Many Jamaicans are extremely conservative

Or... Is the word insular?

When I first arrived in Jamaica, some forty years ago now, I soon came to the realisation that Jamaicans are not as cool and open-minded as I had expected.

It was a surprise to me. I guess I had been brought up on a diet of rebellious reggae music and Rastafari in the UK, and I thought that was it. That was “Jamaicanness.” I was naïve.

I was reminded of Jamaicans’ old-fashioned attitudes, which emerged last week during the Olympics Opening Ceremony. Clearly Jamaicans would have preferred big spectacles and fireworks, as many would. But then, many threw up their hands in horror at what they perceived as “The Last Supper” - which clearly it was not. Did Jesus have such a crowd of disciples, and was that a blue Jesus cavorting in the foreground? No, it was the Greek god Dionysus. The Roman equivalent of this god was Bacchus, and he was fond of bacchanalia - crazy, drunken parties. Surely Caribbean people know what bacchanal is? It’s a word regularly used in the context of Carnival.

Anyway, Jamaican pearl-clutchers agreed with the right-wing Marjorie Taylor Greene and the accused paedophile Andrew Tate, who were shrieking away on social media.

“It is not our culture!” they all wailed, including well-educated Jamaicans who I thought would have at least tried to figure it out. It was the culture of the ancient Greeks, which was where the Olympics originated; so these ceremonies always tip their hat to those origins. The so-called Last Supper scene was doing exactly that - a nod to the ancient Greeks - and yes, they had some naughty gods! They weren’t Christians. So, perhaps we need to read up on our Greek myths? I don’t know.

This is an illustration of how many Jamaicans get on their high moral horses about a number of issues. Let’s face it: many are conservative, even extremely right-wing in their views. For example…

Very many - no, not all - are anti-abortion. They would love to see criminals hanged high. They applaud the police when they shoot someone: one less bad man gone. They are to one degree or another homophobic - yes, still. They know little about, or ignore any religion except Christianity. They don’t want any Haitians (or any other nationality) to migrate here. Stop the boats! If we were a large country, many might want to build a border wall, à la Trump. Many Jamaicans cling to our old colonial laws on abortion and buggery as if, were those laws abolished, the sky would fall. All of this is generally supported by fundamentalist Christian ideology, which seems to hold sway.

Come to think of it, if there was a Jamaican version of Trump, he would get plenty of votes. But in our case, is it just that we are very insular in our thinking? We are an island, after all. We don’t want our culture to be influenced - in the wrong way - by outside forces.

Meanwhile, a van stopped near our house yesterday, with an advertisement for a dance (drink till you drop!) screeching at full volume. It frightened the birds and the dogs started barking. A man got out of the van and proceeded to urinate on our fence. They then drove off, thankfully.

Is this “our culture,” though? And is it so different from Dionysus and his friends?

I’m getting confused, so I will stop here.

Ciro Ferri: Triumph of Bacchus (Dionysus to the Greeks). Here he is, the life and soul of the party.