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.
No comments:
Post a Comment