Seven days after going missing, young Tessa returned home on
Sunday to the relief of an entire St Joseph community. A “mixed breed” black
and brown dog, wearing a pink collar, her situation was the single most
discussed issue on the neighbourhood WhatsApp group for a very long time –
including ongoing discourses on crime.
Maybe it’s the algorithms or sheer coincidence, but I also
cannot remember as many missing animal reports as were recorded since … you
know when. One unfortunate character was arguing on social media that the noise
and mayhem were an important part of religious observance. Don’t huff and puff,
I’ve heard other denominations with the same talk.
In a community that experiences frequent encounters with
non-domestic animals – birds, squirrels, parrots, manicous, iguanas and others,
it could not have been roaming hunters alone responsible for their sudden
absence for about a week.
In a few weeks from now, we are bracing for the same
assaults – long established to be harmful to humans and our natural
environment. Then, for yet another 12 months, leaders of politics, religion,
business, together with numerous everyday citizens will be declaring: “leave
dem nah”.
The fact is, not one single government has been prepared to
do what is needed to address the problem – Noise Pollution Rules and Summary
Offences Act notwithstanding. “Zero tolerance” thus remains among the more
hollow official declarations.
Yes, I will be the sourpuss to keep at this. For, I do not
subscribe to the preservation of any ancient or longstanding cultural or other
practice that is provably harmful. We have already discussed this in instances
of child marriage, corporal punishment, and vigilante justice, among others.
But where else is the dissent? Environmental groups, animal
rights activists, and a few stragglers with access to public platforms say the
same things at least three times a year. The typical response elevates such
practices to approvable cultural practice and tradition.
Where are the politicians invoking regulation and
enforcement? The business leaders urging moderation, even in pursuit of
profits? Religious leaders preaching a duty of care? The police doing their
duty? And community leaders helping people understand the potential for damage
and injury.
True, it may well be that a referendum on continued breaches
of law and civilized behaviour will fail on the basis of notions of cultural
value. So, until this changes, every single year, on more than one occasion, we
will hear the complaints of the ill and aged affected by the noise and smoke,
and there will be the ritualistic posting of photos of lost pets spooked by the
mayhem, and natural flora and fauna cynically disturbed and destroyed. Nothing
will change.
Not long from now, mere weeks away, the posters identifying
missing animals will go up again around our neighbourhoods, somebody will
require more medication or attention for burns, maybe a house of two will be
damaged or destroyed by fire, and the letters to the newspapers and radio talk
shows calling for more considerate citizens will be in abundance.
Then we won’t have to wait too long for the assurance that
something will be done about the situation. We know the drill. A Cabinet item,
public consultations, “zero tolerance” etc etc.
Some of us have been around long enough to have heard all of
this numerous times from politicians, police commissioners and everyone
in-between.
Maybe this will earn mention at forthcoming “crime talks” of
the various varieties currently on the table, once the main actors drop the
political grandstanding.
At times like these, colleague journalists ought to be busy
checking with the various magistrates’ courts on the vast amounts being
transferred into government coffers as a result of fines derived from
application of the law - $1,000 under Chapter 11:02 and $1,500 under Section 70
of the Summary Offences Act.
Everywhere, in full view of politicians of national and
local status, the police, religious leaders, respectable business people,
academics, professionals, and lesser mortals such as journalists we could have
run informal tallies. In my area alone, the national coffers could have
benefitted in the tens of thousands. Some people kept count – but more in order
to calculate the cost of idiocy.
I can imagine the ensuing Cabinet discussions. The minister
of social development congratulating the minister of national security, the
prime minister congratulating the minister of finance.
We can at least dream on – provided we are given the
opportunity to sleep of course.
