Who Beenie Man thinks he is?
That’s the question put to this Jamaican artiste by some Nation online readers this past week when he asked Immigration officials to Ease Up Jamaican. Stop Pressure Jamaican.
Readers took Beenie Man to task when, during his performance at Reggae On The Beach last Monday, he made the appeal.
These were some of the responses we received.
Marva Marshall: “Who Beenie Man think he is? No-one is above our sovereignty except God. Tell Beenie Man for me, he and his friends need and should be processed like anyone else. Because he is an internationally-recognised singer that does not give him special privileges.”
Claire Battershield: “I am not saying that the Immigration officers did what they were accused of or not .What I say, however, is that they have a job to do and persons need to adhere to the rules of whichever island or country they travel to.
“Stop doing what you clearly know would be offensive and then crying. Let your travels be stress-free. We must not ever get the idea we are above the law whatever our station is in life.”
Another reader wrote: “Beenie Man is warning Bajan Immigration officials. He got some nerve. He came into our country and, in a very smart way, disrespected our officials while the “masses” partied to his music.
“That is the most disrespectful thing I have ever heard. I wonder which Bajan singer could have done that in Jamaica, or any other Caribbean country for that matter. That would have been taken as a threat to national security. Bajans are something else.
“They don’t even realise what is happening right under their noses. When will they wake up?”
When Stella Lady St John said she was hurt that she was not given the chance to deliver her usual Founder’s Day speech at the official opening of the recently-concluded Oistins Fish Festival, readers also responded.
Lady St John said she was annoyed that “they didn’t have the bloody courtesy” to let her know she would not be playing a part in the programme.
This is what some readers had to say:
C Holder: “It is gross disrespect to Stella Lady St John by that committee. What can such adults teach the youth when they display this basic lack of manners and protocol?”
Ann B: “It would have been honourable to have informed Lady St John of the change and get her input, no matter what happened last year. In my view, it was very disrespectful and unprofessional to exclude the person who started the event.”
Kimberley Harding: “I admit Lady St John should have received some sort of formal decline for her to present her speech, but at the same time she sounds way too childish right here. The Oistins Fish Festival is not about her. The festival is about celebrating the heritage of Oistins and the fisherfolk.”
Another reader wrote: “I am sympathetic to the feeling that as a “founder” of the festival she should have been given some notice. That aside, I find it quite distasteful that Lady St John would make this big a deal of the thing . . . .”
