An Open Letter to the Prime Minister of Jamaica (June 2008)

To the Rt. Honourable Bruce Golding, Prime Minister of Jamaica

Dear Prime Minister Golding:

I trust that this letter will find you well. On Friday, May 23rd, 2008, as the opening reader at the Calabash Literary Festival in Treasure Beach, St. Elizabeth, Jamaica, I publicly criticized the anti-gay remarks you had made only a few days earlier, on May 20^th, on the BBC-TV show “Hard Talk,” to reporter Stephen Sackur. (You will recall having said to Mr. Sackur on the air, quite heatedly, that homosexuals will not have any place in your Cabinet.¹) I decided to critique your remarks as a citizen of Jamaica—a country that, despite its overwhelming social problems, I deeply love and still believe to be something of a democracy: that is, a nation in which, in accordance with the ideals and attainable reality of human freedom, citizens and others may voice their dissent against what they view as injustice and the missteps, and sometimes egregious errors, of governing officials, without (for the most part) fear of reprisals, censorship, or ostracism.

While neither of Jamaica’s two principal newspapers printed the critique I made of you at Calabash, and have not carried any subsequent articles about that dissent, I choose, perhaps at my own personal risk (and even, as many friends and family have warned and continue to warn me, at the risk of my own life), to believe that Jamaica, unlike many other nations (such as the United States, at times), does not practice censorship. It is that faith, and the pride I carry as someone of Jamaican background, and the desire to share my critique of your words with others, that propels me to write this open letter to you. At the Calabash Festival on that Friday night in May, before I read from my new book, Our Caribbean: A Gathering of Lesbian and Gay Writing from the Antilles, I said the following:

I want to say a special thanks to the Calabash organizers—Colin Channer, Kwame Dawes, and Justine Henzell—for inviting me back to Calabash, this being my second reading at the festival, and for their unceasing generosity to, and support of, writers from around the world. And so, mindful of that generosity and kindness, my conscience will not permit me to begin reading from this book in particular before I say that as a gay man of Jamaican background I am appalled and outraged by the Prime Minister having said only three days ago on BBC-TV that homosexuals will not have any place in his Cabinet and, implicitly by extension, in Jamaica.

I guess this means that there will never be any room in Mr. Golding’s Cabinet for me and for the many, many other men and women in Jamaica who are homosexual. And so I now feel moved to say directly to Mr. Golding that it is exactly this kind of bigotry and narrow-mindedness that Jamaica does not need any more of, and that you, Mr. Golding, should be ashamed of yourself for providing such an example of how not to lead Jamaica into the future. And so, Mr. Golding, think about how much you are not helping Jamaica the next time you decide to stand up and say that only some Jamaicans—heterosexuals, in this case—have the right to live in their country as full citizens with full human rights, while others—homosexuals—do not. That is not democracy. That is not humane leadership. That is simply the stupidity and cruelty of bigotry.

Although these words received, to my surprise and pleasure, much applause, I remain aware of the grave truth that I could have been killed on the spot, even in the festive Calabash environment in beautiful, quiet Treasure Beach, for speaking them. Yet, as someone who maintains a deep commitment to Jamaica, I had to speak them. With all due respect addressed to your office, Mr. Golding, and at the risk of perhaps getting myself brutally murdered on some future date in Jamaica, I must tell you now that the cruelty and...