Not a sign of national pride

Ken Jones, Contributor

I believe in heavy doses of capitalism as the foremost formula for a nation's economic strength and material development. I am also aware that it is a prescription with some dangerous side effects that can weaken the will of a people and damage their national spirit.

The free-market system is about making 'bread', but man cannot live by bread alone. This is a lesson to be learned from the decision to remove the Jamaican name 'Boscobel' from our third international airport, and replace it with that of an English writer who used the charms of the nearby villages to help inspire his famous works. The acknowledged intention is to attract and exploit the pecuniary power of the gentleman's wealthy admirers. This likens it to a profit-oriented ploy that tramples upon the traditions and ancestral pride of a people.

Over the past 57 years, Jamaicans of the past and present have invested ideas, time, money and labour to bring this airport to an international standard. It is mortgaged in the name of future generations. Now that the job is done, what we have is not a sign of national pride but a billboard scripted by a goldfinger to celebrate a sojourner.

A thousand ages have gone by since the biblical injunction: What shall it profit a

man if he shall gain the whole world and lose his own soul? Yet, so often we persist in practising that form of capitalism that treats the human spirit with the same impersonal fashion that it buys and sells. This is how capitalism gets indicted and accused of sins such as self-serving, vulgar affluence and moral weaknesses.

Let it be here noted that the tourism development in that entire area of Jamaica is due to the pioneering efforts of Abe Issa, whose name appears on no monument marking the importance of the industry. It was he who built and opened the Tower Isle (now Couples) Hotel in 1949 when north coast tourism was in its infancy. Famous men and women, royalty and international celebrities flocked to Jamaica from Europe and America to stay at Tower Isle; and as the business boomed, Abe Issa and his brother, Joe, donated the land on which the Boscobel, sorry, Ian Fleming airport was constructed and opened in the presence of Chief Minister Bustamante and his minister of communications, Lawton Bloomfield, in 1954.

After it was opened, those who used it spoke in terms of satisfaction. One of the first was the owner of a fleet of private aircraft. He said, "I am going back to tell the Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association in the States what wonderful facilities for private planes you have here." He must have lived up to his words, for famous personalities soon came using the facility en route to the pleasures of the area.

Let it be noted that it is not the airport but the delightful environs of Boscobel that have attracted vacationers. In the year that plans were announced for construction of the airport, one resort owner, Don Sutton Brown, wrote to The Gleaner in prophetic praise: "The airport will almost certainly become international some day. Cruise ships will almost certainly use the deep-water pier at Ocho Rios one day. The tourists will be nearer some of our most beautiful sugar estates and sea coasts ... and Fern Gully."

What of the Jamaicans?

We are advised of a plaque to be mounted in the airport building to inform the visitors of the greatness of the personality whose name it now bears. But what of the Jamaican persons who first thought of it and gave it birth nearly 60 years ago! Will they also be remembered? Or will their pioneering work be soon erased or never told to those who will ask about its origins!

All due respect accorded and greatness acknowledged, we should observe that when Commander Fleming first came to Jamaica, he was better known as a naval intelligence officer than a writer of note. After visiting the Boscobel-Oracabessa area, he told his senior officer that after the war he would return here to write books. Later, he made Jamaica his winter residence because the ambience was particularly conducive to his writing of the 007 novels. Even the name James Bond was borrowed from an ornithologist who had a home here and had written a book: Birds of the West Indies.

Fleming, an avid birdwatcher, had read the book by James Bond and, while spending time here, was entertained by the author. The original Mrs Bond wrote a book telling how Fleming requested and received permission to use her husband's name. He afterwards remarked that the name was "brief, unromantic, Anglo-Saxon, and yet very masculine - just what I needed ... . I wanted the simplest, dullest, plainest-sounding name I could find, and 'James Bond' was much better than something more interesting, like 'Peregrine Carruthers'".

I end this article as I began, juxtaposing the forces motivating capitalism and nationalism. Although their values often do contend, their virtues sometimes can be found in the leadership of exceptional individuals. Abe Issa was one of these. The sum of his contributions to business and to the nation is almost incalculable. He was outstanding as a merchant, a legend of downtown Kingston. As a developer, he was mainly responsible for the idea and coming into being of New Kingston and the Caymanas Park racetrack; the first shopping centre, Tropical Plaza, and later Liguanea Plaza.

In addition to leading multiple business enterprises, Abe Issa served as a member of the Legislative Council; he was also chairman of many public bodies, including Jamaica Development Bank, the Port Authority, Jamaica Tourist Board, the Caribbean Tourist Board, the Jamaica Olympic Association and the Jamaica Amateur Athletic Association.

His philanthropy touched every facet of Jamaican life, but primarily he was the father of Jamaica's vacation industry. And yet there is no lasting monument to remind, inform and inspire others to follow in his footsteps. Perhaps those empowered to do so will consider honouring his work by naming something like the new tourism-oriented international convention centre after him.

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