#BTColumn – Simply choose to be different

Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed by the author(s) do not represent the official position of Barbados TODAY.

by Jade Gibbons

I had a relapse in my soca addiction this week. I enjoyed it. Soca is sweet. The music is neutral. Whether the lyrics glorify God or not, soca music will always be sweet. Spiritual maturity is understanding that listening to a sweet riddim that carries filthy lyrics is consuming poison. They say that music is soul food. Therefore, listening to secular music is like eating rancid meat. It is not good.

Culture is the character of the collective. With that in mind, I now have come to the appreciation that Bajan men are very abusive. And there is no difference between men in the world and men in the church. Christian men beat their wives. Christian men are verbally abusive. Christian men are neglectful. I have concrete, specific examples for all of these. I am simply choosing not to name the men I am thinking about.

During my relapse in secular soca what struck me was how sexually violent the lyrics were. To me, the artistes sounded like lyrical rapists. The only songs that were not sexually violent were songs that focused on inebriation or collective revelry (camaraderie).

We say as a nation that Crop Over and all its facets ‘is we culture.’ That is to say, the sexual violence that secular soca displays and glorifies is the character of the collective. The collective consists of the individual. This would not be something worthy of noting if the church’s culture was different. If Christian men were not abusive, I wouldn’t be highlighting this. The world will always do and glorify bad things. The issue as I see it is when the bad things the world glorifies are not confronted by the church.

All sexual violence is accompanied by physical and verbal abuse. These are the prerequisites. You cannot rape a woman without first beating her (Lashes & Licks). In the process of raping a woman, rapists tend to verbally abuse her to stop her from screaming (Less Noise). A part of me feels that if the church addressed the prevalence of physical and verbal abuse among its congregants, sexual violence would decrease.

When I was studying in the UK, I made friends with Master’s students from Southampton University. I learnt something super important from one of them (Ali) that I intend to keep with me for the rest of my life. A good man will never hit a woman. He will fight himself to not hurt her. On the day Ali’s uncle died he was a hot mess. Ali was the kind of person whose joy lit up a room.

Normally, he was very chatty, flirty, playful, and talkative. On the day his uncle died you knew something was wrong because the flat was quiet. Ali was withdrawn. His flat mate, Louis, told me what happened. I tried to help but I don’t think I did. Ali was mean to me, so I withdrew from him. Then night came and all hell broke loose. Ali was tired of being sad and decided he wanted to go partying. Louis tried to stop him but there was no stopping Ali in that state. So, we went with him. We didn’t go to a club because Louis refused to let Ali go. We went to the Student Union lounge (SU) which was a multi-use space. There was a café, a games area, and a small dance floor. This was sufficient for Ali.

No one was on the dance floor. Most people in the SU were playing games. Ali got drunker. He was already drunk before we left the flat (pre-drinking). As the night progressed Ali’s behaviour deteriorated and Louis was like ‘we have to get him out of here.’ Louis went to get Ali off the dance floor, but Ali was having none of it. I remember God telling me ‘you have to go and get him.’ I resisted. I was upset at Ali for being mean to me. Eventually Ali and Louis started fighting. While Louis had been trying to get Ali, Ali started hitting him. Louis has a lot of patience, so it took a while before he retaliated.

Louis also knows how to take a punch, so when he retaliated, I knew Ali’s punches had to really hurt, otherwise Louis wouldn’t have punched back. Louis was withholding. Most of his punches were defensive. He was trying to stop Ali from hitting him. He wasn’t trying to hurt Ali.

God said, ‘Look, they are fighting. You have to go and get him.’ Seeing them fight broke something in me. They were like brothers and now they were fighting. I obeyed, mustered courage, and went for Ali. When I grabbed his arms, I was bracing for the impact of one of his punches. I expected him to hit me. But something amazing happened.

From the time I touched Ali, he stopped fighting. He turned his fight on himself. I walked him out and held him as we walked home. I was amazed that for the whole journey Ali never fought me. Ali fought himself. He cared about me enough to not put his hand on me. Ali was drunk. Ali was in emotional distress.

He was in a foreign country without his biological family. On that night, Ali was every excuse men use for beating women. And yet he did not hit me, not once. Because of Ali I know that there is no excuse for a man hitting a woman. None. Any man who hits a woman is a bad man. Any Christian man who hits a woman is wicked.

When I was producing the film You Never Know, in my misguided patriotism, I wanted every aspect of the film from preproduction to postproduction to be done by Bajans. It was to be a 100 per cent Bajan film. Yet the behaviour of a Bajan man hindered that. The man who edited the film was an Indian from Rajasthan (Manendra). Without knowing it, Manendra conquered prejudice in me.

Rajasthan is one of the worst states in India when it comes to violence against women. The culture is so toxic that rather than go through the formal arrange marriage system to get brides from other states, Rajasthani men go to other states and kidnap women. The fact that there are not enough women locally to marry local men in the first place tells you how toxic the culture is (female foeticide).

I had a lot of prejudice towards Rajasthani men because of the statistics. But here is what Manendra taught me – you can choose to be different. Manendra, the Rajasthani Hindu, was more respectful and easier to work with than the Bajan Christian editor I had originally lined up. In the end, Manendra used his knowledge of toxic culture to do me a huge solid favour. I play the part of a prostitute in You Never Know. It is a small scene where Smith (the pimp) is coming to collect money from one of her girls.

The prostitute withholds.

Smith beats her, forcing her to give Smith the money she withheld. There was a narrative error in the first edit of the scene which I told Manendra to fix. I also told him to change the take he chose to use because another take was better.

Manendra fixed the error but left the take. Because the error had been addressed, I did not make an issue over the fact that he left the take. When the film came out, I understood why Manendra left the take. Four different people judged me because of the role I played – three men and one woman. All the men (a Christian man included) spoke lewdly to me and made jokes about ‘seeing me down Bush Hill.’

The woman did not verbalise her judgment, but it was on her face. What she did say was that she almost did not recognise it was me because of the lack of lighting in the shot. When these things happened, I understood why Manendra left the take and was grateful. He is Rajasthani. He knew how people would react to me playing the part of a prostitute.

The men would want to make it real. And the women would mistreat me. The take I wanted him to use was better lit and the performance was stronger. You could see my face better and the innocence was gone from my eyes. I could not anticipate the public’s reaction to that scene. But Manendra could and shielded me from it.

I tell you the stories of Manendra and Ali to make this point – Christian men have no excuse. It does not matter what culture you have been raised in (Manendra). It does not matter what you are going through (Ali). If you are a man of God, your role is to be a defender of the women in your community. Even if it means you have to fight yourself to protect her.

Jade Gibbons is an arts and business graduate with a keen interest in social issues and film-making. See https:// www.jadegibbons246.com