Ian Boyne
THE HOMOSEXUAL community in Britain and America has scored major victories against some of the violence-promoting Jamaican deejays and as a consistent critic of negative dancehall, I am happy that some group has had the clout and courage to send a clear signal to these fellows.
It is ironic that the successful career-jolting of the highly ambitious deejays should come from a group so out of sync with Christian morality, but just as the capitalist West and Communist Soviet Union had to come together to defeat Hitler and the Nazis, so it is necessary to make strategic alliances with groups with whom one is vehemently opposed to fight certain causes. It is a shame that it has taken people outside of Jamaica to register this decisive opposition to lyrics promoting violence, when people of money and influence in Jamaica have used their money to promote shows which feature these merchants of death under the guise of entertainment.
The same big private sector people who speak sonorously and movingly about the effects of violence on the tourism industry, the economy in general and on the society spend millions to promote the two big annual shows featuring artistes advising people to kill informers, "spill out a bwoy marrow" and to "kill Babylon". But they are able to line their pockets and sell their products, and this is the most important thing to them. Meanwhile, we in the media take them seriously when they speak at their service clubs and give their after-dinner speeches at plush hotels.
Artistes known for bigging up shottas and criminals still earn handsomely from companies in Jamaica doing endorsements for their products. At least the gays have used their power and influence to bring pressure on the dancehall vulgarians and purveyors of hate. They have done more than our 'respectable' private sector companies that profit from these dancehall acts who promote violence and criminality.
It seems more companies in corporate Jamaica are reaching for these leading deejays to market themselves. At the same time they deplore escalating violence and disorder in Jamaica and are spending money on Crime Stop. What hypocrisy! For those who love decency, order and civility, we just have to depend on the gays to give these deejays the backsiding (oops!) they deserve.
HYPOCRISY
There is a lot of hypocrisy on both sides of this controversy, of course. Make no mistake about it, some of the gays who are opposing our deejays do so not just because they spout lyrics of violence against gays, but also because they so vehemently oppose homosexuality. Homosexuals label as 'homophobic' any opposition to homosexuality which, of course, is absurd. It is manifestly intolerant and arrogant to hold the view that any opposition to homosexuality and any rejection of it as an acceptable lifestyle is homophobic and bigoted. That's intolerance and demagoguery masquerading as enlightenment.
On the other hand, the defenders of the dancehall are also guilty of being disingenuous and engaging in sleight-of-hand debating tactics. Take the statement recently widely circulated by my two friends, dancehall scholar and academic Donna Hope and Hume Johnson, journalist and graduate student.
Donna is one of the finest researchers we have on the dancehall and is quite sharp intellectually. Hume is also quite capable. But their arguments in the recent statement attacking the position of the gays opposing our artistes were pathetically weak and flawed.
Attacking the gay activists for pressuring Beenie Man, the dancehall researchers say this "strikes at the heart of Jamaica's sovereign right to choose the moral and Christian values that underpin our general lifestyle and practice." Nonsense. Recommending the killing of any group of people is certainly not Christian. (The injunction about killing homosexuals was part of the Old Testament theocratic society, which was long rescinded. And for those who insist on using this, the same recommendation was made for fornicators and adulterers! So all these deejays and their supporters would be dead!)
MORAL AND CHRISTIAN VALUES
Hope and Johnson go on to say: "As Jamaicans we must jealously guard the moral and Christian values that have underwritten our society. They (the deejays) speak to the Jamaican/Christian fundamentalist position that views homosexuality as a sin which ought to be condemned and rejected." This vulgar exploitation of religious ideology to defend the indefensible is unworthy of people in the academy.
First, while the Christian scriptures unequivocally and unmistakably condemn homosexual practice, it nowhere advocates violence against homosexuals. So Beenie Man, Bounty Killer, Vybz Kartel, Baby Cham, Assassin, Predator and others don't share any platform with Christians on this. Christians must dissociate themselves from the deejays who promote violence in the name of defending the Bible. This is a gross perversion of the Bible, of the sort used by slave owners and assorted oppressors who have for centuries found the Bible a useful ally in their plan of oppression.
