Melville Cooke
I AM CERTAINLY INTERESTED in 'de tape' that our world-class athletes figuratively breast ahead of their competitors with amazing regularity. I am extremely interested in 'de tape' of dances from the 1980s with legendary sound systems Sturgav and Kilamanjaro and equally legendary deejays Brigadier Jerry and Supercat respectively. I am interested in 'de tape' which our children use to stick together their paper creations, not least of all because the roll keeps going down or missing as the buds of artistic flowering keep popping up.
But I have absolutely no interest in 'de tape' which seems to have stuck to the imagination of the nation, visions of which scroll across the private cinema of our collective mind, since the murder of that noted man nearly two months ago.
It is a Jamaican reel life drama which entails so many facets of our lives, is it not? There is the 'hupper class nastiness' element, compounded by rumours of the 'downer class' born who are on 'de tape', getting into the 'nastiness' as they climb the social ladder (working at the bottom to get to the top, so to speak). Then there is, of course, blood and gore with the murder (or murders, depending on who is whispering), as well as the insatiable need to simply know and talk and talk and talk about knowing which feeds the bevy of talk shows and cellphone boom.
And above all else, there is the sex and the chance for some bedroom peeping, accompanied by the chance to declare our heterosexuality, which is always appreciated. After all, if you are demanding to see 'de tape', then naturally there is no way you could have been on it, right?
None of all that is given as reason for interest in 'de tape'. The overwhelming justification for this passion to view same-sex intercourse is to 'out' people dramatically, to see just who is being a hypocrite through either very loud denunciations of homosexuality or the silence of assumed heterosexuality.
HYPOCRISY AND 'DE TAPE'
And it is precisely this element of hypocrisy why I have no interest in 'de tape'.
You see, I expect hypocrisy in Jamaica. The sociologists and psychologists may have some fancy terms to describe the condition and, combined with the historians may trace it back to a denial of self, coupled with abnormal relations between the slave driver and the slave, the coloniser and the colonised, but I know I live in a society where every person is a saint at their funeral.
Nobody does anything that breaks the social or legal code in this country, unless caught red-handed (or any other body part, for that matter). Nobody sells cocaine, although supermarkets and mansions are popping up faster than pimples on a 13-year-old. Nobody rapes, despite the numerous complainants who are longing for justice (and rape is drastically under-reported in the first place). Nobody uses the toilet and leaves without flushing, despite very disturbing evidence to the contrary.
NOBODY DOES, EVERYBODY GETS
And certainly almost nobody performs oral sex, although almost everybody seems to have received. Almost nobody is a homosexual, although the boys I used to see near the Waterloo Road/South Avenue intersection must have had their clients. Not only that, but nobody is related to one.
I, therefore, take it as given that many politicians will lie, some pastors will sleep with church sisters, some journalists will sell their pens to the highest bidder and there will be deejays who scream loudly against oral sex and homosexuality while practising the same.
Seeing who is on 'de tape' will not do anything but make the many hypocrites whose private indulgence in what they denounce publicly happy at the extreme discomfiture of others. If 'tief neva love fi see tief wid long bag', then 'two-face love fi see nex' two-face expose'.
Seeing who is on 'de tape' will not cure our national dual personality syndrome (the psychologists can explain it better) and it certainly will not expose every secret bedroom biter and two-sword fighter. And there have to be many, many of those.
Melville Cooke is a freelance writer.
