CULTURE SPECIAL: Tributes to late Rex Nettleford

HONOURING A STALWART: Professor Rex Nettleford (right) seen here accepting an accolade from Sir George Alleyne.

Jamaica and the entire world have lost an intellectual and creative genius, a man whose contribution to shaping and projecting the cultural landscape of the entire Caribbean region is unquestionable. Rex Nettleford was an international icon, a quintessential Caribbean Man, the professor, writer, dancer, manager, orator, critic, and mentor. He has left a void in our world that will be a challenge to fill. Rex Nettleford has stamped his indelible mark in every chosen field of endeavour and his rich and lasting legacy should be preserved for those who must carry on his life’s work – the emancipation of the Caribbean colonial mind from mental slavery in its quest for identity.

- Prime Minister Bruce Golding

The Creative Production Training Centre Limited (C.P.T.C.) and the Media Technology Institute (M.T.I.) joins the brotherhood of Jamaica and Caribbean as well as the world community in celebrating the prodigious life of an inspiring intellectual, a celebrated curator of the Arts and Culture , a phenomenal educator of life and living and a patriot whose umbilical and organic connection to the soil, which created and nurtured him, defined and actualized a personality, a spirit, a soul of universal esteem and integrity. He was created but for a time but his creations will be immortal.

I am saddened, we, at CPTC and MTI, are saddened but our tears are smiling resplendently.

- Creative Production and Training Centre (CPTC)

The PAJ is inconsolable by the loss to our fraternity of this quintessential Renaissance man. His passing leaves a humongous cultural hole that is almost impossible to fill; and his achievements will be revered for generations to come. A larger-than life personality, he was a national treasure, an inspiration to all who knew him and an especially proven friend of the journalism community in Jamaica and the wider Caribbean.

- Press Association of Jamaica (PAJ)

This is a loss not only to Jamaican but to the region and elsewhere in the world and a loss that I feel personally. Words are inadequate to capture the grief I feel at this time ... a son of rural Jamaica, whose life is a testimony to the success that is possible through work, grit, determination and resilience.

– Opposition Leader Portia Simpson-Miller

I am really saddened by his passing ... a man of great intellect and enduring vision. Nettleford's love for his country and the Caribbean was well known and he dedicated his life to the promotion of Caribbean culture and unity.

- Culture Minister Olivia ‘Babsy’ Grange

Profesor Nettleford was a unique soul with a brilliant mind and an unparalleled commitment to Jamaica and the Caribbean. A true visionary and humanist, his place in Jamaica’s history is assured.

- Former Jamaican Prime Minister PJ Patterson