How many of you want to bet that by this same time next year, we would have had to recover from the harmful impacts of noise pollution from private and public, informal and official observances justified by reference to different components of what we describe as “de culture?”
In between, there will be the usual “zero tolerance” alerts
from the police, politicians, and official agencies. The collateral damage of
distressed babies (Kemani?), the aged, the ailing, animals (pets and wildlife),
and our general state of humanity would have been slapped to their respective
knees and, in most instances, made to stand again … for more.
On this issue, there is sad occasion to dispense with hope
and to focus instead on mitigation and adaptation rather than on resolution and
change. We are no longer lured by furious condemnation and spontaneous commitments
to address this continued slur on our humanity.
All that’s needed are tiny chinks in the regulatory armour,
the “culturally significant”, and “tradition” to extend advance pardon to purveyors
of undisputed harm and injury.
Admit it. We all saw it coming … again.
At around 1.00 p.m. on Thursday October 16 in the vicinity of
Lapeyrouse Cemetery along Tragarete Road in Port of Spain we heard an
approaching “music truck” and noticed what we thought was an accompanying
police escort on motorbikes.
The noise was thunderous and defiant of hands clasping
embattled ears. The motorbikes officiously escorted the traveling cacophony
through the traffic lights, ahead of other lunchtime traffic.
A funeral? Somebody’s birthday? A forthcoming political
rally? We didn’t know. We could not make out the words through covered ears.
Had the country’s noise pollution rules been written
differently and not granted free sheet to mobile sources, anyone in the
vicinity could have felt entitled to rouse the EMA’s “environmental police” –
whatever the other available, legally actionable avenues.
“But … I thought …” went my sister. Yes, I had also thought …
Less than a week before a usually noisy Divali, there had to be hope - against
considerable odds - that though promised legislation had yet to enter the public
domain, firm action against such harmful practices expressed as a political “priority”
would have at least been pre-emptively applied.
Following an election campaign that witnessed gratuitous employment
of music trucks to attract public attention, the PM – deafened perhaps by her
party’s own catchy choruses - had seemingly reached the end of her tether.
Music trucks, she contended, were “a scourge” requiring specific legislative
intervention.
Then there was the question of “fireworks” – that “public nuisance”
widely recognised here for its well-established negative impacts on natural fauna
and humans. Relatively muted Independence activities had promised much.
State of emergency conditions had also been inserted into
the discussion. But we should have all been alert to the shenanigans. Yet, people
sometimes live in hope – even when an SOE has been proven to be worthless for such
a purpose … and others.
This space has been used so many times in the past to remind
people that if we were to focus on what are the applicable laws, apart from our
Noise Pollution Rules under the Environmental Management Act; there are the
Explosives Act Chap 16:02, the Summary Offences Act Chap 11:02, and the Public
Holiday and Festival Act Chap 19:05.
I have, however, also repeatedly advised that this subject is
something that goes beyond what laws say and applies equally to what we as people
consider to be behaviour appropriate to the requirements of civilised society.
Note, as well, a gradual muting of dissent resulting, I
believe, from sheer hopelessness, and selective outrage on account of allegiances
of all varieties.
Check the files and you will find occasions when different
Cabinets committed to the records an intention to change things.
We have witnessed police commissioners who have spoken
eloquently and knowledgeably. “Activists” who have spoken painfully. Victims
who have displayed their wounds and losses.
Yes, there are other important things to occupy the public
space. But in a sense this issue can be used to instruct the way we address the
other challenges. For one, we can display a willingness to change our
collective ways once clear benefits have been established.
We can also learn that our acceptance of noise is a symptom
of our tolerance for disorder. A society that accepts noise without restraint
also risks accepting other forms of public harm with impunity.
There is also a lesson related to the exercise of
disciplined restraint to take us to a place where we distinguish between
culture and chaos and can intervene humanely at times when harm appears
imminent.
