Friday March 2, 2007 SGN.org |
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Volume 35 Issue 09 |
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Tuesday, Oct 07, 2008
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Jamaica: Deadly Paradise |
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| Jamaica: Deadly Paradise | ||
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by Jesse Monteagudo -
SGN Contributing Writer Each year, tens of thousands of tourists from all over the world visit the Caribbean island of Jamaica. Promotional Web sites like visitjamaica.com extol Jamaica as a tropical paradise; a land of "sweet fragrances, shimmering sunsets [and] spicy flavours." What the promoters don't tell you, of course, is that Jamaica's tropical climate and exotic beauty comes along with the world's highest murder rate and an abundance of poverty second only to Haiti's. Jamaica is also, in the words of Time magazine, "the most homophobic country in the Western Hemisphere;" a deadly paradise where Lesbians, Gay men, Bisexuals and Transgender people are definitely not welcome. One of the most notorious incidents of antiGay violence in Jamaica took place February 14 in the parish of St. Andrew. According to the Kingston Observer, three men entered a local drug store wearing heavy makeup, skin-tight jeans and cut-off shirts. Convinced that such attire was a sure sign of homosexuality, an outraged mob soon gathered outside the pharmacy. As the men huddled inside the store for dear life, the mob yelled hateful slogans and demanded that the men be forced out "to face justice." The men were eventually rescued by local police officers, who fired tear gas in order to disperse the crowd. This act of heroism did not prevent the cops from indulging in a little Gay bashing of their own; using anti-Gay slurs to taunt the men who they just rescued. Jamaica is a very religious country - according to the Guinness Book of Records it has the most churches per square mile of any country - which may explain the Jamaicans' attitudes toward sexual or gender minorities. Whatever the cause, Valentine's Day 2007 was not the first time that Queer Jamaicans have suffered at the hands of their countrymen and women. Jamaica still has a sodomy law, inherited from the British, that punishes male homosexual behavior with ten years in prison, often with hard labor. Reggae, the island's official music, is often homophobic, with some song lyrics even suggesting that "batty boys" and "chi chi men" (homosexuals) be killed. According to the activist group J-FLAG - the Jamaican Forum for Lesbians, All-Sexuals and Gays - "a wave of homophobic assaults and murders" often followed "the release of anti-Gay records." Protests by J-FLAG and other activists do not faze the guilty artists, who defend their lyrics by claiming that "homophobia is part of Jamaican culture." Jamaica has a long history of violence against Lesbians, "all-sexuals" and Gays. Two of Jamaica's most prominent GLBT activists have been murdered in recent years On June 9, 2004, Brian Williamson, then Jamaica's leading Gay rights activist, was killed in his home in New Kingston; stabbed 77 times to the delight of an unnamed passerby who crowed that "Battyman [homosexual] he get killed!" In November 30, 2005, Steve Harvey, a leader of Jamaica AIDS Support, was abducted from his home in Kingston by four assailants and later found dead in a nearby rural area. In April, 2006 an angry mob at the University of the West Indies' Mona campus almost lynched a man after he allegedly made advances at a male student. Since the February 14 pogrom, Gay Jamaicans have been attacked in Ocho Rios and Montego Bay, and at least one Gay person in Montego Bay has been murdered. The Sunshine Cathedral, Fort Lauderdale, Florida's Metropolitan Community Church, has close ties with Jamaica's GLBT community. Last December the Sunshine Cathedral sponsored a new MCC in Jamaica; the Sunshine Cathedral Jamaica. Right Rev. Grant Lynn Ford, the Cathedral's Senior Pastor, attended the inaugural ceremonies with other dignitaries. Needless to say, he and the other church leaders have been following the events in Jamaica with concern and outrage. "I heard gut-wrenching stories about Gay bashings and people disappearing," Rev. Robert Griffin told a reporter. "Listening to those stories convinced me that we had to do something." Leaders of the Sunshine Cathedral were quick to respond to the Valentine's Day incident, not the least because one of the three victims is a member of the Sunshine Cathedral. Pastor Ford joined Rev. Canon Durrell Watkins to issue a "Pastoral Response" to this latest act of homo-hatred: "Our hearts go out to the men who were terrorized by the mob, and we wish the three men safety and recovery from their ordeal. . . . As religious people and as members of the human family, we are appalled by acts of violence; and we call on all people, both secular and religious, to remember and respond to what is often called The Golden Rule, which is simply to treat others as one would wish to be treated." Reverends Ford Watkins were joined by Rev. Elder Nancy L. Wilson, Moderator of the Universal Fellowship of Metropolitan Community Churches, who issued a statement of her own. Rev. Wilson called "upon people of conscience around the world to speak up and to support those who are struggling for human and civil rights in Jamaica. . . . The lethal combination of homophobia and AIDS-phobia must stop. We cannot stand by and watch as our sisters and brothers are tormented, beaten, raped, and killed solely for being who they are." The church offered to relocate the victims to a safer venue and urged them "to go into hiding until their safety can be assured." Even so, one of the men, with courage if not sanity, vowed to stay in Jamaica and fight for the rights of all Jamaicans. "They may kill me, but I am dead already if I do nothing," he said. Rev. Wilson concluded her statement by asking the MCC's Global Justice Team to monitor the situation and appointing the Rev. Griffin to be the churches' representative in Jamaica's GLBT community. She also called concerned people everywhere to contact Jamaican Prime Minister Portia Simpson Miller and "ask her to speak out publicly against the violence, to establish a tone of respect and tolerance for all life, and to guarantee the human rights and safety of Jamaica's Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender citizens." Though international outrage is not enough to change Jamaican attitudes overnight, a little publicity doesn't hurt. At least it should keep GLBT and Gay-friendly heterosexual tourists away from Jamaica, "spicy flavours" notwithstanding. Jesse Monteagudo is a freelance writer and Gay activist who lives in South Florida. Send all comments to jessemonteagudo@aol.com. Prime Minister Simpson Miller can be reached by e-mail at HPM@opm.gov.jm. |
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