Melville Cooke ROGER MOORE'S Marcus Garvey Lifetime Achievement Award has not sat well with all. The most tangible reflections of the grumbling in the gallery have been The Gleaner's story on B4 last Saturday and Sheryl Lee Ralph's caustic comments at Saturday's gala awards, as reported in THE STAR on Monday.
The Marcus Garvey Lifetime Achievement Award, for those who leave the cinema before the credits roll, is an honour granted by the International Jamerican Film and Music Festival. The criteria, The Gleaner's story states, is use of talent and celebrity status
to entertain, educate and
enlighten.
Ms. Ralph started and organises the Jamerican Festival, which was staged for the third time in Montego Bay last week.
Having got that out of the way, I cannot see the problem with Roger Moore getting a Marcus Garvey Lifetime Achievement Award. Based on The Gleaner's story, the objections lie in Moore's qualifications for receiving the award, said honour being named after Garvey, and Ms. Ralph not consulting anyone on the award (and festival in general?).
And then there is the unstated objection, colour, which I will get to last. So if you can't bother with the build-up, skip the next couple paragraphs.
Log on to the Internet, type in 'Roger Moore, UNICEF' and you'll see a tale of good work. It's mostly about fund-raising and raising awareness on children's issues. The Gleaner's report on the awards, carried in the Monday edition, outlines Mr. Moore's efforts during his short stay in Jamaica. I cannot see the objection standing on that basis. On to the next.
Ms. Ralph can name her award after anybody she chooses. John F. Kennedy, Martin Luther King, Michael Gorbachev, PG Wodehouse anybody. It is like freedom of the press, which belongs to those who own one. If she chooses Marcus Garvey all the more power to her. Why should she have to 'check a one' about the matter? At least she is doing something about promoting the name, even if she is getting some mileage out of it as well.
We gab a lot about Garvey this, Garvey that, but we do not do much about honouring him and, even more importantly, promoting his ideals of self-reliance and self-respect for black people. Lip service is no service at all. No disrespect to the few who are genuine Garveyites and work very hard in the trenches, but at the very least Ms. Ralph is living the self-reliance principle with her Jamerican Film and Music Festival initiative. That misuse of the Garvey name argument just doesn't wash.
So we move on to colour (which was denied up front). Roger Moore is white (duh!), his most renowned role is Bond James Bond, secret agent, licensed to kill, thrill and kiss, shaken, not stirred. This character promotes the idea that white folks are smart, their enemies come mainly from outside their borders, they will be vanquished (even if they are also white) and it will be done with class, style and élan.
Okay. So, should a white man who has played this character be given an honour named after a black man who wrote the blueprint for black people to stand on some sort of respectable footing? If he has earned it, yes. I don't buy the reverse racism argument and I mutter about 'de dutty white people dem' intermittently, but where honour is earned let it be given and colour be damned.
Last year Harry Belafonte was given the Marcus Garvey Lifetime Achievement Award. I do not recall statements of support for the decision (somebody correct me if I am wrong), but the detractors have piped up when there is something negative to say. C'mon, let's have some balance here.
If there are personal problems with Ms. Ralph then that is something totally different. Roger Moore and the Marcus Garvey Lifetime Achievement Award should not be dragged into that.
Afghanistan
A couple weeks ago I wrote that I do not believe the US cares much about Afghan women. A Mitch Collins took issue with the article and wrote a rather angry letter to the Editor, inviting me to prove my courage and manhood by volunteering to help out in Afghanistan. He said my statements were exposed as pro-Taliban.
I do not know Mr. Collins' hue (Mitch does sound pale, but hey), but where I come from black folk never had to walk with signs saying 'I Am A Man', so that manhood dig just doesn't score. Proving courage is better left to the United States, which goes to war on a poor country with a semi ragtag army by bombing it to bits and then sending in troops from the internal resistance to fight the Taliban.
Now that's courage for you, dropping bombs and food from the sky and then sending other people to die on the ground. Vietnam still hurts, doesn't it? Still scared to fight on the ground, aren't you?
If I want to be pro-Taliban, Mr. Collins, do you think I am afraid to say so? What are you going to do, tell Uncle George and Uncle Colin so they can spank me? I don't hold a US visa, have never applied for one and do not plan to unless the proposed trip will be of direct and immediate financial benefit to me, or I must have health treatment which is not available in Cuba.
And if I were pro-Taliban I would fit right in with US policies long before September 11. I fear that Mr. Collins has missed the point and is, like most people, ignorant about his own country. This great liberation of Afghan women argument is a farce. Uncle Sam cares no more for them than I do for pigs.
I am not pro-Taliban (although, since the US has attacked, I hope they send quite a few body bags back so y'all can build another black wall and read some names), nor am I pro-US. I am for the people of Afghanistan who are once more on the move, refugees in a war they are clueless about, abused by their rulers and bombed to bits by their 'liberators'.
They have been here before, when Afghanistan was a hotbed of Cold War antagonism. The Russians speak about the soldiers they lost, but not about the Afghans they murdered. Once again, Afghans are crowding into camps, displaced from their homes by a conflict they have nothing to do with.
That's the side I am on, the common folk who have to flee in this holdover from the great socialist-capitalist battles.
Does Mr. Collins know that the Cold War was very hot in the Third World?
And it still simmers.
Melville Cooke is a freelance writer.
