It is true that British Prime Minister David Cameron is using Britain's historical leverage to get certain Commonwealth countries to change their homophobic laws and practices.
We may debate whether this is an ugly reminder of the ways in which the big powers rule over their former colonies, but we shouldn't lose sight of the merit in this case of the need to get rid of the buggery laws. In other words the method might be objectionable but the objective cannot be lightly dismissed.
And yes it is ironic that it was as colonial master that Britain instituted the law in question, and now that it has changed the law in its own country, it can’t get the former colonies to understand that this colonial law should be also changed because it is a violation of human rights. (The same could be said of capital punishment.)
With the irony duly noted, we must now move on to debate the real question of the human rights abuses suffered by gays as a result of homophobic laws and a homophobic culture which have festered for more than a century.
There can hardly be any debate that legislating against private sexual matters among consenting adults is wrong. The original law was so stupid it even made anal sex between male and female illegal. I am unaware of any case where a heterosexual couple was prosecuted for such a crime.
Being gay or homosexual is not just about having sex with someone of the same sex. Some gay persons may exhibit mannerisms which indicate sexual orientation and as a result classified as being gay. In such cases of presumed sexual orientation, such persons can be easily singled out for discrimination. So if same sex relations is considered illegal then the easily identified gay person becomes illegal even if not caught in the act of having sex. This constitutes a terrible type of persecution similar to being born black in a racist white society. One has no control over the color of one’s skin just as gays have no control over their sexual orientation.
To discriminate against anyone, gays in this case, on the basis of their biological make up and resultant sexual practice and which is of no harm to anyone else, is the height of the most perverse type of ignorance and cruelty. Any state which upholds this kind of discrimination is as guilty as the ignorant mob which attacks a gay person. And, as we all know, countless number of gays have been attacked and killed in Jamaica.
Bruce Golding, PJ Patterson, Edward Seaga and Portia Simpson Miller, former prime ministers, and now present prime minister Andrew Holness, have all in one way or another indicated their support for homophobia, and are as responsible for mob attacks on gays as the mobs themselves.
And this is where the former colonial power comes in for condemnation for this social disease left behind. With the surplus profits extracted from the colonies they were able to create a far more educated society, so that their better educated people were able to see through homophobic prejudice, and agree to ending it far earlier than in the former colonies which by contrast seem to be stuck in the dark middle ages.
So yes, though continuing to be head of an imperialist nation, David Cameron does come across as a far more enlightened despot than the narrow-minded quislings he rules over.
Nonetheless, there are progressive people in the neo-colonies who recognize homophobia as ignorance and a form of social violence, and as being connected to social and economic underdevelopment.
We have to commit ourselves to fighting homophobia as much as we struggle against all forms of economic and social injustice.
Lloyd D’Aguilar
Campaign for Social and Economic Justice
www.lookingbacklookingforward.com
NB: On Sunday at 12 noon please log in to the launch of “Looking Back Looking Forward” www.lookingbacklookingforward.com formerly on Newstalk 93FM Radio. Media owners in concert with the Broadcasting Commission have conspired to censor the programme. We dare the Broadcasting Commission to censor us on the internet!
Programme line up:
12:00… Lloyd’s Commentary
12:30… Prof. Neni Panourgia… Developments in Greece
1:00….. Prof. James Petras… Argentina and the lessons for debt repudiation in Jamaica
1:30…..Prof. David Rowe… Bruce Golding’s resignation and other matters of corruption among Jamaica’s corporate elite
2:00 Peter Tatchell and Maurice Tomlinson, British and Jamaican gay rights activists discuss David Cameron’s attempt to get the buggery laws in the Commonwealth changed.
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