TRUTH BE TOLD, our Attorney General Adriel Brathwaite did super in telling David Cameron where to get off. No civilized and knowledgeable politician can defend Prime Minister Cameron’s effrontery, condescending rights rigmarole, or alleged humour of bad taste.
We could have been warned in advance, by those who know, that the British prime minister, attending the Commonwealth Heads Of Government Meeting (CHOGM) for the first time, would have wanted to make some mark on the world. Poor Commonwealth Third World nation leaders who are always jetting about the place first class, cap in hand!
All in one bunch ready to be pounced upon. Leave out Barbados with the begging; still, we want too many friends.
But it was heartening to hear Adriel declare that we wouldn’t be talked to in that manner by anybody – and certainly not by the likes of Mr Cameron.
First, Mr Cameron is no Winston Churchill; he has not the imagination, facility with words, or willpower. He is a beleaguered leader trying his damnest to get the upper hand on co-head Nick Clegg and Labour’s Ed Miliband – as far as image and charisma go, and by the time the British general election comes – by getting the notice of the world.
But as I recall, the world is still a stage – on which many mere actors have bumbled and fumbled, and have fallen.
Mr Cameron would have himself seen as the political progenitor of international gay rights; world commissioner of police in enforcing them too. Do as I say, or starve! The old colonial strategy of oppression of free thought.
Let us not be blinded. This is the Cameronesque foreign assistance policy of the day, which, we must admit, Britain reserves the right to make. After all, such foreign assistance decisions serve primarily the interests of the donor state, not of those with their caps in their hands.
Notwithstanding, Mr Cameron has no right attempting to coerce donor-benefiting states of the Commonwealth into compromising their cultural norms and laws for the purpose of advancing British foreign policy.
Balderdash is the “clarification” by Downing Street that Prime Minister Cameron’s statement “was in the context of British foreign policy to promote human rights around the world” – especially when it is set next to the unacceptable offence against the sovereignty of other Commonwealth members.
As Attorney General Brathwaite has indicated, Barbados is capable of addressing homosexuality and gay rights and upholding our laws, and preserving our cultural values and protecting the human rights of all our citizens. It is not a matter the British government will decide for us.Â
Nor will our own Darcy Dear, may I add. I am not impressed by his outrageous comments, suggestions or temptations.
That a shipload of gays came a-sailing in and I didn’t know until Monsieur Dear informed me suggests the cuties were kind of under the radar – where they should be. We don’t need the ruckus and hullabaloo when the merry band come to our shores.
Naturally, they are free to spend their money (which M Dear believes they have more than their fair share of) and to criss-cross these fields and hills of mine in peace. We don’t need Mr Cameron to tell us how to open our arms to gays and extend courtesies – so long as they behave themselves.
From the days of less “tolerance” when, at worst, the “she-shes” and “Christines” – as they were familiarly called – were friendlily teased about their wear or exaggerated gait, the village or district accepted the minority group for what they were.
And, the closet gays – which there definitely were – were whispered about, like everybody else’s business. To their credit, neither the closet nor gaited gay was in your face, and everybody was relatively private and happy.
Gay rights in Barbados need not manifest themselves in any annual City parade or Kadooment band of scantily clad men in bikinis and thongs, or women on cloud sixty-nine – or by the Charter Of Cameron.
Some will accuse me of suffering with allthatbuttphobia; but I do not mind. I shall endure. The race is not to the swift.
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