Dear Editor,

Most recently the media reported the death of Captain Russell Capleton. It was a moment when many Jamaicans expressed their sympathy to his family and co-workers.

Most impressive was that mark of solidarity and tribute by the members and staff of the Jamaican Airline Pilots Association. Many observers associated the captain’s death with not only making that last flight, but also the neglect of JALPA’s bid to keep Air Jamaica flying in the open skies.

When I heard of his death, I reflected on his monumental role in offering an alternative to the selling of our national symbol. I also thought about another patriotic Jamaican, W Adolphe Roberts, whose death came immediately after Independence in 1962. Here was a man who pioneered the Independence movement in Jamaica and when Independence was declared there was no recognition of his sterling efforts to see an independent Jamaica informed by new approaches to education and culture.

Captain Capleton provided leadership to a group of people with the capacity to show Jamaica that there are those Jamaicans who can participate effectively in the process of transformation. In an age in which we see officials parading on the television with foreigners seeking potential buy-out for our national resources, Captain Capleton and his group said: “Yes, we can… as Jamaicans we can run an airline and do it successfully.”

There are many Jamaicans who asked if they could really do it. We will never know because they never had the chance. Another Jamaican who died broken-hearted was Una Marson, fantastic in radio and culture, but there was never any place for her in the Jamaican setting.

It is time Jamaicans be given a chance to do something for this “land we love”. So many Jamaicans excel in other countries and yet they are without honour… so many broken-hearted people in a land once rich with bauxite, sugar factories and arable lands sold out to foreigners. We are selling our services and we ask, what next?

How many more of us will die broken-hearted, but “If we must die, O let us nobly die… then even the monsters we defy… Shall be constrained to honour us though dead!”

Family, friends and co-workers of Captain Capleton, we share with you the sadness of his passing. We cherished his patriotic zeal as one who truly sang, “Jamaica land we love!”

Louis EA Moyston

Kingston 8

thearchives01@yahoo.com