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Wednesday 11 October 2017

The clear, undisputed and R.H reasoning for not littering in Barbados (Article)


By Stanley Collymore

That “Cleanliness is next to Godliness” is a cultural, spiritual and hygienic mantra consciously, meticulously and assiduously embedded in as well as purposely drilled into the psyche of every one of us Bajans is an incontestable fact that is beyond disputation. A vocation, so to speak, that having been realized from birth, is willing carried out during our growing up years as young children and teenagers, scrupulously there afterwards forms a core element of our everyday lives and established adult existence.

A situation that’s accompanied throughout all this with a straight-up, uncompromising and a categorical no-nonsense admonition automatically and firmly administered by our politicians, familial and community elders, social advisors, teachers, cultural, religious and educational mentors; our numerous, principled and dedicated communal moral purveyors and therefore, not unnaturally against that unyielding and municipal backdrop, a quite understandable and expected reaction should those among us Bajans on any given occasion whether carelessly, forgetfully or intentionally depart from this universally recognized, freely accepted, widely adhered to and culturally longstanding expectation and obligation.

So it was always a no-brainer in the aforesaid affirmed circumstances to suppose that folk: either distinctly local or who were themselves visitors on vacation to our Caribbean island, abrogating these specific, social, cultural, hygienic and moral exhortations that are so deeply immersed in the psyche of all Barbadians wouldn’t distress, make angry and even genuinely alarm concerned Bajans outraged at this noticeably thoughtless and loutish behaviour. And whose natural response in typical Bajan vernacular will be to brusquely but, with humour as well, spiritedly exhort such selfish and evidently unmindful persons to unambiguously R.H. well, clean up their filthy actions, stop littering and, in the process, do all Bajans a great, big favour!

For decades now, and most sickeningly and increasing so, this Planet Earth that all of us who were born and are currently living here, and moreover quite involuntarily from our respective point of view because none of us had any choice in the matter or any participation whatsoever in the acts that initiated and brought about our conception or actual birth but, all the same call home, has shamefully and devastatingly been polluted in a diversity of ways which aren’t just highly detrimental to ourselves and our own kind but correspondingly so to all other forms of life that similarly and with every right and lawful justification to do so as we do, crucially too inhabit the earth.

And the striking thing from my personal point of view and that of others of a similar opinion is that this sort of reckless, despicable and despondently unsustainable conduct need not carry on happening; but does so all the same. And the transparent and principal motivation behind it all is the obviously clutching avariciousness and pernicious greed associated with millions of people globally from mass producers of consumer products, their retailers and quite clearly their mindless consumers. All this insidiously combined with a dishonest thoughtlessness, no concern as regards their really sickeningly and thoroughly disgusting actions by those directly involved in or who otherwise are themselves very supportive of this incredible contamination and mindlessly uncaring destruction prevalently but oh so pointlessly and quite malevolently inflicted on Mother Earth as well as its diverse animal, plant, creature and human inhabitants.

The kind of pollution and mindboggling destruction that not only affects earth’s land species, large or small, that together with ourselves utilize this planet as home and where many other land-based animals and diverse other creatures do their level best to survive, but equally and markedly increasingly so in this strikingly ominous process Planet Earth’s seas and oceans. A noticeable and unmistakably catastrophic situation where all forms of sea mammals and other forms of life that populate the seas and oceans of the world that we all share and have done so for millennia, and in many instances for far longer than human beings have done, are not only and increasingly being put at severe risk but are also dying in considerable numbers from our grotesque inhumanity and barbarity as human beings, a state of affairs which is itself wilfully and uncaringly spurred on, in the most narcissistic manner, by the exclusive birth monster of human selfishness and obdurate stupidity that if not sensibly checked and massively put into permanent reverse will see the eventual eradication of the world’s diverse species of land and see animals, other presently but evidently perilously living creatures, as well as dangerously threaten mankind’s own future existence.

For let’s be perfectly frank and furthermore be unequivocally honest about all this. Animals other than the human kind don’t intentionally plan to or otherwise pollute and destroy their own environment, neither do they purposely attempt to and actually do so without a solitary moment’s thought for or any consideration whatsoever in relation to what they’re inimically doing or worst so what lasting or even permanent effect their activities when carried out will unashamedly and cruelly disadvantageously have on others. A most dubious distinction and seemingly mammoth and perverse pride that only human beings callously claim.

So it’s with tremendous admiration and enormous pride that I both welcome and applaud my fellow Barbadians both in their astute recognition and consummate maturity for tenaciously tackling and maintaining the hygienic integrity and beautiful environment of our cherished Barbados. While, at the same time, in definitely straightforward and robust but classically humorous Bajan terms warning off and likewise exhorting polluters of our country and their ilk, whether they’re local or foreign visitors to our idyllic tropical shores, to R.H well, while there, NOT litter in any conceivable way or despoil the natural and picturesque land and sea environments of our cherished homeland, Barbados. 

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