It is time for Jamaica to answer for its barbaric human rights record.

Great Debates
1

Today, I got an offer from my Mazda dealer to buy their snow tires and to get a chance to win a trip to . . . . . Jamaica!

In other words, they are offering me and my same-sex spouse a chance to travel to one of the world’s most blatantly and murderously homophobic countries.

For further information, check out this Time/CNN article about the depth of anti-gay hatred in Jamaica, a hatred largely condoned by the government and every major political party.

Needless to say, I have written to Mazda to tell them that I will not be buying their snow tires, entering their contest or even leasing their products in future.

To my amazement, very few people outside Jamaica are aware of the level of official and popularly-sanctioned hatred of gays in that country. And many more know but don’t care.

The above-cited 2006 article especially notes:

“… two of the island’s most prominent gay activists, Brian Williamson and Steve Harvey, have been murdered — and a crowd even celebrated over Williamson’s mutilated body. . . . . . .In 2004, a teen was almost killed when his father learned his son was gay and invited a group to lynch the boy at his school. Months later, witnesses say, police egged on another mob that stabbed and stoned a gay man to death in Montego Bay. And (last year) a Kingston man, Nokia Cowan, drowned after a crowd shouting ‘batty boy’ (a Jamaican epithet for homosexual) chased him off a pier. ‘Jamaica is the worst any of us has ever seen," says Rebecca Schleifer of the U.S.-based Human Rights Watch. . .’.”

Jamaican reggae singers with murderous anti-gay lyrics have been banned from a number of countries or restricted in the songs they can perform abroad since they are in direct violation of many human rights and anti-hate laws.

For example, Buju Banton, boasts of shooting gays with Uzis and burning their skin with acid in his 1992 song Boom Bye-Bye.

Another, named Elephant Man, sings, “When you hear a lesbian getting raped/ It’s not our fault … Two women in bed/ That’s two Sodomites who should be dead.”

There is no sign that the Government of Jamaica or any political party in the country in any way disapproves of this kind of hate. On the contrary, all political parties have supported viciously severe criminal penalties for same-sex acts between consenting male adults, which can include sentences of up to 10 years hard labour.

When the Jamaican leaders are called to task for their treatment of gays, their answer is to accuse international groups of meddling in domestic affairs. Come to think of it, that was the main defense used by the former apartheid government in South Africa. I boycotted South African products during the years of racial injustice in that country, and I don’t see why I cannot do the same by Jamaica?

There are plenty of sunshine destinations in the Caribbean and elsewhere that do not have vicious, murderous policies and practices regarding gay people.

2

As most of you know I have frequently been called an attention hog on these boards.

So it comes as a surprise that almost 100 people have read my very long OP in 30 or 40 minutes since I posted it, but I am also disappointed that nobody has posted a reply.

Does this mean everyone agrees? Or that nobody gives SFA? Are there no Jamaicans out there willing to put a “bohm-fohkin’ batty boy in his place, mon?”

I am going nuts like Eric Cartman on South Park when his mother and the dog trainer started ignoring him. SAY SOMETHING, damnit!

3

I know, right.

4

Sometimes a thread is just so right that there’s nothing to say.

Though I will confess I had no idea that homophobia was sanctioned by the political parties too.

5

Valteron, it would seem to be pretty difficult to debate anything you’re saying here.

For what it’s worth, I didn’t know this about Jamaica, so you have faught some ignorance. And I’ll make a point of not purchasing any Jamaican products in the future, though I don’t know of anything they make other than cigars and rum.

6

Should we make a conscious effort to protest with the kind of “boycott-like” tactic I pulled ith my Mazda dealer?

Should we encourage people not to vacation in Jamaica? I know a lesbian who went there with her daughter. She had NO IDEA Jamaica was like that. Mind you, she did not tell anyone there she was a lesbian.

Did boycottting South Africa and other international pressure have an effect in ending apartheid?

Am I being too hard on a developing country of poor, black people, who cannot be compared with South African whites and aparthid?

Would some form of boycott or protest help?

7

An organized boycott might put pressure on the political powers in Jamaica. According to wiki, the US is their top trading partner, and I’d imagine tourism from the developed world accounts for a sizable amount of their economy.

It would need specific demands that the Jamaican gov’t can actually do, though. “Stop people from being homophobic” isn’t really a reasonable, measurable or even fair request. “Appeal anti-sodomy laws” is.

8

Boycotts have become sort of passe as a protest tool because (correctly, I think) activists have decided they hurt the wrong people. If a company’s bottom line is hurting, they generally lay off low-level workers - the CEOs don’t take paycuts.
International sanctions may be another matter. If you think the Jamaican people as a whole are at fault I guess that wouldn’t be an issue here - but given all the other problems there, I don’t know. Boycotting people who are already poor sounds like a crappy idea. How much of the anti-gay violence grows out of the widespread poverty and violence? Getting the government to stop overlooking these statements and prosecute people who (physically) attack gays would be a good step. But I’m not convinced that anti-gay violence would stop if people stopped going to Jamaica.

