Foreword:

This letter came to me in a vision! Auditory hallucination, more accurately, but that hardly sounds… biblical… but it came to me in the form of a slow clear voice whispering like a groaning tree in my ear as I struggled (as usual) to get to sleep. While it was happening it felt very real to me, the air around me seemed to pulse and crackle with energy and my body felt as if it were vibrating.  Despite this, the truth is, that the fact that this letter came to me in this fashion is almost meaningless, this is just how my imagination has always worked. My creative output is as often as not the result of some intrusive sensory glitch(?). I mention this only to say the following: 

1. My visions are real and profound to me, but I know they are not real.
2. I am comfortable sharing them in my opinion based blog.
3. They are similar to weird declarations about God using earthquakes to move oil veins closer to Barbados inasmuch as no such nonsense belongs in a national news publication.
4. I am puzzled by the hopeful tone of the letter… but it’s probably nothing… 
5. Apparently I can’t help being snide 

​

Dear Barbados,

I am deeply troubled and, quite frankly, slightly offended by the recent (officially sanctioned) call for prayer and silence in response to the most recent spate of violence in Barbados. It with a heavy heart and weary mind that I write* this letter to you, but I am compelled by the feeling that not to do so would be to renege on my (albeit self-designated) responsibility to our tiny little nation. I am after all, as many are at pains to point out every hurricane season, a Bajan. And while “Bajan” is by no stretch of even the most elastic imagination, the only nationality I can claim, as a Bajan I want only the best for my Barbados.

I vacillated about writing this letter for several days because, as I’m sure you can appreciate, I am loath to create the misperception that I am in some way anti-prayer. It should come as no surprise to you that I like prayer… that’s why I invented it. Before I go any further I do want to point out that, while I don’t want to appear to be anti-prayer I have no such concerns regarding appearing anti-moments of silence. In fact I am unabashedly anti-moments of silence. What the hell (pardon me) are you calling for a moment of silence for? The absolute last thing Barbados needs regarding our violent crime is yet more silence.

But I digress, I was saying, I like prayer, I understand how prayer can be valuable. I appreciate that violence is terrifying and prayer can afford many great comfort. Also, while I’m not saying that I’m above (pardon the pun) a miracle or two (more on this later) isn’t it reasonable to expect that I too must have faith in man? Is it too much to imagine that, as you’re made in my image and all, that I would  hope (have faith) that you would be discerning and proactive enough to use the sense of community that prayer often engenders as a starting point … as a place to truly think about what is causing the violence, truly think about it… not hide behind convenient myths and comfortable clichés. I would think that, as you have the attention of so many people of like mind, you would at the very least start a meaningful conversation about violent crime in Barbados … is that too much to ask?! Instead I have to listen to people proclaiming that since the few days of prayer they’ve “noticed a decrease in crime”. Let me tell you something!! I had nothing to do with that, what happened there (as I’m sure some of you are recognizing now) was a lull. It was a mathematical inevitability… that’s how nature works… things ebb and flow… I ought to know! And the other day I read in the papers (before you say anything…I don’t have to read the papers…I know the news before it happens, but I like reading) some idiot saying that people need to double down and pray and fast!!!! STOP IT!

I didn’t create this problem, I’m not fixing it… you can pray and fast until you ascend to the glorious incoherence of glossolalia or until I come back come back for all I care (and I’m seriously considering not returning) I’m NOT fixing this!  

I have to tell you, and this may come as a surprise to some of you… I like prayer… but sometimes I’m sorry I invented it… it has turned out to be more of a nuisance than the devil.
There really is no gentle way to put this…

FREE WILL!!!! 

USE IT!

GOOD ME MAN!!!

I don’t get it! I could have made you in three seconds?!! Three seconds!! I who can manipulate the structure of atoms, I who can control the very fabric of time, I who made the glue that holds reality together… human beings aren’t that complicated… trust me! A head, two arms, two legs, bubbies for some, balls for some, some get both, some get none, basic internal organs… done! I could have done that in the blink of an eye… but no! I took my good time and I crafted free will, and intelligence and imagination to give to you. Do you even appreciate how subtle and complex a gift that is? Or how much effort it took to make? It’s because of free will that I decided to rest for a whole day.

Why do you think I would go to such great lengths, give myself so much work??? Precisely so you WOULDN’T have to bother me for every blasted thing!!! God do this, god do that, god stop the violence, god fix the economy, Jesus take the wheel, lord come for your world… ME DAMMIT!!! And… while I’m venting… STOP PICKING ON MY BOY! Why is it that every time there’s a crisis you’se got to bring up Jesus? Talking about, one, “the people have turned away from Jesus! We need more Jesus in the schools…” really? Jesus is in the schools every morning at assembly, the place is peppered with Christian youth groups… what more you want from the boy??! How about courses in problem solving and conflict resolution? Huh? How about that??! And how can you reasonably claim that people have turned away from Jesus? All you have to do is listen to yourselves on any given day… calling out for Jesus all day… every stumped toe, lost car key… orgasm!!! It’s all we hear up here…”Jesus Christ… Jesus Christ…”

SUS CHROIS!!

