Robert Buddan Bruce Golding went abroad and talked about international issues such as reforming the United Nations and getting more support for middle-income developing countries like Jamaica. But all of that is drowned out by the controversy surrounding his pronouncements that homosexuals will not be allowed to serve in his Cabinet. In doing so, Golding might have undermined his call for greater international support for Jamaica. It was not politically shrewd.
It was not a good principle either. When Norman Manley led the national movement for Cabinet government and independence, he did so on the principle that people had a right to self-determination and that Jamaicans were fit and proper to govern themselves. It was always assumed that all patriotic and law-abiding Jamaicans were welcome in this national movement and in a Jamaican Cabinet. People of different genders, religions, ideologies, races, ethnicities, levels of education, professions, marital status, and residence have served in Jamaica's Cabinet since Cabinet government was introduced in 1957 and their right to do so has never been questioned. Now, we question the right of one category - homosexuals. We might wonder if any of the more than 130 Cabinet members in the 51 years of Cabinet government were not homosexual or bisexual, and whether there is any evidence that sexual orientation compromised one's ability, any more than the kind of Cabinet member we should be really worried about - namely the corrupt one, the violent one, or the unpatriotic one.
NEW SOCIAL MOVEMENTS
Post-colonial people are particularly sensitive to issues of inclusion and rights because their history has been of the opposite. Movements for inclusion and rights are an important part of a long-standing kind of politics, more recently called identity politics or the politics of difference. Identity politics takes form in new social movements that mobilise special groups that have suffered discrimination because of the way in which they are different. That difference might be based on biology (what they look like and how they behave), territory (where they come from), history (role in past events) or culture (beliefs and practices). These differences have given rise to prejudices and misconceptions variously described as racism, sexism, homophobia, xenophobia, and such. These prejudices and misconceptions can be based on a mixture of myths, stereotypes, propaganda and pseudo science. They can be misinterpretations of sacred texts such as the Bible or of misguided uses of scientific works, such as Darwin's theory of human evolution.
New social movements have arisen to promote gay and lesbian rights, women's rights, ethnic rights, cultural rights, national rights, immigrants' rights and heritage rights, and to get them accepted as part of a broader appreciation of human rights. The aim is to determine who to include as subjects of rights as parts of a nation and on what terms. These movements campaign to be included in the ongoing process of nation building in both older nations and newer nations, more recently independent. Nation building is an ongoing process. Even the older societies that have solved many of the problems of nation building have not solved all of them as new circumstances and knowledge give rise to new claims for equal rights by groups wanting to be part of their nation.
Golding's BBC interview was not in accord with either the post-colonial requirement of inclusive nation building in Jamaica or with identity politics and the deeper issues involved in rights and difference. It was in this latter spirit that I believe the interviewer and the audience were attuned to the exchange. Mr Golding did not seem to understand the kind of discourse on homosexual rights spawned by identity politics. In fact, around the time of the interview, the movement for gay and lesbian rights was celebrating International Day Against Homophobia, seeking to get the United Nations to decriminalise homosexuality. Homosexuality is still a crime in about 80 countries. Mr Golding's interview would have received especially wide attention on this occasion. His timing was bad.
The occasion celebrates the decision of the World Health Organisation in 1990 to cease the practice of regarding homosexuality as a mental disorder, a practice termed medical homophobia. That done, the movement might one day turn its attention to what might be called, political homophobia, the practice of discriminating against homosexuals in politics and government based on some presumption that they are unfit to represent their people and serve in their government.
People of different genders, religions, ideologies, races, ethnicities, levels of education, professions, marital status, and residence have served in Jamaica's Cabinet since Cabinet government was introduced in 1957.
pressure
What Golding has done by prime ministerial diktat, and effectively made into a policy of his government, is to say that homosexuals do not have a right or cannot be trusted or are not worthy to be in his Cabinet. He has defended this on the argument that he, as prime minister, has the exclusive right to select his Cabinet, and no one, including overseas opinion, should question or pressure him otherwise. This is really not the basis for making a reasonable decision.
In the first place, Golding's interpretation of prime ministerial power is rather extreme. In the second place, he has effectively shut out other opinions on the matter and would have been better off simply to have said that this was a matter for the Jamaican people to consider and would be asked to do so against the background of wider opinion and practice. Instead, Golding has come across as contradictory, because of his past complaints that Westminster prime ministers have too much power; and, as a tin pot Third World dictator, the kind of image people among the BBC's European audience have of countries like Jamaica.
worrisome
This last point is worrisome. It leads us to ask whether Golding is going to investigate the private life of his party's candidates for high office and parliamentary membership since he will have to depend on them for Cabinet service.
Is he going to establish a party commission to determine who is and who is not a homosexual in his party?
Political Homophobia in Jamaica
Much is said about homophobia in Jamaica. Indeed, a study by the Latin American Public Opinion Survey, done in 2006, showed that only about 20 per cent of Jamaicans felt that homosexuals should have the right to run for public office, a basic democratic right. But the study showed more than this. It showed that those with better education, more wealth, and those more tolerant of the democratic rights of others, were more tolerant of homosexuals. If attitudes towards homosexuals are a function of social class, then we should be creating better educated people enjoying higher standards of living with values more tolerant and understanding of others. It is in this kind of society that identity problems are resolved and the politics of difference does not undermine nation building.
Jamaica has many issues to debate - dual citizenship, the death penalty, abortion, homosexuality, and casino gambling, among them. Many of these are very difficult issues. Many lifestyle (moral and social) issues might be treated as settled on the basis of some religious dogma or as never really settled and must remain open to debate. What Golding should not have done is declare a policy as though this debate is closed.
Robert Buddan lectures in the Department of Government, UWI, Mona. Email: Robert.Buddan@uwimona.edu.jm, columns@gleanerjm.com