9

I’ve read about some homophobic reggae artists being banned from countries and clubs. I wasn’t sure how I felt about the idea, but then I read some of their lyrics and then their responses to the ban (bafflement over why anyone wouldn’t drag a gay guy into the street and kill him), and pretty much had to agree. A friend of mine spent some time there with a Rasta sect and they were pretty damn homophobic and misogynist, but most of it was based on Biblical teachings so…

10

You know someone is really homophobic when they want to kill lesbians too.

11

I think a part of the problem is Jamaica’s reputation as “that ganja place”…after all, anyone who sits around all day smoking pot can’t be all that uptight or violent, right? Almost no one in the US really understands what “ganja” actually means to Rastafarians, or just what Rastafarianism is, so they think it’s an island full of goofy stoners who talk funny.

12

Iree Mon

13

Ummmm, I thought pretty much the entire world apart from the wealthy western nations was pretty homophobic, and that quite substantial parts of the wealthy western nations were also homophobic. In fact, not that I’ve ever really given it much thought, but I places like Jamaica are more the rule than the exception. So why make such a fuss over them rather than e.g. Uganda?

14

Several reasons, I’d think. First, what I mentioned above. The overall US impression of Jamaica is the island of goofy stoners who talk funny. Second, Uganda is not a major US vacation and recreation destination, and more importantly, does not really try to market itself to the US as such.

15

I may not be clear on the difference between boycott and international sanction.

As to hurting the wrong people: I realize, for example, that if a resort or a rum distillery has to lay off an 18-year-old Jamaican because of a drop in business, it is possible that kid is not homophobic, or even that he is a closet gay that I have hurt with my actions, ironically.

The argument that poor South African blacks were affected most by boycotts was often used by the advocates of Apartheid itself, BTW. SA blacks would say yes, it does hurt us, but the effect is spread around and it helps the government get the message, so keep up the pressure.

I agree boycotts are not all that effective. Gandhi probably did not put a real dent in the income of the British Raj with his salt march, for example. But that is what makes boycotts so good, in my opinion. Their symbolic value. I do not want to throw Jamaica into even greater poverty. I just want to send them a message with a little tug at their pocketbooks so they can at least stop the hypocrisy of telling us that burning batty boys with acid and lynching homosexuals is part of their Christian heritage and their internal affairs.

I simply am tired of sitting there and doing and saying nothing with all these reports showing that Jamaica is a homophobic hell-hole, where people sing about their murderous hatred and consider it ok. It was that ad from Mazda that made me snap (I guess it would be egotistical of me to say that it was kind of like Rosa Parks on the bus . . . . . but it was :smiley: )

The arrogance of reggae singers’ lyrics is symptomatic of how little the world has stood up and expressed its disapproval.

Gay people like that lesbian frind who actually vacation there shows that a minimum we need to start spreading the word. For more info on how bad it really is in that country, see this Wiki article

And yes, years of sanctions and world-wide disapproval DID eventually change the perceptions of white South Africans about apartheid. Very slowly, but it did. I have it on good authority from a number of Afrikaners who today are happy that apartheid is gone.

16

I know very little about Jamaca and its culture. I do get the impression that it has more than its share of violent, gun-wielding criminals.

In my home town (Toronto), the notion one gets from the news (rightly or wrongly) is that a vastly disproportionate share of shooting murders are committed by Jamacan-born criminals who have immigrated here.

The combination of violent criminality with homophobia can’t be a good one …

17

Terrible, truly horrible.

You have a same-sex spouse?!

Just kidding.

18

Half Jamaican here, with many family members in Kingston and Port Royal. Homophobic behavior is quite common and often socially condoned, from my family’s recount.

19

It is far from true that acceptance (at least legally) of gays is limited to wealthy western countries. A look at the chart in this Wiki article on homosexuality laws in the world will give you quite a few surprises. Even Cuba, which used to send gays to what were essentially concentration camps, decriminalized gay sex in 1992 and is even planning to recognize same-sex relationships. And Castro’s sister, who is a Lesbian, represented Cuba at the Out Games seminars in Montreal a year or two ago.

And South Africa is one of the five countries (along with my own dear Canada) who actually recognize full marriage. Along with Spain, the country of Francisco Franco and Tomas Torquemada.

So don’t underestimate the capacity of countries like that to change.

While you are looking at that chart, look at Jamaica. Ten years hard labour for consensual sex with another adult male??? Come on!!!

20

I have been with my spouse 32 years. Got legally married 2 years ago. Come to think of it, maybe 10 years hard labour in a Jamaican jail is shorter. Just kidding honey. . . . . put down that frying pan, I was just joking. . . . . . . .OW!