A Wee Change In Our Tourism Strategy
Jamaica has a bit of a PR problem…
Gay Men in Jamaica Attacked by Mob
Last week, in the Jamaican town of Mandeville, three gay men were attacked in their home by an angry mob of approximately 20 people who had threatened them with violence days before if they did not leave the community.
After the incident, two of the attacked men were hospitalized, one with serious injuries including a severed ear, an arm broken in two places and a damaged spine, while another man is still missing and feared dead. This is only the latest in a wave of attacks on gay men in notoriously homophobic Jamaica.
According to a Human Rights Watch press release, the attack on these men echoes another incident in the same town on Easter Sunday, April 8, 2007 when approximately 100 men gathered outside a church where 150 people were attending the funeral of a gay man.
According to mourners, the crowd broke the windows with bottles and shouted, “We want no battyman [gay] funeral here. Leave or else we’re going to kill you. We don’t want no battyman buried here in Mandeville.”
Several mourners inside the church called the police to request protection. After half an hour, three police officers arrived but did little to calm situation, opting instead to commiserate and laugh with the menacing mob until several gay men among the mourners took knives from their cars for self-defense.
This seems to be causing a bit of a drop off in tourism in that lovely country. The solution?
Jamaica to tap into religious tourism
Jamaica plans to tap into the thriving market for religious-oriented tourism to invigorate the island’s sagging economy, government officials and business leaders said.
A new convention center, to be built by 2009, will attract some of the millions of travelers who attend religious conferences outside of their home countries, said Tourism Minister Edmund Bartlett. The global religious tourism market is an $18 billion-a-year industry with some 300 million travelers, according to the Colorado-based World Religious Travel Association.
Hey mon…I have a plan…you know…let’s go after the hate market…
Of course, the flaw in this grand plan is that the hate market, at least here in America, doesn’t much like darkies either. But if you shine their shoes and call them "Massa" they’ll at least tip decently.
