whose son rose to prominence in Jamaica. She was the wife of a policeman in the days when only Englishmen reached the rank of sergeant, and corporals were middle-class Jamaicans. She never went out to wok for a day in her entire life.
This lady's prominent son died when she was 92. She still lived in eastern Kingston despite the pleas of her other children to live with them in Orange Grove off Long Lane in Constant Spring or abroad in the USA. As she grieved for her son when he died, some of her children suggested that she raise some chickens since she liked animals. Eventually the chickens, as one would expect, laid eggs.
One day someone came to the gate to purchase eggs and she obliged and sold some. Immediately, and in a fit of excitement, this 92-year-old woman shouted to her next-door neighbour: "Ah work mi firs' money." The year was 1993.
I did not hear about the incident until eight years later when I was going home from her 100th birthday party at her son's house in Orange Grove. I admit that it was not until that day, in February 2001, exactly 13 years ago, that I fully appreciated the need for everyone, man or woman, to feel a since of self-worth by earning money on their own. The elderly lady died at the age of 106 in 2007.
But having written all of this a lot still has to be said for the need for men to be breadwinners to free their wives to fulfil their roles as mothers. The truth is that there has been a reversal of roles in the West. For the first black man to become president of the USA, Barrack Obama had to form a coalition with all sorts of groups, including the Women's Liberation Movement, and Gay Rights Activists, which include lesbians.
This brought not only needed votes but also much-needed campaign funds. This in turn has strengthened the obscuring of the natural differences between men and women and the 'heat wave' from that is being felt in Jamaica. So many times even culture is tied into the whole issue of women's rights.
For example, I support the attempts to put the entire Bible into the Jamaican dialect, as controversial as it might be. As you might know there has been a patois translation of the New Testament that has been available for more than a year now. I went to its official launch and was handed a document that had more about women's rights in it than about the translation of the Bible into dialect.
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