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<TABLE cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=1 width="100%" border=0><TBODY><TR><TD><SPAN class=TopStory>Miss Lou's final curtain call</SPAN>
<SPAN class=Subheadline>Grateful nation eulogises cultural icon</SPAN></TD></TR><TR><TD>Ingrid Brown, Observer staff reporter
Thursday, August 10, 2006
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</TD></TR><TR><TD><SPAN class=Description>Jamaica Constabulary Force pall bearers carry the casket with the body of Louise 'Miss Lou' Bennett-Coverley from Coke Methodist Church in downtown Kingston yesterday. Miss Lou was accorded an official funeral service and interred at National Heroes Park. (Photo: Michael Gordon)</SPAN></TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE><P class=StoryText align=justify>Under the canopy of the historic 165-year-old Coke Methodist Church where she began her dizzying climb to national adulation at age 17, Louise 'Miss Lou' Bennett-Coverley yesterday took her final curtain call, as her compatriots eulogised her as an icon among icons.<P class=StoryText align=justify>Friend and vice-chancellor emeritus of the University of the West Indies Professor Rex Nettleford remembered Miss Lou as a major contributor to the expansion of knowledge that now informs a modern Jamaican nation and dynamic Caribbean society on the road to self-definition and cultural purpose.<P class=StoryText align=justify>"Louise Bennett was...arguably, the only citizen of Jamaica who could raise more cheers from the popular mass than any Jamaican political leader, however charismatic," said Nettleford at the official funeral service for her in the red-bricked sanctuary at East Parade, in downtown Kingston, named after Thomas Coke, the man who brought Methodism to the Caribbean.<P class=StoryText align=justify>The gloom usually associated with funerals was visibly absent among the packed congregation that included Governor-General Kenneth Hall, Prime Minister Portia Simpson Miller, former prime ministers P J Patterson and Edward Seaga, other dignitaries, family members and representatives of the cultural community. Thousands more followed the funeral rites via live radio and television broadcasts.<TABLE cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=5 width=350 align=center border=0><TBODY><TR><TD>
</TD></TR><TR><TD><SPAN class=Description>Veteran journalist and playwright Barbara Gloudon (left) comforts Rosie Johnston, who took care of Miss Lou for more than 10 years. (Photo: Bryan Cummings)</SPAN></TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE><P class=StoryText align=justify>Louise Bennett-Coverley died on July 26 in Scarborough, Canada aged 86. After the funeral service yesterday, she was buried under a poinsettia tree at the National Heroes Park, beside her husband, Eric Coverley who predeceased her and whose body was brought home alongside hers to be interred in the land of their birth.<P class=StoryText align=justify>At age 17 when Miss Lou gave her first ever performance at the Coke Methodist Church, she brought smiles to many of her compatriots, the beginning of a lifetime of laughter. Yesterday, it was their time to honour her life's work, which spanned five decades.<P class=StoryText align=justify>And while no tears were shed during the proceedings, the reality of her death hit home for many when the eight smartly dressed policemen moved rhythmically with her flag-draped casket to the melodious tune of the Jamaican folk classic Evening Time performed by Carole Reid.<P class=StoryText align=justify>But as the casket exited the church, Enid Douglas, a long-time friend of Miss Lou and neighbour in Gordon Town, could no longer control her tears. She asked to be helped out of her wheelchair so she could stand in a final s
<SPAN class=Subheadline>Grateful nation eulogises cultural icon</SPAN></TD></TR><TR><TD>Ingrid Brown, Observer staff reporter
Thursday, August 10, 2006
</TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>
<TABLE cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=5 width=408 align=center border=0><TBODY><TR><TD>
</TD></TR><TR><TD><SPAN class=Description>Jamaica Constabulary Force pall bearers carry the casket with the body of Louise 'Miss Lou' Bennett-Coverley from Coke Methodist Church in downtown Kingston yesterday. Miss Lou was accorded an official funeral service and interred at National Heroes Park. (Photo: Michael Gordon)</SPAN></TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE><P class=StoryText align=justify>Under the canopy of the historic 165-year-old Coke Methodist Church where she began her dizzying climb to national adulation at age 17, Louise 'Miss Lou' Bennett-Coverley yesterday took her final curtain call, as her compatriots eulogised her as an icon among icons.<P class=StoryText align=justify>Friend and vice-chancellor emeritus of the University of the West Indies Professor Rex Nettleford remembered Miss Lou as a major contributor to the expansion of knowledge that now informs a modern Jamaican nation and dynamic Caribbean society on the road to self-definition and cultural purpose.<P class=StoryText align=justify>"Louise Bennett was...arguably, the only citizen of Jamaica who could raise more cheers from the popular mass than any Jamaican political leader, however charismatic," said Nettleford at the official funeral service for her in the red-bricked sanctuary at East Parade, in downtown Kingston, named after Thomas Coke, the man who brought Methodism to the Caribbean.