By Cornel Grey
Cornel Grey is an international student from Jamaica, currently pursuing a PhD at the University of Toronto. His research focuses primarily on black geographies and surveillance studies.
Within the past fifty years or so, Canada has become a home to a significant number of Caribbean-born nationals. In this time, the Caribbean community has managed to carve out a space for itself, however tenuous, in major cities as well as small towns across the country. Interest in Canada as a place of residence has been pushed, in part, by the promise of economic opportunity; the West Indian Domestic Scheme and the Seasonal Agricultural Worker Program are but two examples of how this has manifested. More recently, the conversation regarding opportunity has expanded to include Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgendered (LGBT) peoples. Within the diasporic LGBT community, Canada is now marketed as a safe haven for Caribbean nationals who are seeking freedom from persecution at home. As a result, Canadian organizations have been created that are dedicated to advocating for LGBT peoples in the Caribbean, assisting with asylum applications and providing support during the settlement process.
On October 12, at the invitation of a friend, I attended a panel discussion hosted by the Canadian HIV/AIDS Legal Network at the Toronto Reference Library in which the speakers were expected to discuss ongoing advocacy work that was taking place within Jamaica’s LGBT community. Dubbed “One Love: LGBTI Rights in Jamaica”, my expectation was that the speakers would spend time discussing some of the recent strategies that have been employed in service of community building, the attainment of legal protections and creating awareness in Jamaica. I found the decision to title the event “One Love” to be rather strategic; it is a deliberate play on one of Bob Marley’s famous songs but it also sets the tone for what would presumably be a discussion about political inclusion and/or recognition for LGBT peoples living in Jamaica. What took place, however, was somewhat different.
The event featured an all-male panel including Bishop Christopher Senyonjo, former religious leader in the Church of Uganda and current advocate for LGBT rights in Uganda, Dane Lewis, Executive Director of the Jamaica Forum for Lesbians, All-Sexuals and Gays (J-FLAG), and Maurice Tomlinson, activist and attorney-at-law working with the Canadian HIV/AIDS Legal Network. Following a brief plug for Senyonjo’s book, the session began with moderator, Marcia Young, posing questions to Senyonjo about the work he has done in Uganda. Young’s decision to open with a focus on Uganda, or to be more specific, the organizers’ decision to include Senyonjo in a forum in which Jamaica was the primary focus struck me as rather strange. This is not to suggest that conversations about LGBT politics should not be taking place across borders, but to indicate that there is something misleading, perhaps dangerous, when we begin to set up parallel narratives of oppression between countries. The event listed Jamaica as its focus, with a line or two in the promotional materials about Senyonjo’s work in Uganda. If the conversation was meant to be comparative, or about LGBT rights outside the “West” as it were, why not frame it as such? Considering the airtime that was afforded to each speaker, the event appeared to be as much about Uganda as it was about Jamaica. And yet, it soon became clear that the uneasy comparisons, the simple narratives of struggle in each country was more intentional than at first expected.
In an attempt to provide some context to the situation in Uganda, the audience was shown a clip from a documentary that Senyonjo was involved in. The scenes we are shown are centred primarily around the death of LGBT rights activist, David Kato. David Kato was considered the leader of the Ugandan gay rights movement and was murdered in 2011 weeks after winning a court case that prevented a local newspaper from publishing personal information about men and women believed to be homosexuals. The scenes shown are interspersed with images of Bible-thumping preachers, sympathetic gay figures, funeral-goers crying, others screaming – a familiar montage of black hysteria that we have come to know all too well. There is one scene that I found especially distressing, one located by Kato’s graveside. The moment at which a loved one descends into the grave is often a moment for a solemn goodbye, reflection, for quiet. But in this particular case, there is a crowd of cameras taking in the spectacle of black death – a black gay death at that – to be used later on as primetime news, as inspiration for a documentary, as evidence of sorts of Uganda’s (and by extension Africa’s) fervent homophobia. I wanted to know then what it meant for members of the audience to see this, to be watching cameramen recording men and women who were watching Kato’s body being lowered into the ground.
Lewis was the next to speak and he detailed some of the work that J-FLAG has been doing in Jamaica. The organization hosted its second staging of Pride in August of this year, a week of events that began on August 1, Emancipation Day, and culminated shortly after Jamaica’s Independence Day (August 6). Among these events were a gala, an open mic night and a sports day, highlights of which were shown to the attending audience. For Lewis, these events served as a safe space in which members of the LGBT community could come together in public without fear of being harassed and enjoy each other’s company, a rare opportunity considering the social and political climate in Jamaica. Later on, the dialogue shifted to the difficulties experienced by specific members of the community with a focus on LGBT folk who were living on the streets of Kingston, or as they were referred to by panelists, ‘gully queens’. Mention of this term served as a catalyst for a different kind of learning moment. I do want to mention that while I appreciate the effort to educate and provide context, I found it shocking that the moderator had to perform the labour of explaining what certain terms meant. Admittedly, having grown up in Jamaica, some things may appear obvious to me but the fact that she defined ‘gully’ by referring to it as a ‘sewer’ seemed peculiar…and not entirely accurate. Later on she would go on to explain ‘shadism’, as if to suggest that ordering of value based on skin tone is not something with which Canadians are familiar.
