CHAPTER 2:12
“Pressing Pause!”
By Ron Daniel
I have sat and wondered at just how easily we as a people press pause on issues, ideals and ideas with whimsical abandon. This article is written for us to get up off our lazy and lack-lustre behinds and do something before something happens to us. Let us look at some of the things we have pressed pause on.
Neighbourhood watches
I remember as far back as 2005 there was a strong apolitical call for Neighbourhood Watches to deal with the crime situation. Back then there was a spike in robberies in the country and people were concerned about their well being. I remember very well voices like Elton Marcus Hull bellowing the call for us to become our brother’s keeper and forming these neighbourhood watch groups. The police as well as politicians pledged to support these initiatives as an effective way to reduce the problem. Moves were made to establish them in at least one particular place in Upper Ramsbury. However since then, it is as if we have pressed pause. By now six years after I would have thought that there would have been vibrant neighbourhood watch groups across the island. In 2010 again there was a spate of robberies in some high target areas and again there was no neighbourhood watches. One of the greatest threats to criminal activity is the unity of a people against it. I make the urgent plea to our community leaders and country men across the island to meet, plan and implement the same thing that Jesus himself encouraged more than 2000 years ago. Let us be our brother’s keeper. If I watch your back and you watch mine, then the criminals would have to retreat. The problem now is that everyone is only concerned about themselves. Now is the time to re-initiate these neighbourhood watches.
Domestic Violence
My readers will know by now that this is a subject that I am most passionate about. Up to last year I wrote an article beseeching the women of Nevis to come together to form a vibrant, vociferous and vigilant woman’s group. I even gave some humble suggestions. Chantelica Thompson was killed in the prime of her youth back in November 2 2010. Shermel Phillip was killed on February 16th 2007. Schemere Norford was killed back in 1994. After all these deaths there were candle light vigils and marches and then everything just died down. It was as if we simply pressed pause on the whole issue of domestic violence. My research tells me that very recently a young woman was being abused very publicly in Charlestown by her significant other while another was also attacked in a public place in Charlestown by her significant other as well. Where are the voices of the women? Why aren’t they flooding the print, social and electronic media to register their disgust? Why aren’t they making public examples of these male psychopaths who consider themselves only to be men if they can throw blows? A vibrant women’s group would be able to threaten the very livelihood of these men if they were making noise but they are not.
I will forever admire the venerable Ambassador Roslyn Hazelle who led a march sometime back against a very public figure in St. Kitts who allegedly had abused his wife. We need similar women in Nevis who will take the fight to the men and let them know that they will not be accepting blows. Where are the bumper stickers against violence? Where is the facebook page? Where is the heat? Are we going to simply allow our society to drift into this malaise while we remain silent? I am again calling on all women to stop pressing pause. Get up off your comfortable behinds and let your voices be heard for the good of this present generation of women and the next to come. Pressing Pause will not help.
Eating healthy and exercising
So many of us start off the new year with noble resolutions to eat right and exercise regularly and again we press pause. I know because I am so guilty of it. The thing that is sad about it is that there are too many of us who are also guilty. We find the most creative excuses from blaming the heat of the sun at afternoons to the coldness of the early morning not to get up and get active. Then we find everything wrong with vegetables, fruits, non fried food, food that is not overly salt or reducing our carbohydrates or not eating late at nights. Then our clothes do not fit the way we want them to fit and we get depressed. The fact is we should blame ourselves. We are the ones who pressed pause on our intentions to lose weight. I laughed so much the other day when I picked up a friend of mine. While coming into my old jeep, she hit her knees against the back of my seat and it started to hurt her. She said “oh no, my knee is hurting so I cant go jogging tomorrow morning.” I immediately asked her where she usually goes jogging but she said that she only went once sometime last year and the hill was too steep so now she only jogs mentally. While this may sound exceedingly lazy, it paints an accurate picture for quite a number of us. It may not be jogging but there are so many exercises one can do even in the comfort of their own home. There are so many things one can cut from their diet without their body going into shock yet still we keep pressing pause.
2011 must see us as a different more focussed goal oriented people with an inexorable desire and determination for our own personal development, our brother’s development and our country’s development. Complacency is the greatest enemy of development of any kind and the greatest friend of any nadir. There is no person or country that is admired for its laziness. In order for criminals to understand that we are serious, then our neighbourhoods must be united to watch everyone’s back. In order for our women-folk to be protected then men and women must come together to stymie the instances of domestic violence and in order for us to build a healthy society which is no longer dominated by diseases such as hypertension and diabetes we must get up off our lazy behinds, change our diets and find regular effective exercise. In 2011, let us yank out the Pause button and just PRESS PLAY!
