Homophobia and mob violence in Jamaica

After a very pleasant luncheon with a group of people to whom I gave a talk about the 1907 Earthquake, I came home today [Thursday, February 15th] ready to continue work on my current web site. I was brought to a total standstill in that work by a long phone conversation about the horrendous event that took place yesterday evening at Tropical Plaza. A mob of hundreds of Jamaicans bent on beating up, and presumably killing, four young men suspected of being gay, were only prevented from doing so by the eventual intervention of the police, who had to use tear gas to control the mob. I trust that we all realize that anyone living in Jamaica, or visiting Jamaica for that matter, is in the same danger as those young men. Lynch mobs in Jamaica are now able to set on anyone suspected of anything, of a crime as petty as picking pockets, and beat and chop them to death, and nothing is done. And being in the wrong place, at the wrong time, wearing the wrong clothes, could expose anybody, regardless of colour, ethnicity or class, to the same terror faced by those young men yesterday evening. It is a level of luck that we don't deserve that we are not facing today the reality of four murders, of young men 'suspected' of being gay.

I am feeling at the moment so sick, so angry, so disgusted, - so despairing for this island, that I am not sure I see any point in continuing with my small attempt to illustrate the enormous achievements of Jamaicans of all classes and origins over three and a half centuries. There is so much to be proud of, so much to celebrate, and to emulate – but this is where we have got to in 2007? Some of you know my disillusionment with almost all organized religion; that disillusionment is only reinforced by the thought that over 200 years of Christianity in Jamaica have brought us to this! When are all right thinking people going stand up and say this has to stop; our judicial system must be made to work, our laws must be dragged out of their 19^th century 'colonial' past, our police must be reformed; so that mob violence and vigilante 'justice' can be ended totally. I could also go on about how a perversion of Socialism, a perversion of Democracy, a perversion of academic freedom have fed into the situation we are now confronted with – a situation almost entirely of Jamaicans' own making.

I so often ask myself what I and all the rest of my generation should have done, but did not do. Now I shall think about going on with my web sites, if it seems they serve any useful purpose at all, but in any case I have to do vastly more to support the work in which my sons and daughter are so deeply involved with Jamaicans for Justice, and to support in whatever small way possible the work of the other Human Rights groups in Jamaica.

There is a point at which one cannot be merely an observer of a society destroying itself relentlessly from the inside.

If you share any of my feeling on this – at least as a first step express in any way you can support for Human Rights Defenders in Jamaica.

Joy Lumsden