Bain, Gays And A Battle For Values

I recently read an article by the former Jamaican Prime Minister who is also a college professor. The article in question was published in Jamaican Gleaner and is entitled: "Bain, Gays And A Battle For Values" and I do not agree with his line of argument in that article. It never sounded like an opinion of a college professor. In fact, his argument is baseless and unreasonable and I cannot begin or finish telling you how disappointed I am that a college professor and a former Jamaican Prime Minster could have written that.

It seems to me that there is a truth in the saying that those who undergo oppression end up being oppressors. Think of what the State of Israel is doing to Palestinians today despite what millions of Jews went though under the Nazis. It is sad that history keeps on repeating itself just because we have refused to learn from it.

Many years ago, my forefathers sold our brothers and sisters to the West in the name of slavery. Those caught up in this evil were mainly the minorities and the most vulnerable. The African states of those days never understood the idea that democracy is a government of the majority for the protection of the minority.

Where I come from in Nigeria (I am an Igbo, sometimes written as Ibo and often referred to as 'Red Eboe' in Jamaican Patois), it used to be a taboo to give birth to twins because the Igbo culture then saw it as a bad omen. It took a Western woman called Mary Slessor to put an end to that barbaric act. Sadly, the Jamaicans of today are still doing same thing we did to these twins to their own, the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community and every right thinking person must be asking questions.

There is not justification for how LGBTs are treated in Jamaica and the fact that there is state support for this type of treatment is awful and repugnant and should be a source of concern to every right thinking person. We are not in majority mandated or empowered to victimize the poor, the vulnerable and the helpless. Our lot is to use those advantages for the betterment of the powerless. If my forefathers had known about this, my fore brothers and sisters would not have been sold into slavery. We sold them because of our greed and wickedness. Wickedness of man's heart is at the root of homophobia, which is abundant in Jamaican communities of today.

I am Nigerian by origin and therefore not in better position to advise Jamaicans on how to order their nation and lives, however if they think that the best way to do that is to kill, lynch or imprison their own brothers and sisters who are homosexuals, then as a human I have a moral responsibility to intervene and that is exactly what I am doing now.

It is interesting that this is coming just at the same time the Caribbean nations are asking for compensation from the West for years of slavery which is responsible for the poor state of development in their region but how can you morally ask for that when you are doing same thing done to you by my forefathers and the West?

I can assure you that people do not make a choice to become homosexuals. People are born gay but even if they do make that choice, since when did it become a crime to make a choice that has no negative or adverse social impact on others? Is it a crime to make a choice to become a Christian, a Muslim or to marry the one you like? If it is not, why should it be if someone makes that choice to become a homosexual?

The former Prime Minister Bruce Golding alleged that the reason his government and the Present Jamaican Government could not and should not repeal the Jamaican anti-gay law was because of the need to safeguard the children. I find this claim utterly myopic, not grounded in facts and in fact borne out of prejudice and ignorance. If you are not gay, how on earth could you learn to be gay? And how could children become gay if Jamaican anti-gay law is repealed?

I urge the Jamaican community to rethink their position. You are dealing with your own brothers and sisters. You nation was born out of greed and wickedness of white man and my forefathers. I wonder what my forefathers would say if they come back to life today. There is no justification for still having anti-gay laws in Jamaica and the present air of homophobia in the country cannot be justified either. Jamaican problem today lies with the elites who have refused to allow the dividends of democracy to trickle down to the masses. And situations like this breeds discontent and anger against a section of the community, often times against the wrong section and sadly Jamaican homosexuals in this case.

And to set the record straight, the West is not putting pressure on no one not even Jamaica to do as they do in the West. Rather, what the West is saying is that homosexuality is the least problem facing Jamaican nation today. There is too much killing on the streets of Kingston and elsewhere, low level of education, poverty, illegal drugs, rapes and loads of them in the Island and these are exactly what the West is saying that Jamaica should focus on.