Jamaica is free to choose its moral and philosophical path, be it Christian fundamentalism or any variety of ideology, but if it wants to be a part of the civilised community it must adhere to the norms of international human rights which expressly condemn violence against any group for any reason. Intellectuals must not use the cover of scholarship and nationalism to promote the violation of human rights.
Our big private sector companies are using these dancehall artistes to brand their companies and our intellectuals are giving them scholarly succour while some misguided Christian Fundamentalists are saying it's a good thing these fellows are so strongly against homosexuality for "the bwoy dem would a get more brassy inna Jamaica."
Why don't we mount a formidable philosophical and theological critique of homosexuality, as I think can be easily done, and depend on the force of argumentation rather than the force of violence in dealing with the homosexuals in our midst? Is that too much to ask? No wonder some of the gays are so arrogant and intolerant because they are usually greeted with prejudice, hostility and an invitation to violence rather than to cold, calculated reasoning. At least some influential voices in the media are now speaking out about dancehall's negative effects on the society.
USING CULTURE NEGATIVELY
In the last few weeks, two of the island's leading columnists, Mark Wignall and John Maxwell, have written scathing pieces against negative dancehall. (I say "negative dancehall" for dancehall in itself is not negative. The rhythm, the beat is quite pulsating and potent. Unlike Wignall and Maxwell, I have a strong appreciation for dancehall beat). I say to these columnists, let us keep up the fight against those who are using our culture to reinforce the worst in us. Let us vehemently oppose those who are verbally supporting the criminals and dons who are holding our people in bondage and snuffing out our lives daily.
The defenders of the dancehall, including the UWI's Carolyn Cooper, consistently miss the most salient points made by the critics of negative dancehall.
Listen up, too, Anthony Miller of ER fame. We are not saying that it is the deejays who are the cause of crime. We are not saying if you got rid of all the violence-promoting, shotta-defending deejays tomorrow, crime would disappear from Jamaica.
The politicians bear a great responsibility for the level of criminality which exists in the country. Through the political culture which they have fostered and the corruption they have nurtured in the political system, our inner cities have become crime factories.
Also, our failure to create a just and equitable society has rendered many of our youth expendable and marginalised and have provided raw materials for the crime factories. The deejays are victims and products of a dysfunctional society. Get me straight on this.
But the point is, as Clyde Mckenzie, Beenie Man's highly capable manager puts it, "a fever is a symptom but a fever can also kill you!" And a fever, he could go on, can be either contained or worsened. The dancehall artistes are not the originators of the rot, but they contribute to and reinforce it. Mark Wignall puts it well: "I am not blaming the murder rate on the DJs. But I must recognise that where the DJs have the clout to minister to the shottas in the ghettos and they have in fact done the opposite, that is, the DJs have encouraged the rot I must place some responsibility at the feet of the DJs." How can Carolyn Cooper, Kingsley Stewart or Anthony Miller argue with that?
Pollster Wignall says, "I have done many surveys where it has been shown that DJs and druggists are the real role models in the inner-city areas. It is very redoubling. In these areas young men take their cues from their heroes: the Djs. They do what the Djs decide is par for the course."
Those who argue that music has no influence on real life should tell that to the advertisers who are falling over themselves to get the dancehall vulgarians to promote their products. If the corporate sector in Jamaica would pull their support from the big dancehall events and not use the negative dancehall artistes in their ad campaigns, the deejays would be pressured to clean up their act.
The gays will force them to bow to advance their careers. These fellows are not committed to anything except filthy lucre their flashy vehicles, showy houses, bling bling, which are supposed to compensate for the low status we assign to people who hail from the inner-cities.
This society needs to learn how to resolve conflicts and to practise forgiveness. We need to overlook offences.
When the dancehall glorifies the shotta who "nuh tek foolishness and dissing"; when it encourages youth and youth to kill because disrespect was shown to their women; when it intimidates the informers needed to stop crime in Jamaica and when it promotes the "who badda than who" contest, how is that advancing us as black people?
The opposition to this kind of dancehall is a civic responsibility.
Ian Boyne is a veteran journalist. You can send your comments to ianboyne1@yahoo.com or infocus@gleanerjm.com