<P class=StoryText align=justify>The gloom usually associated with funerals was visibly absent among the packed congregation that included Governor-General Kenneth Hall, Prime Minister Portia Simpson Miller, former prime ministers P J Patterson and Edward Seaga, other dignitaries, family members and representatives of the cultural community. Thousands more followed the funeral rites via live radio and television broadcasts.<TABLE cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=5 width=350 align=center border=0><TBODY><TR><TD></TD></TR><TR><TD><SPAN class=Description>Veteran journalist and playwright Barbara Gloudon (left) comforts Rosie Johnston, who took care of Miss Lou for more than 10 years. (Photo: Bryan Cummings)</SPAN></TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE><P class=StoryText align=justify>Louise Bennett-Coverley died on July 26 in Scarborough, Canada aged 86. After the funeral service yesterday, she was buried under a poinsettia tree at the National Heroes Park, beside her husband, Eric Coverley who predeceased her and whose body was brought home alongside hers to be interred in the land of their birth.<P class=StoryText align=justify>At age 17 when Miss Lou gave her first ever performance at the Coke Methodist Church, she brought smiles to many of her compatriots, the beginning of a lifetime of laughter. Yesterday, it was their time to honour her life's work, which spanned five decades.<P class=StoryText align=justify>And while no tears were shed during the proceedings, the reality of her death hit home for many when the eight smartly dressed policemen moved rhythmically with her flag-draped casket to the melodious tune of the Jamaican folk classic Evening Time performed by Carole Reid.<P class=StoryText align=justify>But as the casket exited the church, Enid Douglas, a long-time friend of Miss Lou and neighbour in Gordon Town, could no longer control her tears. She asked to be helped out of her wheelchair so she could stand in a final s
</TD></TR><TR><TD><SPAN class=Description>Michael Burke</SPAN></TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE><P class=StoryText align=justify>CHRISTOPHER Columbus first came to Jamaica in 1494. By 1510, some Spaniards had settled here and by 1513, the first set of African slaves arrived in Jamaica. In 1655, the English conquered Jamaica. Slavery was an abomination everywhere, but even then British slavery was unique. With Spanish and French slavery, the slaves were people. With British slavery, they were property.<P class=StoryText align=justify>Sometime last week, an evening newspaper blared the headline: "No Zeeks, more crime". When the buccaneer Henry Morgan was imprisoned in the tower of London in the 1670s, the headlines could well have read: "No Morgan, more piracy". So Morgan was brought back to Jamaica as governor to stop piracy. He did this by selling land at cheap rates to the pirates and they became the sugar estate owners with thousands of African slaves.<P class=StoryText align=justify>The slaves were systematically trained to believe that they were less than human. One of the remaining original sources of history is an advertisement entitled "Livestock for sale". In the advertisement, horses, cows, pigs and other animals were listed together with slaves. The cruel treatment of the slaves was part of the strategy to subdue the slaves.<P class=StoryText align=justify>The inferior notion extended to ridicule and general disdain for the way in which the slaves spoke, which had become a dialect - a mixture of their African language and English. Estate owners would deliberately buy African slaves from different tribes as they spoke different languages. The only way to communicate was an attempt to speak the slave owners' language.<P class=StoryText align=justify>These notions did not end with Emancipation in 1838. And with the ex-slaves still seeing themselves in that state, the estate owners could still manipulate them and continue to treat them cruelly. This was when Marcus Garvey came to the rescue. His mission was to teach the Africans in the Diaspora that we have a glorious history.<P class=StoryText align=justify>It was Marcus Garvey who had said the words that Bob Marley would sing many decades later: "We must emancipate ourselves from mental slavery, because while others might free the body, none but ourselves can free the mind". But for Garvey's message to be heard elsewhere, even to be translated into other languages, he had to speak impeccable English.<P class=StoryText align=justify>Slavery society was divided into several classes - which included the white mulatto, mustofino sambo, straight down to the black slaves. These distinctions were narrowed down to three by political independence. Class had less to do with money as it had to do with the way one carried oneself and the way one spoke. And the ability to speak perfect English normally came through education, which the masses were deprived of.<P class=StoryText align=justify>The road to political independence really started with the Morant Bay Rebellion in 1865. Changes were made in the governance of the island and the idea of political independence was being spoken about. Indeed, the idea of secession was talked about from the days before slavery was abolished, but the motive then was different.<P class=StoryText align=justify>As it became more and more evident that the emancipation of slaves would be imposed on the Jamaican estate owners by the British government, there was talk of seceding from the British Empire. But they were not speaking
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