WHEN an American film company made the biopic, Evita about the legendary Argentinean, Eve Peron, American singer, Madonna starred as Evita and the Argentinean people were enraged. They wanted an Argentine woman to play the life of an Argentine legend.

I understood why Madonna was chosen. At the time, she was a superstar (maybe, still is) and marketability was uppermost in the mind of the director. One could just imagine the American people in reference to the Argentinean actor, saying with derision: “Who is she?”

I saw Evita and I thought back then that Madonna should have stuck to the great stage performer that she is. She is a terrible film actor and not an outstanding vocalist. One wonders how Jamaicans will react to the Bob Marley biopic – “Bob-Marley-One Love” which is in theatres right now. Marley was played by a British actor, Kingsley Ben-Adir.

I haven’t seen the film, just the trailer and from those snippets, I would say that Ben-Adir does not portray adequately the West ‘Indianess’ that inheres in Marley. I looked at that trailer three times for this column and there is something missing in Ben-Adir. You can sense it as a West Indian who thinks Marley was a genius. This West Indian columnist thinks Marley was a genius and he thinks Ben-Adir fails to portray that genius.

The film was directed by American, Reinaldo Marcus Green and I am not aware why Marcus Green chose a British actor. Ben-Adir is half-white and so was Marley, so I am wondering if Green couldn’t find a light-skinned Jamaican. It would have become ludicrous if Marley was played by a dark-skinned Jamaican. A movie has to remain as true as possible to the real story and the real story is that Marley was half-white.

The popularity of the movie will obviously bring up Green’s name when it is being discussed. Green was the man who directed Will Smith in “King Richard” the biopic of the father of tennis icons – the Williams sisters. Smith was nominated as Best Actor for his role at the Oscars and while waiting for his accolade, he went on stage and put a stinging slap on the host, Chris Rock.
In discussing the biopic of his father, Ziggy Marley made a bombshell revelation. In December 1976, Marley came close to being assassinated and barely escaped the hail of machine gunfire in the recording studio.

After explaining his father’s admiration for Fidel Castro, here is what Ziggy Marley said about the motive behind the attempt on Marley’s life: “I wanted to explore the CIA’s part in the political turmoil in Jamaica. My father, who was a big influence and seen to support Michael Manley, was an issue for the American government, because they did not want Jamaica to become Communist or to become allies of Russia. I feel like the assassination attempt was a part of that proxy war that he got mixed up in, because of his influence in Jamaica.”

At that time in Jamaica, Manley had become very close to Castro and became a leading figure in the Non-Aligned Movement. The attempt on Marley’s life coincided with the return of Walter Rodney to Guyana where his denial of a teaching job at UG led to the instant creation of an unstoppable Rodney bandwagon in confrontation with President Forbes Burnham. In the mix of course was the radical Marxist politics of Rodney.

Ziggly Marley’s belief that the CIA tried to remove Marley’s influence in pushing Jamaica towards Castro could possibly reignite a theory held in some quarters that the CIA was involved in Rodney’s assassination.

As late as last week, leading Pan-Africanist, Gerald Perreia, repeated his long held belief about the CIA’s role in Rodney’s death on the Freddie Kissoon-Gildarie Show.

Let us link the attempt on Bob Marley with the murder of Rodney by assuming that the CIA feared a Rodney/Marxist government in Guyana and a Castro-controlled Jamaica. There is one difference that does not and cannot exonerate Burnham.

Manley, the Jamaican Prime Minister had nothing to gain but everything to lose by Marley’s death. Marley was a global megastar whose phenomenal influence in Jamaica was useful to Manley’s power-base.

In Guyana, Burnham and Rodney were locked in a deadly zero sum battle. Rodney was bent on removing Burnham, and Burnham knew this. Let us assume that the CIA feared Burnham’s replacement with a communist Rodney and sought to undo Rodney. Burnham had to facilitate the process because though the Commission of Inquiry did not directly accuse Burnham of ordering the act, it said that the state was involved in the act and Burnham had to be aware of the plot.

Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author and do not reflect the official policy or position of the Guyana National Newspapers Limited.