Informal arguments can get heated, but they must never get out of hand.
On Saturday, December 17, 2022, an incident occurred between myself and Mr. Jomo Thomas, a man for whom I always had a lot of respect. The incident occurred at Heritage Square in Kingstown and was witnessed by several persons close to us.
As is usual, people from all walks of life meet at Heritage Square and discuss many issues, and these informal discussions can become heated. What happened on Saturday evening, however, should not have transpired.
Mr. Thomas joined in and brought up the subject of vaccination. His vehement and passionate stance as a COVID-19 anti-vaxxer may have caused him to be intensely indifferent towards facts, figures, and other evidence which may have been contrary to his views on the effectiveness and use of vaccines.
I too was vehement in my communication about the use of vaccines and gave Mr. Thomas a breakdown of different policies globally which had failed, like the Zero-Tolerance China Policy and the early Swedish (Great Barrington) policy which encouraged, no restrictions, no masks or social distancing so as to promote rapid natural immunity. This also failed as Sweden’s Covid death rate rose to 21,000, compared to its neighbor Norway’s rate of only 4,400 deaths. Jomo accused me of lying and the figures were incorrect but others checked the figures on-line and proved that they were correct.
He raised other issues and once again I proved him wrong. This may have caused Mr. Thomas some embarrassment in front of the gathering, he became verbally abusive towards me, even resorting to calling me an “asshole.” Though I felt a very aggressive energy emanating from Mr. Thomas, given the nature of these discussions, I paid Mr. Thomas no mind in relation to this and continued my discussion.
To my great surprise, Mr. Thomas violently pushed a chair on me, assaulting me and putting me in danger, to which I sought to reprimand him physically and had to strike him several times so that he could know I will not tolerate such behaviour.
We can disagree. We can argue, but we must not touch. Mr. Thomas was still relentless in his bid to score a victory by retaliating to my physical attempt at reprimanding him for attacking me. He did so by throwing punches at me, albeit unsuccessfully.
After this, he went to social media to try to paint me as the initiator and an antagonist when all I was doing was trying to defend myself against a physical onslaught that he started in front of several credible witnesses.
Mr. Thomas, in incredulous wrong and strong fashion, even used racist language to try branding me, referring to me as one of Gonsalves’ “Clansmen”.
I am a little surprised at this ordeal and I am appealing to Mr. Thomas to never again allow differences in opinion to bring him to such a low point with anyone. In a situation where we are trying to fight against so many negative societal issues such as violence against women and violence in general, why would he aggravate a situation by using violence to escalate it. It was just a simple discussion.
Honestly speaking, I have been exposed to countless incidence of verbal abuse for many years during my own time as a representative. I am known as a person that is never affected by such abuse, and with physical threats it is best to walk away. However, on this occasion, his physical assault induced the natural human instinctive response of defending myself and I was able to successfully neutralize his attack. I thought it was important to teach Jomo a lesson so that he will never venture down this road and assault anyone again. I am also appealing to all Vincentians to understand that we can agree to disagree, and that violence is not an answer.
I take this opportunity in the spirit of Christmas to wish everyone a peaceful season. Let love reign, and let us look out for each other.