Sorry I got a little… wrathed there…

What I’m saying is… for my sake use your ME given initiative. I really did put a lot of time and effort into it, it works… trust me. You have to stop humbugging me…  have you ever asked yourselves why I stopped doing big flashy miracles like parting seas and talking donkeys? In those days people took the initiative. Moses didn’t pray for me to stop the Egyptian man from beating Hebrews he bust loose the man’s head and buried him in the sand (probably not the best example I could have used given the context... but you get the point). I hadn’t invented the internet yet as a result Moses couldn’t google, “how to organize a mass exodus”, so I spoke to him directly. When I parted the red sea the people were prepared to walk… I often think that if I were to do such today you lot would immediately start praying for airconditioned buses to take you across… there’s a reason your old people used to say “God helps those who help themselves.”
You can’t seriously expect me to come all the way from heaven just to fix simple problems that I’ve already given you the ability to solve. You can do it… have some faith man.

LOVE
         THE SOURCE.

PS.
Obviously I didn’t inspire this letter… this is nothing more than a writer’s cynical use of a literary device to communicate an idea. If you’re offended remember it’s satire, that’s how it works, it’s not too mysterious the ways in which satire and metaphor perform.
(I really, really can’t help being snide 😊)**
 

 
 

Our schools have been in the news quite a bit lately haven't they? If you, like many of us do as we age, tend to romanticise the past or (in some cases) forget it altogether, you probably find yourself looking at the situation of late and lamenting the state of today's youth, or our declining moral standards, or the dissolution of the Bajan family structure and discipline, or any one of the many unexamined, bullshitty cliched ideas that we tend to trot out whenever faced with (what we percieve to be) youth deviance.
These ridiculous notions are encouraged by our media's tendency to run what I call diet stories, (low fact, high sensationalism, zero analysis). These stories do not challenge us in anyway to look critically at these situations nor to confront our baseless notions. In fact, in the most recently covered stories of untoward incidents in schools the media in their initial coverage managed to, rather deftly ignore/omit the complexity of what had transpired. When a student at one school refused to pick up a wrapper as she was ordered to do, the media focus was on her defiance and her (hilarious and rather witty) declaration that her mother had not sent her to school to collect garbage. The journalists (?) covering the story failed to ask, or even raise the most obvious questions; the first of which would be, why the child responded in this way. This question is, of course, easy to miss if your premise is that the nations youth are an inherently problematic group. Having missed that first question it was only natural that questions about context would be absent too. The reports failed to ask whether or not the student and teacher had a history, or whether the student and/or teacher had behavioural problems or even what the prevailing culture of the school was. Similarly the coverage of the alleged assault of a teacher by a student at another school gave us mere reportage that barely resembled journalism. We got a superficial story that focused merely on the fact that kicking and spitting had occured and yet again failed to ask both the obvious and the deeper questions. I don't believe that there was any attempt in either case to deliberately villify the students in question nor do I believe that it is the responsibility of the media to do our thinking for us. However they do have a responsibility to challenge us to take a more sophisticated look at situations like these which, quite frankly, have implications that extend far beyond the boundaries of the school yard. Nothing in the coverage of these stories did anything to militate against our tendency to ascribe blame without hearing both sides of the story, or even to make us consider that the story could have another side. As a result many of us (including some in a significant official capacity), proceded with the misguided notion that we are dealing with a new breed of young person and I think failed to see the full extent of the problem.
For those of us who remember our adolescence (really remember it in all its chaotic glory) the stories are troubling yes, but altogether unsurprising. If you consider that schools manage the development of young minds and that the mind is a volatile element such occurences, though not to be taken lightly, are inevitable. If you consider too, the state of our schools; the lack of resources, the fact that most of our schools are in some state of disrepair, the demonising that school children face and the public disrespect that teachers have to endure from the Minister of Education, if you consider these things it is a testament to the fucking awesomness both of our teachers and our youth that such incidents are not everyday occurences.
Because the thing is that incidents like this have always occured in our schools. When I was a schoolboy schoolchildren were rude, they were defiant, they got into physical confrontations with teachers, they used to fight and cuss (a schoolgirl murdered one of her schoolmates in my time) and even foop in the bushes. The people who would tell you, "Yes we used to do our shite coming up, but at least we had some respect!" are both full of shit and delusional. Nothing has changed. All students were not wild and unruly in my day all students are not wild and unruly today. 
As an aside, a good friend saw me while I was putting this article together and he was very offended by the "foop in the bushes," comment. He chastised me saying, that while it is true that some of us were sexually active in school,  we never had the "unmitigated gall" to post our sexual escapades online. I would just like to point out, because I have been told this bullshit far too many times, that that has less to do with our being respectful and more to do with the fact that neither cellphones with cameras nor the fucking internet existed at the time!
Anyhow, the unhealthy notion that some of seem to hold, that we are dealing with a special breed of vagabond youth who need to be punished into social compliance is not at all useful. I understand that it is a comforting idea because it absolves us of our culpability and to some extent, our responsibility. But here's the thing, if we allow ourselves to believe it, and allow ourselves to long for the (non-existent) good old days when youngsters had respect and didn't defy or challenge authority we are doomed to  repeat the same mistakes that got us here in the first place. The situation is not getting worse because things have changed but rather precisely because they haven't, in much the same way that one's debt gets increasingly worse because one's money management habits don't change. 
Continuing to see the problems in our schools as a problem with our youth and not with our society as a whole (and I do mean the society as a whole not just teachers or parents or any other scapegoat group) will condemn us to the rather unenviable fate of continuing to attempt to get back to a destination that never existed on a horse with no legs.
 

 Nala (The $2 Philosopher)

next: what hasn't changed?

There's a hole in my head where the wind comes in...