Jamaica Resist: Dancehall ignorance///February 2009 Letter to the Gleaner

I couldn't help but retrieve letter below to the Gleaner Editor in February 2009. The 'far reaching edict' referred to is the banning of daggerin music and videos on radio and television by the Broadcasting Commission and then later to include soca which celebrates daggerin. Read first and then see further comments

Dancehall ignorance
The Editor, Sir:
For political and aesthetic reasons I have never been a dancehall fan, but am not proud that I don't know enough about it to critique it outside of generalities and subjectivism.
What is obvious to me however, is that the things that dancehall is being accused of by the Broad-casting Commission are driven by ignorance, class prejudice and arrogance, and this is not the way to make public policy.

If I have been able to insulate myself from dancehall all these years so can anyone else and I suspect that the members of the Broadcasting Commission are no less insulated. The truth is that radio stations have been exercising a certain amount of censorship, and sometimes they perhaps could have exercised better judgment.
I'm sure that not everyone is happy with what is played on the air, but it is a far better situation than the heavy-handed approach of the Broadcasting Commission.

Children are sexual beings
This far reaching edict suggests that the commission has an agenda that goes beyond their expressed concerns for public morality and the protection of children. It could never be healthy to preclude children from sexual discourse because children are also sexual beings. Check with any intelligent psychologist.

But beyond that, if the Broadcasting Commission is to prevail on this one I believe that it will take us back to the days when passports were taken away and books were banned and even our national icon Bob Marley had a hard time getting his music played on the air.

The prime minister has so far shown little ability to avoid playing to the gallery. But if, as is reported, he doesn't want to put a chill on creativity, but yet allows himself to be outmanoeuvred by the Broadcasting Commission and other fundamentalists, and lets this edict stand, then history will treat him no more kindly than a Hugh Shearer who has come to symbolize to some, the darker side of censorship and repression in Jamaica.

I'm confident that in due time the people of Jamaica will reverse this madness on the part of the Broadcasting Commission. The question is: at what price?
I am, etc.,
LLOYD D'AGUILAR
lgdaguilar@yahoo.com
Kingston 6

=======================================================================

EDICT published in newspapers Following its previous ban on vulgar and explicit dancehall songs, the Broadcasting Commission yesterday placed a further prohibition on the transmission of all soca music with content that displays, simulates or instructs sexual activities or positions.

The commission, last week, banned radio and television stations from airing songs with explicitly sexual and violent content, even if concealed by having bleeps. All dancehall music, which qualified as 'daggerin' content - the rapidly emerging culture of quasi-erotic dances and music - was also outlawed from the airwaves.

Daggerin or Kuma Sutra --- Which one is more dangerous do you think?

Acting under Regulation 30 (d) and exercising powers granted under Regulation 31 of the Television and Sound Broadcasting Regulations, the Broadcasting Commission now requires the immediate halt to the transmission of "any live presentation, audio recording or music video from the soca, hip-hop or any other music genre, which promotes, contains references to, or is otherwise suggestive of, 'daggerin' or which publicly displays, simulates or instructs explicit sexual activities or positions"
=====================================================================