Letter of the Day- On nervous nationalists

THE EDITOR, Madam:

MORRIS CARGILL of blessed memory was always wary of persons he called nervous nationalists. After reading Amina Blackwood Meeks article entitled "We have to protect fi wi sinting", I understand why.

The bogey of globalisation is at large, if Blackwood Meeks is to be believed. Her article is a call to all Jamaicans to be aware of this threat. Nude weddings, homosexuality and British conditions for the supply of guns are representative of the invidious threat facing our nation. Meeks can confidently speak on behalf of the country and to a shared sense of moral correctness. We are after all, one undifferentiated whole called Jamaicans, and are together engaged in a war with forces as yet undeclared. She need not be embarrassed about the moral selectivity of her arguments. Despite a tourist industry that commodifies male and female bodies, Blackwood Meeks may still assert the ethical limits of our engagement. The starkness of nude weddings, for one, is prohibited. Why? Because such a public and purposeful celebration of the body is foreign and incongruous with our local culture. (Read globalising) We [Jamaicans] are never that open, or permissive of such openness.

In the spin that has been constructed by nationalists such as Blackwood Meeks, all undesirable things may be disowned. Public nudity, sexual deviance and the f_ word (enter Senator Johnson) are fixed with foreign labels. Blackwood Meeks sees the rediscovery of the real Jamaican spirit as the answer to our national woes. For my part, I just wish we would be a little more honest.

I am etc.,

LAWSON WILLIAMS

Kingston

E-mail: lawson_williams@hotmail.com

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