Yesterday we published a Police Report headed “Vandalism of Statues on Cayman Brac Discovered Saturday, 12 August”. The report stated the “police responded to a complaint of damage to property at a location on Southside Road on Cayman Brac. Some statues on display at the location, a vacant lot, were observed lying on the ground and damaged. The statues had last been seen upright and undamaged around 6:30PM the evening before, Friday, 11 August. Police officers spoke with the complainant, made checks in the area and are conducting an investigation.”

You will notice there is no mention of who the complainant is nor anything about the statues themselves – size, description, material, etc. Just ‘statues’.

It is obvious, however, to anyone who reads, hears or watches local media who the complainant is and the notoriety these statues.

Controversial Cayman Brac artist Ronald “Foots” Kynes, a couple of weeks before the damage to these statues was, in my opinion, needlessly arrested by officers from the RCIPS on suspicion of an obscenity violation. He has so far not been charged. You see, the statues show nude women in sexual embraces and the majority of the Brac population don’t like them.

I have now seen photographs of the statues. When I wrote an Editorial on the incident soon after the arrest of artist Kynes, I had not.

My Editorial asked the question when is art pornographic? I referred to what is on display at The Tate Gallery in London that is described and shown as art. In my opinion, if one would place the now defaced statues against exhibits in the Tate Gallery it would be like comparing an Enid Blyton’s children’s book (Noddy comes to mind) with Game of Thrones.

In plain language there is a HUGE difference in the artistic form of what some people would deem as artistic works of art and others as being pornographic.

On television at the moment what would be deemed unacceptable and shocking only ten years ago is now still shocking but acceptable.

It may appear I am straying from my Editorial heading of ‘Vandalism is vandalism even in the Brac”.

However, I had to give the background to the events leading up to the vandalism.

The whole affair is simply a dispute between an alien artist who decided to take up residence in a foreign country and not respect what the citizens there have accepted for generations as the correct community standards. Standards they are accustomed to and want to continue.

As we know laws, especially God’s laws are watered down now as every year goes by. This is largely because of the media who listen to the continual shouts of the minorities. In many cases, the minorities do need a voice to be heard. Sadly, not every minority case is a good enough reason to change the laws.

We must obey these new laws if we don’t want to end up being arrested and placed before a judge. And only a judge should make the judgement.

Just because something has been done that we feel is not to our liking we cannot take the law into our own hands. A complaint about these statues was made to the police. Kynes was arrested. Some of his other works of art also aroused local wrath but these weren’t deemed as being sexually offensive. The police did not get involved. Person or persons vandalised also these previous works of art. The police then did get involved because Kynes made a complaint.

And the police themselves cannot make the judgement when it is not to their liking whether they are going to execute the same investigations if they are not happy with what they are investigating.

Someone high up in the police made a judgement from pressure from the Brac community to arrest artist Keynes. Keynes works of art have been vandalised before but even in this small community not one single arrest was made. Why? Is the same result going to happen again?

Keynes is an international artist and these same questions are soon going to be asked by others and these others are not going to be the local rinki dink lowly Colin Wilson! The International press may find this story very interesting.

The whole affair could have and should have been handled differently. I hope the police find who the culprit or culprits are who vandalised Keynes statues and make arrests as quickly as they did when they first visited our controversial artist.

Vandalism is vandalism even in Cayman Brac even if you don’t mind it being vandalised.