Responses

I have had a number of positive responses to the email I sent out, and I have had further thoughts

- if anyone had told me 50 years ago when I came here that I would see Jamaica turn into what it has become today, I would not have believed them. I feel very guilty that my generation here have been complicit in many different ways in creating the truly frightening situation we find ourselves in today.
Unfortunately the police are a major part of many of the problems, including treatment of gays. Try Googling - jamaica gay - and you will find much more on the topic.

- I'm not sure I'm giving up, but may be reassessing my priorities.
Why do we not have any religious or political leadership which is prepared to stand up and keep on calling loud and long for a rejection of the culture of violence which they seem to accept as the Jamaican norm; it certainly wasn't when I came here 50 years ago! I hate to hear people saying 'we are a violent people' - we are no more violent that anyone else and we should be in the forefront of resisting increasing violence in the world, instead of just letting ourselves be carried along on the tide.
I find myself saying 'a luta continua' fairly often these days.

- When clergy and politicians say things which, while not actually encouraging violence, certainly reinforce aggressively homophobic attitudes, it is difficult to know where to turn for rational discussion. Many of the people JFJ works with are right in the middle of the conflict. I am not surprised that ordinary people can so easily be worked up to violence because there is no authentic leadership keeping on calling loud and long for the rejection of the use of violence, at every level - in the family, in communities, in political parties, in the police force and on and on - because not only gays but potentially anyone is at risk. What happened in Rwanda is the horrific warning about where tolerance of this type of violence can take us.

Re the NBA matter in the States - I am very interested in the work that John Amaechi is getting involved with; we need something like his campaign here: check out his web site - http://www.hrc.org/ .

Apart from the anti-gay propaganda from some evangelical groups, and some of the dance hall performers, I really do not understand why Jamaican men feel so threatened by the mere thought of homosexuality. Talking with students the women are almost always ready at least to talk about the issue - the young men just seem to go into a total tizzy at the mere mention of the word. The whole mind-set has to change.

I think I may start putting stuff on one of the many blogs [ and I am doing it!!!] I've got set up, then I can direct people there instead of inflicting emails on them!

A luta continua - as we used to say back in the '70s - only we didn't realise that the real struggle is with ourselves!