Senseless

By Heidi Badenock

SILENCE DOES not amount to consent, agreement, or acceptance under the law, but in St. Vincent and the Grenadines the deafening silence as it relates to the rotting core of our nation points to our passive agreement with the ongoing rot.

Patrice Roberts’ voice, in her arguably most popular international hit to date ‘Mind My Business’ resonated around the world and throughout the region as her melodic tunes told us a story of how water will be drunk, and how her business will be minded.

We as a Caribbean people debatably do not like to mind our business. We all engage from time to time in the extracurricular activity of comess listening or comess passing.

We all know who with who, who beating who, which small girl ‘fast’, who is a teef man and whose sister uncle cousin is coming from foreign.

Despite being privy to this dearth of information in our day to day lives, when it comes to the things that matter, the things that can invariably change or positively impact the lives of the vulnerable in society, our thirst for water becomes so much so that we become possessed with the unnatural ability to mind our business.

The word senseless is often used to refer to acts of extreme violence but it would appear however that our responses as a people to these acts is what is senseless. When these issues arise, we tend to lose our sight, voice, and ears.

The strange and somewhat troubling part about this senselessness is that the degree by which this loss of sense affects us varies depending on who is the victim, or who is the accused. What is even more troubling is that this loss of sense only travels in one direction for many.

If the accused is our friend, family member, or someone we hold in high regard, our senses immediately shut down and our defender mode is activated. This positioning, unfortunately, appears to affect a very wide cross-section of our society with them adopting the position to remain silent on the ills of society.

The churches, the politicians, NGOs, special interest groups have time and time again demonstrated their loss of sense on matters that will impact SVG generationally bringing us close to the end of a rope that may render us too far gone.

It is time for us as a people to remember what our five senses are and put them to good use. Silence, senselessness will render us all culpable for the continued rotting at our core.

Heidi Badenock is a lawyer and periodic social commentator.