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Loading ...Besen: Jamaica is a killer vacation
This week, I joined San Francisco organizer Michael Petrelis and Box Turtle Bulletin editor Jim Burroway in launching an international boycott against Jamaica (www.boycottJamaica.org). While the island appears laid back, gays are under attack.
Forget business as usual. Instead, we should stop doing business with a country that is proud of its persecution against gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people.Our goal is to turn Jamaica into a pariah state, as long as GLBT people live in a state of terror. This means no more subsidizing the anti-gay slaughter by drinking Myers Rum and Red Stripe Beer. It requires skipping that Carnival Cruise to Jamaica — so your money won’t support murder.
If Jamaica were anymore homophobic, it would change the name of its signature music, reggae, to “ray-straight.” The national song would be, “Wasting the Gays Again in Murderitaville.”
Why boycott? Because Jamaica is on a downward spiral and suffers from collective cultural dementia on this issue. There is clearly a pathological panic and homo-hysteria that has infected this nation at its core. Consider that the Jamaica Cancer Society has raised concerns that the fear of being labeled gay is causing some Jamaican men to avoid prostate examinations, causing one of the highest prostate cancer rates in the world.
The second reason to boycott is because traditional activism has failed. I first read about Jamaica’s horrific violence against gay people in a 2004 New York Times editorial, “Hated to Death in Jamaica.” In 2006, Time Magazine had an article about the island headlined, “The Most Homophobic Place On Earth.”
One would think that such chilling headlines would have spurred worldwide action against Jamaica. Instead, the climate has only deteriorated, with a 2008 New York Times article titled, “Attacks Show Easygoing Jamaica Is Dire Place for Gays.”
A scathing State Department report on Jamaica’s treatment of homosexuals reads like a horror novel:
“The Jamaica Forum for Lesbians, All Sexuals, and Gays (J-FLAG) continued to report human rights abuses, including arbitrary detention, mob attacks, stabbings, harassment of homosexual patients by hospital and prison staff, and targeted shootings of homosexuals.”
Questioned by the BBC, Jamaica’s Prime Minister Bruce Golding said that he would not allow gay people to serve in his Cabinet. In March 2009 he added, “We are not going to yield to the pressure, whether that pressure comes from individual organizations, individuals, whether that pressure comes from foreign governments or groups of countries, to liberalize the laws as it relates to buggery.”
A third reason for a boycott is because we can have an impact in Jamaica. The tropical island earned $2.1 billion from tourism in 2006, with 1,025,000 arrivals from the United States. Clearly, Jamaica is uniquely vulnerable to economic pressure and thus every effort should be made to push for change.
A fourth reason to boycott is that a message needs to be sent throughout the world: “Gay people will no longer sit by passively while our people are brutalized and killed.”
If we do not stop the hate in the one place we can – Jamaica – it will continue to be open season against gays across the world. There must be consequences for state sanctioned gay bashing. Such countries will not change on their own — so economic carrots and sticks must be applied.
The current, failed strategy is “treadmill diplomacy”, where we send off a few letters to embassies and hope things will magically improve. It may feel like we are advancing, but we are really, at best, running in place. This explains why the news headlines about Jamaica’s treatment of gay people in 2004, look remarkably like the terrifying ones in 2009. The choice is ours, we can be meek in the face of madness – or we can take action.
Finally, Jamaica is an island of self-righteous hypocrites. The Bible is used to rationalize brutality, and vigilante violence is justified with talk of virtues and values. But, the island is quite comfortable with ganja and gratuitous sex for heterosexuals. Jamaica’s new motto should be, “Don’t Worry, Be Happy” (Unless you’re gay).
If you are a bar owner, please take Jamaican products out of your establishment. Consider a “rum dump”, where Myers’ rum is poured down the sewer. If you care about gay people, tell everyone you know about the dismal human rights record of Jamaica. And, if a friend has booked a trip — express your disapproval and send him or her accurate information.
It is truly a crime if you spend another dime in this homophobic hellhole. If you have gay family members, neighbors, coworkers or friends, book a holiday where it is okay to be gay.
As for Jamaica, don’t play, don’t pay, don’t stay.
F*CKIN’ FANTASTIC!!!!!!! About time!! I’ve been sayin’ this for the past 10 years!! Let’s get this boycott off and RUNNING!! We need protesters outside each and every Jamaican boat cruise office in this country! The “booze boycott” is a very important first step in getting this boycott going! F*CK U JAMAICA, and all of your dreadlocked, stoned out on ganja rastafarian crudf*cks!!
JAMACIA? or JAMAICA… oops.
I agree entirely. Maybe even boycott the cruise lines that use Jamaica as a destination not just cruises that go to Jamaica. Are the rums and beers owned by larger companies that we can pressure? paul
We must boycott all things Jamaican and show, with Gay Dollars, what we must do with all Homophobes.
THANK YOU Wayne! This boycott is way overdue!
Many Cruise ship companies are on the verge of dropping Jamacia anyway. It is one port where many people just stay on the ship and make it a pool or spa day.
I will boycott Myers rum. And Red Stripe Beer.
I have been there once and it is the most backward place on Earth that I have vistited. And Yes they do brag about how the veril men have kids with mutliple women. Just what a poor place with a low standard of living needs. The standard Hetero Hypocrisy.
Tom in Long Beach
There should be some stipulations on U.S. foreign aid. If a country wants it, they have to stop government encouraged human rights violations.
Good work on the boycott. Lets see what we can do about foreign aid.
I refuse to take vacations in Jamaica and other Carribean nations. Living in the U.S., the Carribean is a convenient and inexpensive get away during the cold winter months. Unfortunately about half of the countries are not friendly to us. I refuse to give my hard earned $ to a country that would just as soon spit on us, beat us or murder us than let us vacation in peace.
