We’re following the Pied Piper’s noisy call

At 3 a.m. on Easter Sunday, the sound of pulsating music and a DJ over a loudspeaker belting out directions to “juck, juck and pooch back” charged the usual early morning quiet. A neighbour later informed me that it had in fact been going on from around 1 a.m. and he realised that he would no longer get any sleep, so he decided to stay up. As for me, I was awakened at 3 a.m. and I never got back to sleep that day either. The DJ at that event who addressed “all ah wunna people in wunna bed” clearly saw it as his duty to involve us in his party. Confused and in disbelief, I sat up. I couldn’t figure out where the noise was coming from.

In the end, I discovered that it was coming from the Gymnasium. A call to the relevant authorities revealed that whoever was having the shindig had been given permission by the District ‘A’ Police Station. I was disappointed, as I hold our Police Service in high esteem. I respect them and see them as doing a huge and mostly thankless job at serving and protecting us.

So how had this event even happened? My nearby police station informed me that there were many complaints after I made my second call to them around 5 a.m. By then, a declaration had been made by the DJ of the fete that they were going to have “a last lap”. The event continued on until the sun rose and, apparently, the loud music travelled for miles, affecting people in other districts. I still don’t know why the promoters of this event were given permission to hold a fete on Easter Sunday, at one in the morning, amidst all the talk about addressing noise pollution. It just doesn’t make sense.

As an educator and one who has worked with the youth in the community since 1998, I see the struggles of our children: the dysfunction at home, the failure to make the connection between education and upward mobility, the mixed messages being sent by the adults, and then the complaints of these same adults that they, the youth, are wayward. All this serves only to confuse the youth and make them even more rebellious. But what are we the adults doing to help them? Wukking up was branded as our culture some years back and I recently saw a brief ad on local television stating that partying was our culture. So, will this now be our newest branding?

The aim seems to be to make Barbados the party capital of the Caribbean, but what are we going to do when the party is over, and filthy and at times violent lyrics have made their way into the psyche of our youth via the music that we the adults create and then play repeatedly? In fact, what are we doing, because those lyrics are already in their heads and they are already acting out what they have been taught via the repeated playing of such songs.

One of the ways that we learn is by repetition and the constant playing of negative songs is actually teaching the listeners to behave and think in a negative way, whether we realise it or not. Many children’s events no longer cater to the children; at least not based on the types of songs I hear being played at them. I was told the children want these songs, but children eat what we feed them – literally and figuratively – and they become what they consume.

My little island seems to be slipping down a slippery slope of no return and since we have not put brakes on things, we’re now waking up to ask: “What is happening in Barbados?” But there was a time when fetes were not held on Sundays, when women jumping at Kadooment did not wear costumes that left little to the imagination, when children weren’t asked by parents if they wanted to attend Sunday School, and when education was important to families.

Ours, however, has slowly but steadily become a materialistic, hedonistic culture where, as if taking a cue from the Pied Piper of Hamelin, adults are leading the charge with music, but with loud, filthy music blaring from their cars, from the minivans and from these open-air fetes. This is accompanied by a decided emphasis on money over morals and loose lifestyles over decorum. Little girls without daddies in the home are running to men who groom them for sex rather than mentor them correctly and put them on the path to being whole and fulfilled adults. A look at some of the videos circulating where adult male entertainers are encouraging scantily clad young girls to come onstage and express themselves in the most vulgar ways possible is a call for stop, not even pause. Little boys without dads to guide them are turning to the block culture and gangs, and some parents themselves are clueless as to how to parent.

Some seem intent on remaining clueless, and partying seems to be more important to a lot of them.

As I listened to the DJ on Easter Sunday morning complimenting a woman for her gyrating, I couldn’t help but think: we need these men who are the promoters and DJs of these loud fetes to serve in our churches, to lead our Boy Scouts, to make a positive difference in our society. We need these women who are “skinning out” at these fetes to be leaders in our churches, to nurture our children and to also make positive differences in our society. If we go to church by day (or not and all) and fete with unbridled abandon at all hours of the day, what message are we sending, what seeds are we sowing? We can’t tell our children to behave and then be “skinning out” at fetes and events like Kadooment. What licence do we have to correct the children on whom we then look with reproach when they copy us and then do ten times worse?

We the adults, like the Pied Piper of Hamelin, are leading our children astray. We are not giving them the correct artillery to fight life’s battles. In too many instances, it has either come down to having a good time, money in the promoters’ pockets and living for the next high, or it has come down to just shaking our heads and grumbling if we don’t like what we see happening. If we recall the story of the Pied Piper of Hamelin, the parents never saw their children again, as the Pied Piper led them all away with his music. Is this what we want for our precious youth?

Zoanne Evans