#BTColumn – Clowns – do the right thing!

Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed by this author are their own and do not represent the official position of the Barbados Today.

by Jade Gibbons

We are to be in a time of rest, reflection, and renewal. Those are the directives from the leader of our nation, Prime Minister Mia Amor Mottley, during this National Pause.

To rest is to stop work or movement in order to relax or recover one’s strength.

To reflect is to think seriously about; it comes from the Latin reflectere which means to ‘bend back’. In the Friday, January 29th 2021 edition of this publication was another directive from another leader.

On page 6 Anesta Henry relayed the message from The Minister of Environment and National Beautification Adrian Forde to clean up. I am not going to define the phrase ‘clean up’ because even four-year-olds know what it means.

But for the clowns who think it is logical, sensible, or appropriate to drive around Barbados dropping their filth in other people’s neighbourhoods I want to show the connection between Minister Forde’s directive and Prime Minister Mottley’s.

Resting is important for the body. There are a myriad of studies showing how having a good night’s sleep improves cognitive functions. To think logically, one must allow the mind to rest.

Myriad of studies have shown the detrimental effect sleep deprivation has on the mind and people’s behaviour. It is evident that those ‘few people who have gone astray’ need to spend more time in bed and less time in a car.

Because it is utterly ludicrous for persons to have used the reduction in road traffic to dump their garbage along
the road in areas that prior to the curfew were normally in pristine condition.

It is abhorrent that one would use the fact that no one else is on the road to litter. So clowns, stan home. Rest yuh head. Cause unna clearly ent thinking straight.  Reflection is important for behavioural change. Before someone can change their behaviour, they must come to the understanding that something needs to change.

They must bend back in their minds to their previous actions and evaluate the consequences. The front page of the Wednesday 13th, January 2021 edition of this publication read: “What a Mess”. Pictured was the obscene image of an illegal dump site.

The caption read: “People continue to [leave] their filth to pollute other people’s neighbourhoods rather than send them to the national landfill at Mangrove Pond, St. Thomas.”

In an article on page 7, Shamar Blunt relayed the comments of The Sanitation Service Authority’s Public Relations Officer Carl ‘Alff’ Padmore that at one of the two dump sites recently discovered, rodents had found a place to call home.

Padmore also hinted to the fact that illegal dump sites also provided a home/breeding ground for mosquitoes. Minister Forde highlighted that ‘mosquito diseases kill more than two million people.’ And as irony would have it, on the page immediately before Henry’s article on Minister Forde was an article covering the story of four-year-old Skai Greenidge’s battle with dengue.

So clowns, can you see the relationship between your illegal dumping, the increase in the mosquito population and the hospitalisation of a child?

To the politically correct individuals who may take offence with the fact that I insist on calling persons who engage in illegal dumping clowns – kindly renew your perception of clowns. A clown puts on folly.

A clown is not innately stupid. That’s what an idiot is. So therefore if a clown can put on folly, he/she can also take it off. A clown has the ability to stop doing stupid, harmful things. An idiot cannot. And I know for a fact that persons engaging in illegal dumping are not idiots. After all, before one can drive somewhere and dump illegally one must pass a driving test.

Nowhere in known human history has a four-year-old passed a driving test. If a four-year-old understands what the phrase ‘clean up’ means surely so do adults. In the Tuesday 19th of January 2021 edition of this publication, an article by Marlon Madden titled: “Two more dengue-related deaths” relayed the comments of the Chief Medical Officer Dr. Kenneth George – ‘it is very important that persons… do the right thing.’

Jade Gibbons is an arts and business graduate with a keen interest in social issues and film-making. See https://www.jadegibbons246.com