I tell all of my straight friends this as well.
I’d rather go to Costa Rica where they are much more friendly to us.
Even the Jamaicans are slowly realizing their bigotry has already been costly to the country. See this article in The New Black Magazine:
The creative class and the Jamaican society
By Francis Wade
One might think that Jamaica’s greatest export is sugar, bananas or even ganja.
Wrong!
I think history will show that these products are nothing compared to the unintentional success we have had in exporting our Creative Class.
It’s no secret that overseas Jamaicans rescued the Jamaican economy from complete ruin in the 1990s. The increase in remittances has today made this source the number one ”earner” of foreign exchange. In other words, overseas Jamaicans are willingly contributing their hard-earned after-tax dollars to support family and friends with little or no expectation of immediate financial return.
This contribution has not only saved individual families from ruin, but also the national economy from collapse.
This is a remarkable story of duty and generosity.
However, is it the case that these same Jamaicans could not have made the same or similar contribution to Jamaica’s economy had they remained at home? What is it about the North America that makes it a place in which wealth generation seems to be so relatively easy?
The factors that do make a difference are ones that powerfully attract a core set of people that is the engine of growth: the Creative Class. This rather small and focused group of people makes up the highly-educated, innovative core of a city’s economy that provides the entrepreneurial and artistic energy to start new businesses, set off artistic trends, spur new ways of thinking and invent new technologies.
What is relatively new about this group is its mobility, and willingness to move to cities and countries that offer the lifestyle they are looking for. They are willing to take risks (to a point,) especially if they are surrounded by others of the same ilk. They value freedom of thought, opportunity and a ready source of ideas, so many tend to cluster around first-class universities.
Clearly, there is no shortage of raw talent in Jamaica. Jamaicans living in the USA out-earn Black Americans (in terms of median household income.) While we fail to develop this talent sufficiently by any measure, those that are well-developed are considered to be world-class. Also, we in Jamaica pride ourselves on having access to some of the latest technologies that we can import.
But these are insufficient to compensate for the one area in which we are very weak Tolerance.
We Jamaicans have no problem saying that we are a Christian country that has laws on the books against buggery. In addition, there is a great deal of anecdotal evidence that suggests that many actively hate homosexuals and the gay lifestyle, with many using scripture to prove the point.
At the same time, there is at least a “broad understanding” among our people that many of the great contributors to the visual and dramatic arts are gay. Many of our leading artists and dramatic artistes are believed to be gay. As there are only a handful of Jamaicans living in Jamaica that are publicly gay (certainly less than 10,) there is no way to prove the claim definitively at the moment.
However, there is a much larger number of gay Jamaicans who live abroad that are, in effect, living like refugees. Their homosexuality and the real threat of everything from prosecution to physical violence, keeps them abroad. Also, many gays Jamaicans believe that their freedom will only come through migration.
In essence, we are forcibly exporting gay Jamaicans, by holding on to our intolerance and scaring them out of the country. Many of us take pride that “we don’t put up with that kind of behaviour here,” which is essentially boasting that we are “as intolerant as we want to be” and unwilling to consider change.
This intolerance is keeping us poor — not in spirit, but in GDP.
And our intolerance to the gay lifestyle is only the beginning. In corporations, we insist that seniority is critical to proper functioning. I recall a Group CEO being heard to say that “there is no way he would hire a managing director under 50,” regardless of his or her background.
On the religious front, the largest religious groups in Jamaica now consist of denominations that are among the most dogmatic and fundamental. Without saying anything about their belief systems, it is true that each of them insists that their way is the right way, and that anyone else who thinks differently will be judged as sinful and will end up in Hell.
There is very little room for new ideas to the contrary, and to new thinking, much less new religions among this fast growing group. Anything that is too different is quickly labeled and dismissed as non-Christian, anti-Christ, Satanic or worse.
The fact is, the majority of Jamaicans living in Jamaica feel a sense of security when they are surrounded by others who share their unbending views on religion, homosexuality and entitled positions in corporations. To our Creative Class, the likelihood of change seems small, and it just seems a lot easier to get a Canadian visa than it does to stay and fight for change.
We have long wondered why it is that countries like Trinidad can produce twice the GDP and income that we can. They have not had anything near the migration that we have had, and neither has Barbados, and they have the most vibrant economies in the region.
On the other hand, the other CARICOM countries that have experienced creative class migration on the scale of Jamaica are Guyana and Haiti — among the poorest in the region.
The message here is that if we leave our bigotry unchecked, it will only help to drag us further into poverty.
Francis Wade is a management consultant based in Kingston, Jamaica. His passion is the transformation of Caribbean workplaces, economies and society. He blogs at Chronicles From a Caribbean Cubicle.
Please e-mail comments about this piece to comments@thenewblackmagazine.com
The only visitors that need go to Jamaica are hurricanes…to clean up that hell hole.
Reed’s Ginger Beer is made from Jamaican ginger, so boycott that too. This information is good to know although most on the Left Coast go to Hawaii for the island experience. For the Eastern Seaboard maybe consider the Bahamas or Puerto Rico.
Does anyone know if an effort has been made to inform travel agencies and cruise lines of the situation in Jamaica? I cannot beleive that most people would choose a vacation there if they were aware of the abuses going on in Jamaica. Also I think a concerted letter writing campaign to Carnival and other lines could have some benefit. Gays and Lesbians are a huge segment of international travelers and our word hear should carry some weight.
I took the rum of my shelves a long time ago. The boycott is the correct action.
Yeah I haven no idea why people would want to go there for vacation. Sounds insane to me.
Thank you very much for taking this stand. In addition to our boycotting Jamaica, we also need to make certain that US foreign aid is not going there. It would help to have a list of cruise ships that go there and boycott them as well.