After finishing victorious in the 1993 Miss World competition, Lisa Hanna travelled the world over fulfilling her duties. While in Iceland, a country extremely far away and different from her own, a man asked her where she was from, to which she replied Jamaica. The man then burst into song covering Bob Marley songs – word by word.
Hanna had many more encounters like that during her travels and her stint as Miss World. Today she is a member of the Jamaican parliament and now she has put forth a motion to name Robert Nesta Marley as a national hero. Hanna’s resolution has been published in the Jamaican Observer where she goes on stating that Marley’s music and message of peace, dignity and equality helped force radical legislations. His activism through his art helped push politicians to create a more just society at a time where newly independent Jamaica was still suffering from colonization of the British Empire.
“When I look back now at how Bob’s lyrics and rhythms gave willing abandonment to the social mores expected of women from that generation whom British Victorian ideals of ‘respectability’ would have indoctrinated, I give thanks for his direct influence on them, which ultimately impacted me and so many others around the world.”
Hanna gets no argument from us at Shouts and we imagine the rest of the world would be happy with Bob Marley being crowned a Jamaican and global hero.