I don’t know how it goes with you but with me, periodically, some old songs replay in my head, for no particular reasons at all. I may just be a pathetic case of a yet-to-be-diagnosed crazy, but well…… This past week, an oldie by Aaron Neville rushed through my tender mushy tissues –brain. Come on, sing along with me. Snap your fingers and break into a gentle dance:
“Everybody plays the fool, sometime;
There’s no exception to the rule.
Listen baby, it may be factual, may be cruel,
I ain’t lying, everybody plays the fool.”
Yes, although factual, it may be cruel to put it this bluntly. The state of our country’s environmental sanitation is a sign that we are playing games with finding a permanent solution to a problem that affects and threatens our health, the survival of our economy and our very existence as a people.
It appears that everybody is playing the fool, at least sometime, through our actions and inactions. Some people play the fool, all the time! Our leaders as well as We the People, severally and jointly, are all guilty in this fool-play through throwing garbage around by-heart, and worst of all, by not being vigilant to stop those who indiscriminately trash our country. What role have you, me and we played for us to get to where we are today in disgusting filth?
Sanitation is probably our most challenging national problem, standing firmly between us and survival, on our journey to develop. Clearly, whatever we have been doing so far to solve this problem is not working; not even making a dent in addressing the problem. Rather, things continue to move from bad to worse and further from worse to senseless ridiculousness. Our 52-year old Ghana looks as if it is a quiet helpless victim of cruel and endless vandalism that is unstoppable by even the laws we have put in our books to take care of such. Collection and proper disposal of garbage is a problem. Plastic garbage is taking over our landscape.
Yet, we proudly pronounce our intent to become a middle income country by 2015, six very short years away. What a joke! I’ve drawn a blank so please help me with the ending of this nursery rhyme: “If wishes were horses……” Knowledge gaps exist! Whatever a middle-income country looks like, one can boldly maintain that it must not look anything like this. Let’s face it, filth is engulfing us but we are not taking any concrete steps to change directions. We could try to get other things right but if we are unable to clean up this national mess, 2015 will come and go and we’ll still be wallowing in filth. “If wishes were horses, beggars would ride!”
Meanwhile, administratively, sanitation is orphaned within a small department in the Ministry of Local Government. As part of the rationalization of the ministries, I had expected the President Mills’ administration to isolate sanitation as a ministry so it will receive the needed attention.
A certain theory I picked up during life’s journey is Broken Windows Theory, which for convenience, will be referred to here as BWT (referred to previously in this column). The theory simply posits that brokenness attracts more brokenness. Slums are created because little bits of brokenness are tolerated until over time, brokenness becomes the norm. A major implication of the theory is that when the appropriate measures are taken to promptly fix manifestations of brokenness, one could deter low-level anti-social behaviours as well as major crimes, and keep society on its toes.
Once upon a time, New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani of September 11 terrorist attack fame, adopted BWT as part of general reform measures to clean up the then scary crime-ridden and filthy financial capital of the world, which was fast losing its shine because of anti-social behaviours of the likes of crime, filth and graffiti, as well as public intoxication, nuisance and urination. (Hahaha to Ghanaian men who shamelessly urinate in public – by the road-side!)
As part of the measures, the city authorities first zoomed in to symbolically solve some of its challenging problems including regular cleaning up of graffiti. Next, it began to enforce the laws, even laws for petty offences, if just to convey a symbolic message. The result of the initiative was the reduction of both petty and major crimes. The message was clear: no foolishness tolerated. And the message sank in with people who had hitherto, been disrespectful of the society, its laws, its morality and everything else it stood for.
Some of the enduring lessons and implications for us from BWT is that we should stop waiting forever before we clean up our acts. Everyday should be a sanitation day. If we clean up everyday, the filth will not mount. It is dangerous to start and stop, start and stop because it only worsens what is already bad. We should enforce our laws.
Brokenness is costly. Brokenness is ugly. Brokenness is filthy. Brokenness leads to more brokenness. Fact is: we are not on our toes in the matter or environmental sanitation and that is why we spit our laws in the face with impunity.
Picture these two scenarios in our own society:
Esi, an eight year old girl takes out the family garbage to fulfil her family obligation of chores. She finds no one looking so hurriedly, out of habit, dumps the bucket filled with funky household trash by the roadside and moves on. The trash stays. A few week’s after, the garbage mound grows because others added to it. Esi’s little first bucket-full of garbage on the spot conveyed this clear message: “Garbage is welcome here.” In effect, her act was symbolic – the first little broken window. Because it was not checked, it resulted in the creation of an unplanned community garbage-dumping site where everybody can literally play the fool, unchecked.
Next comes Honourable Nana Professor Yoofi, a grown man, looking very respectable – clearly, an important person in society, driving the newest series Mercedes Benz through the Nkrumah Circle in Accra. He casually rolls down his car window and absent-mindedly throws out a plastic waste and corn cob, and quickly rolls up the window and continues his drive in air-conditioned comfort and bliss. The garbage is out of his hands and beautiful car so it has gone away. Not!
He knows for sure that there would be no repercussions for his actions. So although he would not throw garbage around in his personal space at home or office, he drops anything anywhere in town. Woe besides anyone who dares to challenge him. He will fly off his mighty high horse with insults in a fit of self-importance because he is well connected. He is clearly untouchable; not prosecutable. He might boldly ask, with chest out: “Do you know who I am?” The matter rests! Others join in because it is a garbage-party and all are welcome. Children learn the bad habit because it appears right. No one cares.
Imagine how different these scenarios would have played out and shaped up if these acts of brokenness had been nipped in the bud just when they occurred through bold strategies including law enforcement, naming and shaming, and general community-wide intolerance of brokenness.
Dear readers, chew on this. We are sitting on a national sanitation time-bomb that is ticking very fast. We will return to this matter. But until then, keep singing the song – “Everybody plays the…..”
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