“What can we do as Canadians to help people on the other side of the world?” the moderator asked the panelists. I am captivated by what is implied in this notion of the “other side of the world”, especially in the context of my initial concern regarding the comparisons drawn between Jamaica and Uganda. Are these two different countries standing in for every country outside Canada (or to be generous, North America)? Are their perceived problems so similar that one can justifiably say the “other side” and have it mean something? I am suspicious of this notion of “helping people”, because too easily it becomes a conversation about Western superiority and the need to feel needed, “Third World” corruption and the helplessness of the communities within. Left unchallenged is the assumption that Canada does not have its own problems in terms of how it treats LGBT people, and especially LGBT people who are not white, within its own borders. Tomlinson made this observation, but it did not get taken up in the larger conversation. In light of ongoing concerns in Jamaica about the neocolonial agenda of international LGBT rights organizations, I think it is important for those of us who have an interest in the lives of LGBT folk in Jamaica to find ways of effecting change that does not presume we know more about their lives than they do, and to recognise that the nature of LGBT politics in Jamaica is different than it is in North America (e.g. Lewis made it clear that his organization was not interested in hosting a Pride Parade, and Tomlinson indicated that petitioning for same-sex marriage was not a priority considering relationship dynamics in Jamaica). There are ways of being gay, lesbians, bisexual or transgender that are not reflective of white North American culture.
For all panelists, there is a concern about the power of the Christian right and its effects on the lives of LGBT peoples. In the Ugandan context, the audience was made to believe that homophobic rhetoric is being pushed largely by Christian missionaries who are trying to spread the gospel whereas in Jamaica, several Christian groups are actively trying to counteract the work being done by J-FLAG and Tomlinson. Discussants gave the impression that the Christian right as a body was imported to Jamaica and Uganda from an unnamed location, especially as one panelist stated that these groups were “seeking fertile ground” and that they have “left places they have lost”. I found this assertion to be slightly misguided because it implies that were it not for these missionaries, homophobia would not be an issue. After all, Jamaica has its own brand of homegrown Christian groups that are vehemently against homosexuality. Considering Senyonjo’s status as a religious figure and Tomlinson’s statements about his marriage to a pastor, I wonder too about the distinctions that were being set up between the Christian right as an oppressive strain of religious ideology and more inclusive and benevolent factions represented by the denominations of which Senyonjo and Tomlinson are a part. Senyonjo referenced the Bible throughout the session as he spoke about “forgiveness” and love”, displaying an interpretation of the text that reconciles Christian values with a homosexual identity. But why rely on religion at all to make the argument? I recognize that Jamaica’s reputation as a homophobic nation is tied up in notions of religiosity, and that those who denounce homosexuality often do so while citing Biblical scriptures. While a re-reading may appease some followers of religion, it still leaves intact Christianity’s stake in legal and political institutions. If, as Tomlinson argues, the buggery law in Jamaica (which prohibits same-sex intimacy between men) is a part of Jamaica’s colonial legacy, so too is Christianity. So what is the reason for our investment in it as a political tool? To be clear, this is not an argument against those who claim both an LGBT and Christian identity. I am merely suggesting that there are limits in using religion as a part of one’s political project. The deployment of religious rhetoric on both sides of the debate warrants further discussion but we should all be wary of the ways in which religion becomes a space for a different kind of neocolonial agenda that seeks to rescue those who are “unsaved”.
At the end of the event, Young attempted to redeem Jamaica in the eyes of the audience by trying to highlight more positive aspects of Jamaican culture. The decision seemed to me a bit late until I realized that it was part of a promotion for Montego Bay Pride (October 16) that was being organized by Tomlinson and taking place that weekend, and at which fellow panelist Bishop Christopher Senyonjo would be the Grand Marshall. Despite the supposed dangers for LGBT peoples, members of the audience were encouraged to book a ticket so they can go to Jamaica and ‘feel all right’, to use Bob Marley’s words. Feel all right about ourselves, the privilege of living in Canada, the freedom to go back and forth (for those who can go back). Advocacy and grassroots organizing may very well become sidelined and replaced by more self-indulgent interests. We should take note because Pride as a commercial phenomenon may very well leave behind those who are most vulnerable as it becomes tied up in tourism and private interests. Canadian businesses already have a stake in Montego Bay Pride in terms of sponsorship. It remains to be seen what effect this will have on the lives of LGBT peoples in Jamaica.